Nottingham Evening Post 3/1 SCAN TUNE IS NO SICK NOTE

[Tom Roche]

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=66056&command=displayContent&sourceNode=65583&contentPK=4432827

SCAN TUNE IS NO SICK NOTE

12:00 - 01 March 2003

The sounds Paul Glover and his colleagues make are piercing and shrill...

But they are music to John Peel's ears.

So much so that the veteran DJ has aired them on his BBC Radio 4 Home 
Truths programme.

It all began when Peel told listeners of a routine medical scan he 
had had - and complained how noisy the machine was.

That struck a jarring note with Dr Glover, a lecturer in the school 
of physics and astronomy at the University of Nottingham.

He and his colleagues had just combined the sounds from the three MRI 
scanners at the university's magnetic resonance centre as the 
soundtrack for a video on the centre's work.
The three scanners each emit a shrill constant tone as the patient lies inside.
But each sounds a different pitch as the electrical current passes 
through the machine to scan parts of the body.

These tones were recorded and mixed, resulting in what Dr Glover 
thought rather a tuneful effort.

So the regular Home Truths listener e-mailed the show's presenter and 
was asked to send the tape in...and much to his delight it went out 
over the airwaves.

Dr Glover said: "John Peel told listeners that he didn't find our 
scanner sounds that unpleasant - in fact they sounded not unlike some 
of the stuff he played years ago on Radio 1. He said that we were 
trying to plug the gap in the market for scanner music!" The team 
were delighted their music was played, especially as the show 
receives about 500 hours' worth of demo material a week.

The DJ, who was given the all-clear after his routine scan, told the 
Evening Post: "I have just this minute received the bill for the scan 
I had. I'm sure my shrieks were louder than the noise the scanners 
make. "The demo was certainly different and it's been well received 
on the show."

The foray by Dr Glover and his colleagues into the music world stems 
from a serious project.
Researchers at the centre eventually hope to create a much quieter MRI machine.
Patients who need scans have to wear ear guards and are usually 
played music from CDs or the radio, to disguise the shrill noise the 
scanner makes. Dr Glover said: "The MR scanners are magnets 
containing coils of wire and can be viewed basically as very 
inefficient, but loud, loudspeakers.

"The sound is created by an electrical current through the wires 
which is needed for the scanning process. "If we can reduce the 
amount of vibration then we should be able to decrease the noise 
produced."

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