While announcing Mann's death, BBC Radio 4 news presenter Charlotte Green caused controversy by laughing after what is believed to be the world's earliest recording, played during the preceding item, was described off-air as sounding like "a bee trapped in a jar".
In 2008, a phonautograph paper recording made by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville of Au clair de la Lune on April 9, 1860 was digitally converted to sound by U.S. researchers.