Healing Music Enterprises Blog » Music and Genetics

CNN reports on Swine Flu “music”

Dr. Alice Cash — Sat, 02 May 2009 01:32:11 +0000

By Elizabeth Landau
CNN

Swine flu may be inspiring fear worldwide, but for Stephan Zielinski of San Francisco, California, it inspired a song.

The genes underlying swine flu inspired one amateur musician to compose music based on it.

The virus has the classification H1N1 because it includes two key viral proteins, hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). Zielinski took the genetic sequence of a variant of hemagglutinin and created a computer algorithm to turn it into music.

Zielinski, 41, is not a biochemist or a professional musician — he’s a writer, photographer, computer programmer, and blogger who creates music in his spare time. But he’s fascinated that, even though biologists can map the genome of the virus and predict what the hemagglutinin protein looks like, the human body still cannot distinguish it as the “bad guy” — at least, not until there’s a vaccine.Listen to the song

“Although the map is there and you can even make a song out of it, we can’t explain it to these itty bitty little cells in body,” he said.

Using computer programs he created himself, as well as a commercial product, Zielinski composed his song by assigning instruments and musical notes to various properties of the protein.

Zielinski took the various categories of amino acids, the building blocks of the protein, and assigned each a different instrument — piano, organ, low synthesizer, percussion. The melody was created by assigning notes to specific amino acids. Each beat of the song also corresponds to one of numerous amino acids.

The work was done entirely with a computer and took about six hours Tuesday, he said.

Do you know this piano prodigy, Teo Gheorghiu?

Dr. Alice Cash — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 03:40:24 +0000

What makes a piano prodigy?

Have you ever wondered why some children are born with magnificent musical talents and some with devastating physical, mental and emotional handicaps? Much has been written about the latter but not nearly as much about the former. We know that musical talent tends to run in families. The study of genetics has come a long, long way in the past several decades, but some gifts are so staggering that it is hard to imagine these children exist. Mozart was one such wunderkind.
If you haven’t seen the movie “Vitus,” you must go immediately and rent it. This little boy is a true musical genius and piano prodigy. Enjoy!

Scientists discover gene for musical talent!

Dr. Alice Cash — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:56:42 +0000

The work may also be a step toward revealing “the role of music in human brain function, human evolution and its relationship to language,” they wrote, though they added it will take larger followup studies to clarify this.

Scientists say they’ve found approximate locations in our genome where genes affecting musical talent may lie, the results of the first, small study to systematically seek these out.

The findings suggest musical ability is partly genetic and may share evolutionary roots with language, according to the researchers, who studied Finnish families.

The study of 234 Finns from 15 families—all with at least some musicians—was published in the April 18 advance online issue of the Journal of Medical Genetics.

Kristiina Pulli of the University of Helsinki and colleagues tested the participants using so-called linkage analyses, a type of probe designed to tie particular traits to specific areas of the genome.

The analysis works by examining whether a given trait often occurs in people who also have a distinct bit of genetic code at a known genomic site. If so, it suggests this “marker” code is physically near a gene for that trait; otherwise, gene-scrambling processes involved in reproduction would tend to ensure the two things stopped occurring together.

As part of the research, each participant also took three tests of musical aptitude.

The researchers reported finding “significant evidence” for an association between that ability and a small region of Chromosome 4. Human genes lie on about two dozen distinct chromosomes, most numbered by size from biggest to smallest.

The patch of DNA in question encompassed about 50 genes, Pulli and colleagues wrote. Of particular interest within these, they added, was one known as netrin receptor UNC5C precursor. This gene, they wrote, interacts with molecules that govern the development of brain cells and their interconnections. Mutations in the gene are also indirectly linked to defects in time and pitch processing, they added.

There’s also evidence such mutations may be connected to the language dysfunction dyslexia, suggesting possible connections between music and language, the team proposed. Interestingly, they added, of the three musical tests they used, the one with the strongest apparent link to the gene region is also predictive of dyslexia, which impairs reading and spelling ability.

The team also reported two other snippets of the genome possibly but more weakly linked to musical aptitude, on Chromosomes 8 and 18—the latter at a region also linked to dyslexia.

In findings that echoed Pulli’s somewhat, a separate group reported in the April 16 advance online issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience that children with language syntax deficits also have musical difficulties .

Scientists have long suspected music might have genetic roots. “Music is an ancient and universal feature across all human societies,” noted Pulli and colleagues. The not-uncommon appearance of families of musicians, such as the clan that famously spawned J.S. Bach in 1685, also suggest a genetic basis, the researchers added—though other factors could explain that phenomenon.

Their study, they continued, while too small to be definitive, is “a starting point for further mapping, isolation, and characterization of genes that predispose to musical aptitude.”