hear!

Some insects can secrete chemicals to repel "enemies"
.

Recently, researchers have proposed for the first time a new method for understanding the biological activity of single and mixed insect secretion chemicals, that is, modeling the chemical signals of insect secretions as auditory signals through a sonochemical process
.

On September 23, related papers were published in "Mode"
.

Hear discharge

Sawfly larvae can secrete volatile chemicals to repel predators, especially ants
.

For a long time, researchers have evaluated the effectiveness of these defenses by organizing prey and predators, so-called biological tests
.

"Biological testing itself may be difficult.
For example, it is difficult for people to collect enough prey and/or predators
.

In April 2009, Boevé first proposed the idea of ​​converting volatile chemicals into sound
.

"Some small molecules, such as the acetic acid contained in vinegar or the irritating formic acid released by some ants, are very volatile and can quickly diffuse into the air
.

In fact, chemicals can be converted into sound through a process called phonation
.

"One of the main reasons why we choose to convert chemicals into auditory signals is that these two signals evolve over time, such as smells and sounds heard.
These two perceptions are from beginning to end.
It usually changes over time,
" Boevé said
.

What do ants feel

Boevé and Rudi Giot, an information engineer at the Brussels Institute of Industry, input this chemical information into a synthesizer, which will make a sound for each molecule, and then these sounds will be mixed at different volume levels to finally record the insect defensiveness.

"Chemical signals mediate the main ecological interactions of insects
.

So, can these sounds represent secretions well? How to judge?

"Our main goal is to answer these two questions
.
Initially, we assumed that the sound we heard could represent volatiles.
This hypothesis was supported by the temporal and spatial dynamic simulation of stimulus propagation
.
" Boevé said
.

Afterwards, the researchers used biological tests to compare the responses of human listeners and predators (in this case, ants) to these defensive volatiles, thereby verifying this hypothesis
.
Statistical analysis shows that the response of ants to volatiles is similar to that of humans to corresponding sounds
.

They also quantified the degree to which these sounds make humans feel unpleasant-measuring how far the subject is from the speaker to reach the "comfortable distance
.
" They said that some of the approximately 50 participants described these sounds as unpleasant or even frightening, comparable to background music clips in horror or science fiction movies
.

"
Sonication allows us to gain new insights by hearing the biological activity of defensive secretions, and to quantify this knowledge by measuring the intensity of sound .
" Boevé said
.

This research also makes use of the fact that the way the human brain processes information varies with the organs of information perception
.
Giot said: "Usually, the sounding process is used to detect specific elements of large data sets
.
For example, earthquakes recorded in seismic data, or cyber hacking in Internet data streams
.
"

Perceive with sound

In fact, in order to understand a complex phenomenon, acoustics is often used to connect two unrelated fields
.
In addition to insect secretions, cells, viruses, radiation, celestial bodies and even "God particles" can all have their own unique sounds
.

The use of sonication technology can be traced back to 1908 or even earlier-the German physicist Geiger designed and built an alpha particle counter at that time
.
Radiation ionizes the gas in the counter to produce a pulse of current, which makes a continuous click sound
.
The device is still an indispensable detector in nuclear physics and particle physics, and a keen eye in the laboratory
.

During the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the structure of the new crown virus spike protein was also translated into music
.
Markus J.
Buehler of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States also uses vocalization technology to assign a unique scale note to each amino acid, thereby converting the entire protein into a preliminary score
.
Chimes, plucking strings, and flute sounds represent different aspects of spike protein
.
Researchers believe that this method is faster and more intuitive than traditional protein research methods (such as molecular modeling), and can help scientists more easily find protein sites that antibodies or drugs may bind to-just search for these sites.
Specific music sequence
.

High-energy physicist Piotr Traczyk, in order to commemorate the discovery of the "God particle"-the Higgs boson, by the European Large Hadron Collider, selected two main data maps in the search process, and converted the data in one of them into Music notes, and finally compose a Higgs boson heavy metal rock music
.

On the other hand, sound can also "create" brand new proteins
.
The Buehler team converted the complex structure of the protein into a musical score, and then gave the computer a sequence, and the artificial intelligence system was able to design a protein that has never been seen in nature
.
Related papers were published in "APL Bioengineering"
.
Buehler said that such a method paved the way for the manufacture of completely new biomaterials
.

However, for the study of insect secretions, sonication technology still has limitations
.
This technology is limited to the study of self-interest, and may not be useful in research such as pheromone
.
"Peromone acts between individuals of the same kind, and self-interest acts between species
.
Pheromone is finely adjusted during evolution to induce specific behaviors, such as aggregation, warning, and reproduction
.
From a chemical point of view, pheromone It's usually much simpler than
xenohormonal mixtures-it contains fewer compounds, " Boevé said
.

At present, researchers are continuing to study other large-scale chemical substance data sets to develop innovative methods for the sonication of volatile substances
.
Boevé hopes that the new method will complement the existing volatile substance testing techniques, especially in the season when there are few insects or when it is difficult to obtain enough secretions
.
(Source: Tang Feng, China Science News)

Related paper information: https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
patter.
2021.
100352