Every living organism, however tiny or large, is thought to emit an
acoustic signature. Often the problem is to isolate and record it. For
instance, the highest and lowest freq critters are the cetaceans
ranging anywhere from around 3Hz to 356kHz. Smallest, so far, are
viruses. I'm happy to send a copy of the article if you'll contact me
off-list.
Bernie
On May 6, 2009, at 12:11 PM, Robb Nichols wrote:
>
>
> I've been wondering if I want to get into this one because, frankly, I
> don't know a thing about it. But it is an interesting concept to
> ponder.
>
> To what would we be listening? If there were no compliant void in the
> bacteria's body, how would they modulate sound? If they can't expand
> and contract to create a pressure wave, than any sound that might
> result
> from internal friction or with the liberation of gas molecules would
> either be high ultrasound, given their physical limitations (their
> size
> is much smaller than wavelength of any sound in our auditory range),
> or
> it would be canceled out in a very short distance from the organism.
> Can we really assume that all organisms make a sound?
>
> From a practical standpoint, it would seem a very difficult to isolate
> the sound of a microorganism from the various sources of background
> noise.
>
> But I'm purely speculating. I'd love to know more if anybody has
> knowledge of this. I tried to follow Bernie's link, but I guess I'm
> too
> cheap to pay for a subscription, just to scan the article.
>
> Thomas Ashcraft wrote:
> >
> >
> > Mid-thread note: Please know I didn't mean to tweak anyone when I
> > wrote: "Nature recordists work in too narrow of a slice of the sonic
> > spectrum." I was just venting frustration at my own sensory
> limitations.
> >
> > The microbe-movie soundtrack question I am facing is: do I record
> actual
> > nature somehow? Or do I *imagine* what the microbe realms might
> sound
> > like and thus create the soundtrack artificially? Here is a brief
> > example of a medical illustration soundtrack of a t4 Bacteriophage
> > targeting e. coli bacteria:
> > http://www.hybridmedicalanimation.com/anim_bacteriophage.html
> > <http://www.hybridmedicalanimation.com/anim_bacteriophage.html>
> > The sound is kind of cool but is it "accurate"? ( If even that
> matters?)
> > Yet, what is the "sound"/waveform jostle of the nature matrix at
> > nano-scale?
> >
> > Maybe this is the realm of esthetics and who even cares if they
> insert a
> > red hawk call when a bald eagle is on screen and flying overhead
> in the
> > movies?
> > Thomas / New Mexico
> >
> >
>
>
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