An audio that enables you to listen to the coronavirus turned into music has gone viral thanks to the help of Artificial Intelligence.
With the help of artificial intelligence, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have turned the COVID-19 virus into a very unique tune.
The spiked crown seen around the surface of the coronavirus is one of its distinctive features. Those protruding rods are made of protein chains, that coil and bend over each other.
Musician and engineer Markus Buehler and his colleagues have assigned each protein and each structural form of the coronavirus a musical equivalent in an attempt to better understand this new pathogen.
The result is an incredible and very enjoyable musical score with almost two hours duration generated from artificial intelligence, which Bueheler published on the SoundCloud music platform. A koto is played, a Japanese musical instrument with 13 strings of different sizes, as well as bells and flute.
“As you listen to the protein you will find that the intricate design results in incredibly interesting and actually pleasing, relaxing sounds. This doesn’t really convey the deadly impacts this particularly protein is having on the world,” Buehler explains.
It was even revealed by Bueheler that the melody was able to reveal details that even microscopes could not detect. He said that our brains are very good at processing sound, because in one fell swoop our ears capture all its hierarchical characteristics: tone, timbre, volume, melody, rhythm and chords.
He also noted that each tip of the COViD-19 virus is a particularly complex assembly, involving three protein chains folded together in an intricate pattern.
“What you hear is a multi-layered algorithmic composition featuring both the vibrational spectrum of the entire protein (expressed in sound and rhythmic elements), the sequence and folding of amino acids that compose the virus spike structure, as well as interwoven melodies – forming counterpoint music – reflecting the complex hierarchical intersecting geometry of the protein,” he asserted.
He also expressed that a high-powered microscope is needed to see the equivalent detail in an image. In addition he points out that sound is an elegant way to access the information stored in a protein.
And of course, this whole process has a reason for existing, because according to Bueheler, translating proteins into sound gives scientists another tool to understand and manipulate them.
He also noted that taking a musical approach could be used to design medications to attack the coronavirus , as scientists could search for a new protein that matches the melody and rhythm of antibodies that could interfere with the virus’s ability to infect.
Click ”Listen in browser” to hear it.
