KEY WEST — Making music with a conch (pronounced "konk") shell might seem unusual, but several dozen people tried it during the weekend's annual Conch Shell Blowing Contest in the Florida Keys.

Music elites better table your ukuleles and unplug your theremins; science is bringing the noise with the newest in niche musical instruments. Or, more accurately, one of the oldest. A massive conch ...

Researchers analyzing an 18,000-year-old conch shell found in 1931 say that it was indeed used as a musical instrument millennia ago. The conch shell, unearthed in the Marsoulas Cave in Southwestern ...