Some roar, some boom, others squeak and a few even sing. They entranced Marco Polo when he crossed the Gobi desert in the 13th century, and references to their mysterious sounds can be found in 9th-century Chinese literature. Now one physicist has put forward an explanation for why sand dunes hit the right notes. "Singing dunes constitute one of the most puzzling and impressive phenomena I have ever encountered," says Bruno Andreotti of the University of Paris 7. Andreotti has been studying the crescent-shaped sand dunes of the Sahara desert in Morocco, one of around 30 locations in the world where dunes are known to sing.
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