The Sound of Cells

Alert Slashdot reader jamie pointed out a story in Smithsonian Magazine on the subject of listening to the sounds cells make in order to detect abnormalities.

Other identifiers

[BWJones]

From the article: Pelling agrees, and says that he and Gimzewski are doing tests to rule out the possibility that other molecules in the fluid bathing the cells, or even the tip of the microscope itself, are generating vibrations that their probe picks up.

Even if this is the case, because of a cells small molecular fingerprint or components tend to dictate what role a cell plays or what the status of a cell is on a more discrete time basis that say gene expression, one would wonder if this is not also an identifier of status or identity as well. For more detail on cytosomics or metabolomics, see this [utah.edu] site.

Preceded by the work of tech artist Joe Davis?

[base_chakra]

Joe Davis is an artist and research affiliate at MIT's Department of Biology. He and other MIT students and faculty assembled a similar system [viewingspace.com] ca. 1999-2000.

Davis is an interesting guy who's gotten a fair amount of professional and media attention for his intriguing work in genetic and biological postmodern art.

LA Weekly Article + Website

[David Hume]

The LA Weekly [laweekly.com] had an article on this in the April 4-10, 2003, issue: Buckyballs and Screaming Cells: The amazing miniature world of UCLA chemist Jim Gimzewski [laweekly.com]

James Gimzewski's Website: Pico Lab [ucla.edu]

one octave off

[mossmann]

1000 Hz is actually about two octaves above middle C, not one as the article states.

Re:Other identifiers

[Thurn und Taxis]

That's certainly one important control, but it's not enough. The vibration could be due to motion of the microscope stage which is coupled well to the probe tip by the cell, but not by the fluid. The mechanical load of the cell on the probe tip might also reduce the passive resonant frequency of the tip. I'm not sure exactly which tips he's using, but some of the more compliant V-shaped AFM tips unloaded resonant frequencies as low as 20 kHz; loading them with the mass of a cell could easily drop the resonant frequency down to 1 kHz. Unless he's done some careful work to show that these vibrations he's seeing aren't due to thermal noise, I would have serious doubts that they tell you anything about the cells.

Re:dolphin tech

[3waygeek]

I don't know about dolphins, but there's at least one dog [imaginis.com] who can detect melanoma.