IT IS now 20 years or so since Californian record collectors Brad Kay and Steven Lasker came up with the intriguing theory that some old mono recordings were accidentally made in stereo, long before LP stereo was launched in 1958.
In the 1920s and 1930s there was no tape, so studios cut recordings directly onto wax discs. Because a lot could go wrong, they played safe by simultaneously cutting two discs. Sometimes they played extra safe by using two microphones, one for each disc. The result was a matched pair of recordings, each with a different sound perspective.
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Brad Kay hunted down matched pairs of old discs and tried playing one as the left channel and the other as the right. Some engineers who heard his âaccidental stereoâ recreations thought it was just an illusion created by slight playback differences between two identical recordings. Others thought the stereo sounded too real to be written off.
Then, in 1992, an engineer at EMIâs Abbey Road studios in London found a matched pair of discs of Elgarâs Kingdom prelude recorded in 1933, and tried playing them together. EMI was so impressed by the stereo effect that a company press release promised âa previously unpublished true stereo versionâ.
But inside EMI there were mighty disputes. The doubters won and the release was cancelled. âWe knew what the result would be â only fake stereo,â pronounced a spokesman. 51¶ŻÂț begged to differ (10 October 1992, p 19). Why not give listeners a chance to hear the effect and decide for themselves, we argued â but to no avail.
So we were thrilled to discover that independent record label Naxos has released a CD of Elgarâs music conducted by the composer himself (Naxos 8.111022). Twenty-one tracks are in mono, but tagged on the end is what the sleeve notes describe as a bonus track, the Cockaigne Overture from 1933 in âaccidental stereoâ.
âListeners can judge for themselves,â says Naxos â at last.
AFTER our âsick-making press release of the weekâ nomination (4 March), we come to our âmost overblown metaphorâ nomination.
âA crime has been committed, and the SWAT team has encircled the neighbourhood, which is DISC1,â proclaims Tyrone D. Cannon, professor of psychology, psychiatry and human genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles: âNow we have identified the address and we think we have found the murder weapon. Itâs only a matter of time before we have the suspect handcuffed on the lawn.â
What is he on, then, and whatâs he talking about?
It turns out that his team has found variations within the DISC1 gene that relate to features associated with the neural basis for schizophrenia. The DNA variation occurs in only 1 per cent of the population, but in 10 per cent of schizophrenia patients. As we write, rival researchers are doubtless stealing helicopters to spring the suspect from jail.
WE WERE wrong, we have to admit, to mock supermarket Tesco for advertising its food-labelling scheme with the example âA serving of food may contain 137 grams of caloriesâ (18 February). As Bob Kentridge points out, this was merely âan obfuscating choice of units to disguise the rather excessive energy content of the servingâ. Einsteinâs famous equation E=mc2 shows, he calculates, that 137 grams of mass is the same as 2.9 Ă 1012 kilocalories of energy. So that one serving should keep the entire world population going until lunchtime.
âUnderneath the words âParacetamol Capsules 500 mgâ written on the packet of pills that Georgina Conroy bought was a warning saying âContains paracetamolââ
AS EDITOR of Astronomy magazine, Vince Higgs tells us that every now and then he goes to to check on âthe competitionâ. A recent visit took him to The Night Sky, by Nigel Henbest. The blurb about it reads: âThis title is part of the âNew Spotterâs Guidesâ series offering enthusiasts, keen to discover the many fascinating aspects of the natural world, a pocket-sized field guide. Each title contains spottersâ score cards, glossaries, maps, reference materials and illustrations of 100 to 200 species.â Higgs says that he must have been unaware of some of astrobiologyâs recent advances.
IT IS, says the manager at Whitby hostel in the 2005-2006 handbook of the Youth Hostels Association of England & Wales, âsimply a sight not to be missedâ. To what is he referring? âWhen the sun sets in the east over the sea,â of course. John Stolarski, who noticed this, hopes it will still be happening when he goes on his cycling tour of the Whitby area next August.
FINALLY, when he was driving through New Mexico Neil Fenton saw a sign warning: âZero visibility possibleâ. Thanks for the warning of the possibility, he thought. But if it actually happened, what good would the notice be?
