How a tool used in Star Wars movies is being repurposed by scientists to study the way proteins fold – and perhaps understand what goes wrong in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.
regularly dons a pair of headphones in his lab at the University of Illinois. But instead of music, he listens to a cacophony of clinking, jarring noises — as if a group of robots were having a loud argument.
Gruebele has devised computer simulations to understand protein folding, which occurs primarily in the water inside our cells. But the interactions between a protein and trillions of water molecules are too complex — and happen too fast — for him to see them in his simulations.“You have to think of that sound in the same way that you think about a graph as opposed to a painting,” Gruebele said.
“You have to think of that sound in the same way that you think about a graph as opposed to a painting.”The concept isn’t entirely new. One of the earliest examples of using sound to represent data is the dosimeter, or Geiger counter. This instrument was designed in 1928 to indicate the amount of radioactivity in a given place with clicking sounds. The faster the pace of the clicks, the more dangerous the environment.
The resulting score echoes the diversity of undersea environments. There are deserts and oases based on the richness of nutrients and the marine life they attract.Advertisement But surprises are welcome. Germolus recalled listening to data from the ocean surface and hearing a high G among a bunch of low notes, making him wonder, “What’s that? What’s going on here?”
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