Newswise — WASHINGTON, D.C., April. 21, 2014 – The hees and haws of braying penguins, how to hear oil spills and gas leaks in a frozen sea, the impact of aircraft noise on visitors to national parks, evidence that speaking clearly can sound like shouting, how female frogs pick out their soul mates in a chorus of croaks, and new data challenging a classical view of hearing loss are highlights from a major meeting on the science of sound in Providence, Rhode Island next month. The 167th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) will be held May 5-9, 2014, at the Rhode Island Convention Center and Omni Providence Hotel. It will feature more than 1,100 presentations on sound and its applications in physics, engineering, and medicine. Reporters are invited to attend in person for free (see details below). Journalists may also remotely access meeting information with ASA’s World Wide Press Room, which will go live one week before the conference begins. A live media webcast featuring a selection of newsworthy research will take place on Wednesday, May 7. Time and topics to be announced. For descriptions of all presentations, see the ASA Spring 2014 program at http://asa2014spring.abstractcentral.com/planner.jsp. USEFUL LINKSMain meeting website: http://acousticalsociety.org/meetings/providence Itinerary planner and technical program: http://asa2014spring.abstractcentral.com/planner.jspHotel site: http://www.omnihotels.com/FindAHotel/Providence.aspx WORLD WIDE PRESS ROOMIn the coming weeks, ASA’s World Wide Press Room (http://www.acoustics.org/press) will be updated with additional tips on dozens of newsworthy stories and with lay-language papers, which are 300-1200 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience and accompanied by photos, audio, and video. PRESS REGISTRATIONWe will grant free registration to credentialed journalists and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend, contact Jennifer Lauren Lee ([email protected], 301-209-3099), who can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information. LIVE MEDIA WEBCASTA press briefing featuring a selection of newsworthy research will be webcast live from the conference on Wednesday, May 7. Topics and time of webcast to be announced. ****************************This news release was prepared for the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) by the American Institute of Physics (AIP). ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICAThe Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world's leading journal on acoustics), Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. For more information about ASA, visit our website at http://www.acousticalsociety.org.