The Sound of Cells 111
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.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion
Other identifiers (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Other identifiers (Score:3, Insightful)
Move the needle off the cell. If the sound stops then you know the sound wasn't coming from the surronding fluid or the tip of the microscope.
Am I missing something?
Re:Other identifiers (Score:4, Interesting)
Am I missing something?
Maybe the cell or its wall is vibrating due to sound from outside the cell. The probe might not pick it up, for example the cell wall may be resonating to a certain frequency in the sounds while the probe might be too small and rigid.
Re:Other identifiers (Score:1)
You'd have to isolate the cells you want to study. If you have a mass of tissue you want to investigate, then it should be easy to scrape off a cell or two to work with. Otherwise, it'd be hit-or-miss, assuming that a diseased cell is present somewhere in the tissue.
It might be useful to apply the tests to cells taken from a blood sample. As for practicality
Re:Other identifiers (Score:4, Informative)
I don't understand your point... (Score:2)
If they are measuring vibrations generated by the fluid bathing the cells (these are in vitro preparations, right?) how could this be useful?
Beep beep (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, sorry, thought you said cell PHONES.
Re:Beep beep (Score:1)
La Cucaracha vs Mexican Hat Dance (Score:1)
La Cucaracha:
"La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha
Peanut butter comes in jars"
Mexican Hat Dance:
"I dance
I dance
I dance
Around a Mexican hat
I dance
I dance
I dance
And that's the end of that"
oh great... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:oh great... (Score:1)
Re:The smell of cancer (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The smell of cancer (Score:2)
Ahh but they already have! The infamous mad scientist Professor Hubert Farnsworth has already invented smelloscope [wikipedia.org], a great leap forward for the field of astronomy. Just don't use it to smell Uranus, er, Urectum... [tvtome.com]
I'm telling you... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm telling you... (Score:2, Funny)
Makes total sense... (Score:2, Interesting)
Reminds me of how a mechanic might listen to an engine, or part of it, to determine what's going on inside.
What they will hear... (Score:5, Funny)
I hear dead people
Doctor of musicolonoscopy (Score:2, Funny)
Hey man, just relax and bend over the examining table while I prep this guitar tuner for insertion....
Obligatory Family Guy Quote: (Score:3, Funny)
Skin Cell 2: Palez! The photo totally made me look fat!
Skin Cell 3: Jesus, just take the complement!
dolphin tech (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:dolphin tech (Score:1, Funny)
Re:dolphin tech (Score:2)
Re:dolphin tech (Score:3, Informative)
Re:dolphin tech (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:dolphin tech (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:dolphin tech (Score:2)
Re:dolphin tech (Score:2)
Re:dolphin tech (Score:2)
I used this before for network monitoring. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the course of a standard interaction, it would play login, login ack, getlist, getlist-resp, etc. I could hear the timing between calls (yeh, SOAP is kind of slow like that), and more importantly hear if it was doing the right things. You pick it up *immediately* when a chord progression is major, minor, or just plain wrong), All this without taking up any screen real estate.
This works so well, I recommend it highly. AFAIK there are no standard ways of doing this, but it certainly would be great to put some standard techniques and libraries together!
Re:I used this before for network monitoring. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I used this before for network monitoring. (Score:3, Interesting)
I used babelfish and AT&Ts text-to-speech page to make a bunch of alert sound files in french. Besides being extremely useful (no more interrupting my workflow with a popup message everytime something happened in the lab) it was amusing as hell to watch my coworkers' reactions whenever my workstation started babbling in f
true, the sound of your cell indicates abnormality (Score:3, Funny)
Re:true, the sound of your cell indicates abnormal (Score:1)
My cells.. (Score:1)
Alex?!!! (Score:1)
Re:Alex?!!! (Score:1)
Voices in my head (Score:1, Funny)
Madeline L'Engle's 'A Wind in the Door'? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Madeline L'Engle's 'A Wind in the Door'? (Score:1)
Conformal change vibration and resonance analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, I'd bet nerve cells give off sounds as the propagating impulse causes cell-surfane ion channels to pop open and closed. The ion pumps that restore ion concentrations would also emit a hum with characteristic frequencies. For membrane-embedded enzymes (e.g., the channels on nerve cells), interferometry off the membrane surface might help to detect these minute vibrations. I wonder if one could even detect the sound of prions forming when a protein is warped into the misshaped conformation that characterizes conditions like BSE -- sound of a brain going mad.
I'd bet that one could also analyze protein/enzyme states with a fine-grained analysis of the sound transfer function for a cell. Depending on the physical state of each protein species and its concentration, a cell would attenuate or resonate with particular acoustic frequencies. Large cell structures (e.g. mitochondria) might also have their own characteristic acoustical modulation functions that depend on the size and membrane structure. If analyzing the transfer function for a live, wet cell is too hard, I suspect that flash-freezing the cell might create a better acoustical specimen.
Re:Conformal change vibration and resonance analys (Score:2)
Re:Conformal change vibration and resonance analys (Score:2)
That being said, there are cells that use conformational changes to cause motion at audio frequencies. Outer hair cells (OHCs) in your cochlea exhibit length changes in response to changes in transmembrane voltage, with a gain of about 20 nm/mV.
Sound Diagnosis (Score:1)
-Max
Diagnostics (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, these guys [berkeley.edu] have already prooved that, in some situations, is very hard to get useful information throught sound, even when you know what you may be looking for.
Re:Diagnostics (Score:1)
Careful tho... (Score:1)
Diego Rey
Great! (Score:2)
Re:Great! (Score:1)
if it's a soft cell, it's probably gonna hum this tune [leoslyrics.com].
Apologies to George Carlin: (Score:5, Funny)
"I was thinking of redecorating the place; d'you think some melanoma would look good here?"
"C'mon, all the cool kids are having apoptosis! You're not chicken, are you?"
"The mitochondria must be liberated!"
"Hey, alcohol! Irish stout! All right, time for Liverdance!"
"Ouch!"
Barbarians (Score:4, Funny)
Won't someone please think of the yeast cells?
And dead cells make noise too (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe they're just hungry, for brain cells...
Re:Barbarians (Score:1)
Yeah, but it's a b!tch . . . (Score:1)
Preceded by the work of tech artist Joe Davis? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Preceded by the work of tech artist Joe Davis? (Score:1)
--
Mars Needs Women
LA Weekly Article + Website (Score:5, Informative)
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]
Cell alert.... (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe jamie's cells sounded the alert...
peer review, peer review, peer review (Score:5, Insightful)
No, peer review is not a perfect process, but its the best one we have. Scientists and the press need to remember this before they make claims about scientific work.
At least this article mentions the fact.
Okay... so they make noise... (Score:3, Funny)
Listening to the sound of cells seems obvious.. (Score:4, Funny)
one octave off (Score:4, Informative)
A generally good idea... (Score:1)
Mitosis with SOUND (Score:3, Funny)
Looks like AT&T was just in time... (Score:1)
"You have 3 months left to live...."
"Have a nice day!"
Dexter's Laboratory (Score:3, Funny)
My Cell (Score:1)
Geek Auto-diagnostic? (Score:1)
Each person could be implanted with a small, embedded device to monitor, run diagnostics, and transmit an alert to a monitoring station, just like our servers.
Of course the danger of friends hacking your system there is apparent: ;)
knock knock "Uh...Mr.Jones? Its the paramedics, we're here about your um...Hamster problem. Don't worry, we brought the KY!"
I can hear it now... (Score:2)
This technique is older than it sounds (Score:2)
Re:This technique is older than it sounds (Score:2)
I would think that if a cell is moving its morelikely to be a single cell organism than one cell in a multi-cellular organism. I mean why would a squamous cell (skin) or an osteoclast/osteloblast (bone) move??
You know what sucks about this? (Score:2)