A round of applause, please: Scientists have finally figured out what’s behind the sound of clapping. The research pinpoints a mechanism called a Helmholtz resonator — the same acoustic concept that ...

In a pivotal scene from the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand, a mutant claps his hands and blasts a shockwave across a battlefield. In a theater somewhere, Sunny Jung watched—and wondered. “It made me ...

Clapping is both a scientific event and a social gesture. A study explores the complex physics behind the sound of clapping. The noise originates from compressed air, not just hand collisions.

Most of us think clapping is just about two hands hitting each other, but new research out this week in the journal Physical Review Research found that the clap that we hear actually comes from the ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...

Social contagion If you wish to avoid the social faux pas of clapping at the wrong time, listen carefully to the volume of noise around you. That's the conclusion of a study about the social dynamics ...

For the past fifteen years, the Super Smash Bros. franchise has been offering some of the most entertaining party games on any console. With the jump to online play, the party has now extended beyond ...

Spoiler: It’s very loud. By Sabrina Imbler Starting in the late 2000s, Colleen Reichmuth and Ole Larsen made a number of visits to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, Calif., to hear a walrus make ...

One readily noticeable pathognomonic trait of autism is hand-flapping—a stereotyped motor movement that can look a bit like an attempt to accelerating the drying of nail polish. Not all with autism do ...