Was Dick Clark's voice on it?

[David Paleg]

French Recording May Be World's First
Mar 28, 8:31 AM (ET)
By JASON DEAREN

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - At first listen, the grainy high-pitched warble doesn't sound like much, but scientists say the French recording from 1860 is the oldest known recorded human voice.

The 10-second clip of a woman singing "Au Clair de la Lune," taken from a so-called phonautogram, was recently discovered by audio historian David Giovannoni. The recording predates Thomas Edison's "Mary had a little lamb" - previously credited as the oldest recorded voice - by 17 years.

The tune was captured using a phonautograph, a device created by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville that created visual recordings of sound waves.

Using a needle that moved in response to sound, the phonautograph etched sound waves into paper coated with soot from an oil lamp.

Full story at Iwon/AP News.

[Dr. Whiplash]

I saw that report, too. Reminds me of the most intriguing thing I learned in college: Inventions occur regardless of the inventor.

1970's Ohio University anthropology professor Art Saxe tied together the various claims of Americans, Russians, Germans, Italians, etc., regarding inventions to show that, in most cases, major inventions did indeed "come to" more than one inventor within a short period of time. Art had no explanation other than "there's a lot of shit we don't understand" but it was/is profound nonetheless.

Space-time continuum anyone?