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Detecting the Earth's Hum for What It Is

The earth hums, emitting a tone too low for human ears to detect. Geophysicists have finally located the source of the noise. As they report in this week's issue of the journal Nature, it comes from the globe's largest oceans during winter, apparently the result of powerful winter storms. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports.

Copyright 2004 NPR

David Kestenbaum is a correspondent for NPR, covering science, energy issues and, most recently, the global economy for NPR's multimedia project Planet Money. David has been a science correspondent for NPR since 1999. He came to journalism the usual way — by getting a Ph.D. in physics first.