What do cells sound like? Nanotech pioneer Jim Gimzewski and grad student Andrew Pelling are using the tiny tip of an atomic force microscope like the needle of a record player to pick up a cell's sound-generating vibrations. Gimzewski has named the fieled "sonocytology." From a Smithsonian Magazine article about the research:
"The distance the cell wall moves determines the amplitude, or volume, of the sound wave, and the speed of the up-and-down movement is its frequency, or pitch. Though the volume of the yeast cell sound was far too low to be heard, Gimzewski says its frequency was theoretically within the range of human hearing. 'So all we're doing is turning up the volume,' he adds."
