Rescuing Recorded Sound from Silence

Carl Haber, a physicist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was developing subatomic particle detectors to be used at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, when he realized that an optical scanning system could be used to digitize and preserve the speeches, sounds, and songs recorded on old fragile wax cylinders and shellac and laquer discs, many now too frail to be played in their original format. His ideas captured the attention of the Library of Congress, and may soon preserve from extinction a range of sound recordings, from 1920s Ida Cox favorites to the songs and stories of Ishi, the last known member of the Yahi tribe.

Genes to Grow On

All it takes to start a cancer is a single cell's mistake. That error–to proliferate and divide, again and again and again, ad infinitum–is the difference between normal, healthy growth and a potentially fatal tumor. But while If unchecked growth can spell disaster, controlled regrowth or regeneration can be a great boon. UC Berkeley professor of cell and developmental biology Iswar Hariharan is examining genes that regulate growth, with an eye toward their possible role in restoring the function of injured hearts or severed spinal cords, as well as controlling the spread of tumors.

Can't Cut This

The inherent versatility of proteases has made them critical to all manner of organisms, from viruses to plants to humans, and over the past 10 years, protease inhibitor drugs have become indispensable in the fight against AIDS, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. But finding protease inhibitors is no picnic. UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry Jonathan Ellman has developed several methods to speed the matching of protease to substrate. His techniques to synthesize test molecules and detect good matches are now being used in the development of therapeutics against many diseases.

LBNL physicist Carl Haber is developing an optical scanning system that may help preserve and restore early sound recordings that now exist only in highly fragile forms.