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Short Wave

Making Music Out Of The Coronavirus

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.76K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Markus Buehler heard about the coronavirus, he wanted to know what it sounded like. Today on the show, Maddie speaks with Short Wave reporter Emily Kwong about how Markus Buehler, a composer and engineering professor at MIT, developed a method for making music out of proteins, and how music can potentially help us hear what we have trouble seeing at the nanoscale level.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

0:06.0

Hey everybody, Maddie Sifai here with Shortwave reporter Emily Kwong.

0:10.0

Hey Maddie.

0:11.0

Hey you.

0:12.0

So earlier today, you emailed me a ticket stop, a hand drawn ticket stop which reads,

0:19.0

it meant one protein music concert composed by nature.

0:24.0

Were you intrigued?

0:26.0

It was very weird and adorable.

0:29.0

It was Emily Kwong, honestly.

0:31.0

I don't mind that being my personal friend.

0:33.0

I will say though Kwong, the art looked more like DNA than protein but we can talk about that way.

0:38.0

Oh boo, get out, get out.

0:41.0

I don't have time to draw protein structure in this economy.

0:45.0

Anyway, I'm glad you received your ticket stop and before you are seated for this protein music concert,

0:51.0

I want to stifly appreciate the person who made it possible.

0:54.0

Hi Emily, this is Marcus.

0:56.0

Hey Marcus, Marcus Bueller is a materials scientist who's long been fascinated by music and how music gets made.

1:04.0

He grew up in Southern Germany, your stuttgart.

1:07.0

In the 80s and 90s, he got really into recording and mixing music from his keyboard.

1:16.0

Okay, Marcus.

1:19.0

He even had a band called Titanic Disasters.

1:23.0

Disasters plural?

...

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