Berkeley Scientists says Jamaican field crickets not Cuban/Russian secret weapons are killing the CIA Agents! MAGA!

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https://www.newswise.com/articles/t...eged-sonic-attacks-on-u-s-diplomats-in-havana

The Cuban Cricket Crisis: New study identifies insect as the likely culprit behind alleged “sonic attacks” on U.S. diplomats in Havana
By Sara ElShafie




Article ID: 706004

Released: 4-Jan-2019 12:05 AM EST

Source Newsroom: Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB)


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SICB Annual Meeting 2019 January 3-7, 2019 Tampa, FL


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SCIENCE
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Research Results


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Cell Biology, Wildlife, Local - Virginia, Local - DC Metro, Scientific Meetings


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Cricket, sonic attack, International Relations, US, Cuba



Newswise — Just two years ago, the U.S. Embassy in Havana was bustling with U.S. personnel sent by the Obama Administration to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. Today it is nearly empty. In late 2016, diplomats started hearing a loud, piercing noise. Two dozen of them reported symptoms such as ear pain and dizziness, and were diagnosed with injuries consistent with a concussion. Suspicions of politically motivated “sonic attacks” soon followed. The U.S. State Department recalled most personnel from Cuba and reduced its embassy staff in Havana to a skeleton crew. Cooperative measures between the two governments stalled amidst conspiracy theories of high-tech attack. Despite ongoing investigations by American and Cuban government agencies, and extensive coverage of the study by major news outlets, the source of the strange noise provoking the crisis has remained an enigma.
But a new study indicates that the culprit behind this debacle is in fact… a cricket. According to Alexander Stubbs, a scientist in the Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, the mysterious noise is actually the echoing call of the Indies short-tailed cricket (Anurogryllus celerinictus). Stubbs will present his findings this week at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Tampa, Florida, based on a paper that was just released through the bioArxive online database.
The suspicious noise had been recorded by U.S. personnel stationed in Cuba. One of these recordings was released to the public through the Associated Press (AP). Stubbs listened to the recording and was reminded of insect calls that he had heard while doing field work in the Caribbean. He decided to investigate further, reasoning that if an insect were responsible for the noise, it should be possible to identify the particular species based on the unique acoustic signature of its call.
Stubbs analyzed the acoustic power of the mysterious noise as a function of frequency. Using publicly available field recordings, Stubbs did the same analyses for hundreds of insects and found a few potential matches. But the nuances of the pulse structure in the AP recording did not perfectly match any of the insect recordings made in the field.
Then Stubbs realized that the U.S. diplomats may have made the recordings indoors, with the pulses of sound echoing off the walls. To mimic these conditions, Stubbs played the insect calls on indoor speakers, recorded the echoing calls, and performed the analyses again. The new results were noticeably different. Stubbs found that the echoing call of the Indies short-tailed cricket (A. celerinictus) was a near perfect match to the AP recording in pulse structure. Further tests in collaboration with bioacoustics expert Fernando Montealegre-Z at the University of Lincoln (UK) showed that the characteristic frequency decay within each pulse is consistent with the biomechanics of this cricket’s sound production.
The possibility of an insect causing the strange noise had actually been proposed previously. A group of Cuban officials submitted a report to the U.S. government in 2018 suggesting that the noise came from the Jamaican field cricket (Gryllus assimilis). But the report was perhaps disregarded by U.S. officials because the short chirp of the Jamaican field cricket does not match the grating, continuous sound in the diplomats’ recording from Cuba. The cricket species suspected by Stubbs and Montealegre-Z, in contrast, has a continuous call that precisely matches the echoing sound in the AP recording.
Why was the Indies short-tailed cricket not implicated before? A. celerinictus has only been documented in Jamaica and Grand Cayman and is not known to occur in Cuba. But it’s possible that this cricket was actually in Cuba all along. A. celerinictus used to go by a different name: A. muticus, another species that is nearly identical, and that does occur in Cuba. An entomologist at the University of Florida, Thomas J. Walker, distinguished the two species from each other in 1973 based on the frequencies of their wing strokes. But the distinct geographic ranges of the two crickets went unnoticed for over 40 years – until Stubbs used Walker’s field recordings of the crickets, which Walker had made available on his website, to investigate the strange recording from Havana. It is possible that the Cubans actually found the organism responsible but simply mis-identified it.
These findings add fresh intrigue to an ongoing and heated political controversy. Some factions still blame a hypothetical “sonic weapon” for the jarring noise, whereas others have suggested microwave- or ultrasound-based devices. Meanwhile, several medical professionals have questioned the methods used to diagnose the afflicted U.S. personnel, raising the possibility that some or all of the reported symptoms could have been psychogenic rather than physically manifested from hearing the noise. These new findings may promote deeper investigation into the possibility that the shrill sounds that emptied the U.S. Embassy in Cuba resulted from cricket calls. Regardless of the outcome, this study demonstrates the practical importance of organismal biology research and open source scientific data.

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https://www.rt.com/usa/448151-cuba-embassy-sonic-attacks-crickets/




Cue the crickets: Berkeley researcher finds Cuba ‘sonic attack’ sound is actually insects chirping
Published time: 5 Jan, 2019 16:51 Edited time: 5 Jan, 2019 16:53
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FILE PHOTO: The US embassy in Cuba, where mysterious ‘attacks’ on US embassy staff were reported © AFP / Yamil Lage

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When US embassy staff in Cuba became mysteriously ill after hearing loud piercing sounds, US officials blamed nefarious secret agents for launching “sonic attacks.” But a new Berkeley University study could have proven them wrong.
The incidents, which occurred between 2016 and 2018, saw dozens of US staff at the embassy experience a range of health issues such as nausea, headaches, and vertigo and lead to the removal of the majority of the embassy staff from the island. It also put a freeze on warming relations between Cuba with then-US secretary for State Rex Tillerson “convinced” the attacks were targeted.
But now the theories that the notorious “Havana Syndrome” was the work of some Cold War-era conspiracy have apparently been contradicted by scientist Alexander Stubbs of the University of California, Berkeley, who this week published a study pinpointing the source of the mystery noise.
Read more
US diplomats did suffer ear damage after mysterious illness at Cuba embassy - doctors
Presenting his findings to the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, Stubbs suggests that the noises heard by staff were instead from the echoing call of an insect, the Indies short-tailed cricket.
Notably, the cricket noise theory had already been posited by Cuban scientists in late 2017. Reviewing US evidence and recording their own data, the Cuban team suggested that the noises may have stemmed from the chirp of the Jamaican field cricket, an insect common on the island.
However, this was dismissed by Washington as the short chirp of the Jamaican field cricket did not match the abrasive continuous drone recorded by US personnel in Cuba and released to the public by AP.
By comparing the US recording obtained by AP with the unique acoustic signature of hundreds of insects, Stubbs found several similar to the recording but no perfect match. That was until he realized that US staff probably made the recording indoors, altering the sound of the potential insect as it echoed off the walls.
Rerunning the analysis again after playing the insect calls through indoor speakers, Stubbs found a near-perfect match with the continuous call of the Indies cricket.
While the Indies cricket is not native to Cuba, further testing with bioacoustics experts at the University of Lincoln (UK) found that the frequency of the sound pulses heard at the embassy matched that of the Indies cricket’s sound production.
It remains to be seen whether the discovery will see US staff return to Havana in the near future.
Also on rt.com Mysterious ‘sonic attacks’ prompt new evacuation of US diplomat from China – report
Earlier in December, another study by a team of physicians from the University of Miami and the University of Pittsburgh found that those embassy employees who reported intense pain in their ears after exposure to the sounds were suffering genuine injuries and “not just hysteria.” However, they were unable to point to the origin of the noise.
Speaking to the New York Times, Stubbs said there was still plenty of debate over what physical damage the embassy may staff have suffered. “All I can say fairly definitively is that the AP-released recording is of a cricket, and we think we know what species it is.”

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https://newsbeezer.com/the-sounds-t...ats-in-cuba-lovelorn-crickets-scientists-say/

The sounds that have struck US diplomats in Cuba? Lovelorn Crickets, scientists say

January 5, 2019 Health 5 Views

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In November 2016, American diplomats in Cuba complained sustained, high-pitched sounds, followed by a series of symptoms, including headache, nausea and hearing loss.
Exams of nearly two dozen of them eventually showed signs of jarring or other brain injuries and speculation about the cause became weapons that blast sound or microwaves. In the midst of an international uproar, a recording of the eerie droning was spreading in the news media.
On Friday, two scientists have provided evidence that these sounds are not all that mysterious. They were made by crickets, the researchers concluded.
This does not mean that the diplomats were not attacked, the scientists added – except that the shot was not made as if by a sonic weapon, as has been suggested.

Alexander Stubbs of the University of California, Berkeley and Fernando Montealegre-Z of the University of Lincoln in England studied one of the diplomats and published by The Associated Press
recording the sounds in the medical community there There's a lot of discussion about what physical damage can be done to these people, "Stubbs said in a telephone interview. "All I can say quite clearly is that the recording published by A.P. is of a cricket, and we think we know what kind it is."
Mr. Stubbs presented the results of the analysis at the annual meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology. He and Dr. Montealegre-Z have also put an early version of their study online. They plan to submit the paper to a scientific journal in the next few days.
When Mr. Stubbs first heard the recording, he remembered the insects he encountered while working in the Caribbean. When he and Dr. Montealegre-Z had downloaded the sound file, they found that his acoustic patterns – such as the pulse rate and the strongest frequencies – were very similar to the songs of certain insect species.
Male singing insects produce regular patterns during courtship. Women are attracted to certain men because of their songs, which has led to the development of various songs of various kinds.



When the noises made by the diplomats were made by insects, Mr. Stubbs and Dr. Montealegre-Z: It may be possible to locate the species in question.
To find a match, the researchers analyzed field observations of North American insects stored in a University of Florida online database. They found a striking resemblance to a species, especially Indies Short-Tailed Cricket.
The cricket song, however, differs in one important respect from the Cuban recording. The sounds the diplomats heard were unsteady, while the insects made quick, rapid fire impulses.
Mr. Stubbs guessed that this mismatch could be an artifact of the recording itself. Diplomats took pictures in houses, while biologists recorded the crickets in the wild.
So Mr. Stubbs played cricket recording in a house. As the calls ricocheted off the walls, they echoed in a pattern that resembled the irregular impulses on the Cuban scene.
The song of the Indian Short-tailed Kritch "agrees in a differentiated detail with the duration of the AP recording, pulse repetition rate, power spectrum, pulse rate stability and oscillations per pulse," the scientists write in their analysis.
Experts in cricket songs said "It all seems sensible," said Gerald Pollack of McGill University, who investigates acoustic communication between insects. "This is a fairly well-founded hypothesis."


When the American diplomats first came out Complaining about the strange noises in Cuba, they rejected the possibility of insects being responsible for it, but short-tailed crickets are extraordinary: they have long been known for making a mighty thug.
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"The song of the males of this cricket here is a continuous ringing of zzzzz – an enormous volume and penetration that practically fills a space with true Noise, "reported an entomologist in the Dominican Republic in 1957.

Mr. Stubbs recorded short tails in Costa Rica, and he found her songs overwhelming. "They are incredibly loud," he said. "You can hear them from a diesel truck driving forty miles an hour on the highway."
Short tail crickets from India are known to live in the Florida Keys, Jamaica and Grand Cayman. It is known that a closely related cricket lives in Cuba, and Mr. Stubbs suspects that his Indian cousin lives there as well.
Mr. Stubbs said his conclusion does not exclude an attack on American diplomats. But the sounds associated with the original complaints were perhaps red herring.
"It is quite possible that they have contracted another completely disjointed thing that is not a sonic attack or that they have been targeted in any other way." he said.
Dr. Douglas Smith, who led the medical examination of American diplomats, asked how much a single photograph could tell about the experience. Some patients reported that they had not heard anything unusual while others heard a series of noises.

"It could be a quiet engine for metal abrasion or driving a car with the rear window open," Dr. Smith, director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Smith did not rule out the possibility that some diplomats may have heard crickets, but said that this had no impact on the actual damage they had suffered.
"These patients have been through a lot," he added. "I'd like to know what the sounds are, but for us it's really important what's going on in the patient's brain and what we can do about it."

 

[syed putra]

All jiu hu needs to do to settle its border conflict with sinkie is to release it insect species across the border.