Cell Sounds - Noise: The Pulse of the Planet daily radio program offers free legal online mp3 downloads, exploring the world of sound in nature, culture and science, with audio adventures, world music, extraordinary sound portraits, science diaries, and nature ring-tones; an amazing sonic experience.



Airdate: Feb 06, 2006
Scientist: Jim Gimzewski

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 Nanotechnology ,Acoustics ,human biology ,microbiology


Cell Sounds - Noise

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"With a song in my cell?" Yes, even the building blocks of life have gotten into the act.
Transcript:
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Ambience: room temperature cell song

Theres an ancient idea that all of life is in vibration. Well, now we can add one more tiny but palpable voice to this cosmic choir. Im Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Dr. Jim Gimzewski is a UCLA professor of Biochemistry. While studying a common yeast celljust your regular kind of yeast used in bread and beer-makinghe made a fascinating discovery.

What we found is that the wall of the cell moves back and forward, but by minute, tiny amounts. And what we were doing was picking up that motion, directly, and then amplifying it through a loud speaker. But since the motion is very small in reality, you couldnt hear it with your ear.

Gimzewski says that hes just beginning to have an idea of whats making that sound within the cell.

A cell is like a chemical factory. And like in any factory, you would have to have some form of pumps, things that move things around. So, to create this motion, you know, the pumping of the liquids, these protein motors do that. They dont look like motors in our world: theyre soft, flexible things, but they move. And that motion is reflected in a motion of the cell wall. And thats what were picking up.

Its thought that virtually all living cells produce this kind of motion, even the cells that make up our bodies. So it should be possible to listen to their sounds as well.

The types that you find in the human body are probably a thousand times softer than the yeast cell. And when we try to measure something much, much softer, its much harder.

Pass the singing beer please. Well hear more about how scientists listen to these cell songs in future programs. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation. Im Jim Metzner.

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Cell Sounds - Noise