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The Voice Harvester is an exploratory interactive installation that embodies human voice in physical materials. Sound input is processed, amplified and transmitted through audio drivers connected to a thin, flexible membrane that agitates the material on it. The title “Voice Harvester” is derived from the original design brief, which called for an object able to elicit non-linguistic, expressive, and naturalistic human vocal sounds to explore the full range of capability of the human voice through use of a novel, playful, and embodied interaction. This paper describes the intention, design process, construction, technical details, interaction, and planned/potential uses of this design exploration.

Telomere length shortens with cellular division, and leukocyte telomere length is used as a marker for systemic telomere length. The hippocampus hosts adult neurogenesis and is an important structure for episodic memory, and carriers of the apolipoprotein E ε4 allele exhibit higher hippocampal atrophy rates and differing telomere dynamics compared with non-carriers. The authors investigated whether leukocyte telomere length was associated with hippocampal volume in 57 cognitively intact subjects (29 ε3/ε3 carriers; 28 ε4 carriers) aged 49-79 yr. Leukocyte telomere length correlated inversely with left (r(s) = -0.465; p = 0.011), right (r(s) = -0.414; p = 0.025), and total hippocampus volume (r(s) = -0.519; p = 0.004) among APOE ε3/ε3 carriers, but not among ε4 carriers. However, the ε4 carriers fit with the general correlation pattern exhibited by the ε3/ε3 carriers, as ε4 carriers on average had longer telomeres and smaller hippocampi compared with ε3/ε3 carriers. The relationship observed can be interpreted as long telomeres representing a history of relatively low cellular proliferation, reflected in smaller hippocampal volumes. The results support the potential of leukocyte telomere length being used as a biomarker for tapping functional and structural processes of the aging brain.