Squealing pigs as a secret weapon in battle

+ BRAIN initiative; Vin Scully's mentor and radio's 'first poet' US Edition - Today's top story: From whistling arrows and trumpeting elephants to battle cries and eerie horns, ancient soldiers used sound to frighten and confuse their enemies [View in browser]( US Edition | 6 August 2022 [The Conversation]( Over thousands of years, human beings have repeatedly waged war on one another. And for just as long, people have looked for advantages on the battlefield that will help vanquish their enemies. Classics scholar and historian of science Adrienne Mayor researched unconventional weapons used in antiquity for her recently published book. For millennia, warfighters have been creative at “[weaponizing devastating noise to confuse and overwhelm adversaries](,” she writes, describing military uses of animal cries, musical ditties, eerie sounds, terrifying calls and more. This week we also liked stories about [sounds from electric vehicles](, plans to [dramatically cut nicotine from cigarettes]( and [Bill Russell’s legacy on and off the court](. Maggie Villiger Senior Science + Technology Editor Three soldiers (far right) carry karnyxes, long horns with frightening boar-headed mouths that produce eerie calls during battle. Prisma/Universal Images Group via Getty Images [From whistling arrows and trumpeting elephants to battle cries and eerie horns, ancient soldiers used sound to frighten and confuse their enemies]( Adrienne Mayor, Stanford University Since antiquity people have harnessed sound as a weapon, and the practice continues – in new high-tech ways – today. Barber called Scully, pictured in a broadcast booth prior to a Los Angeles Dodgers game, ‘the son I never had.’ Sporting News via Getty Images [How Vin Scully scored his Dodgers gig at 22 years old]( James Walker, Saint Xavier University; Judith R. 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