Sonification, or the practice of generating sound from data, is a promising alternative or complement to data visualization for exploring research questions in the life sciences. Expressing or communicating data in the form of sound rather than graphs, tables, or renderings can provide a secondary information source for multitasking or remote monitoring purposes or make data accessible when visualizations cannot be used. While popular in astronomy, neuroscience, and geophysics as a technique for data exploration and communication, its potential in the biological and biotechnological sciences has not been fully explored. In this review, we introduce sonification as a concept, some examples of how sonification has been used to address areas of interest in biology, and the history of the technique. We then highlight a selection of biology‐related publications that involve sonifications of DNA datasets and protein datasets, sonifications for data collection and interpretation, and sonifications aimed to improve science communication and accessibility. Through this review, we aim to show how sonification has been used both as a discovery tool and a communication tool and to inspire more life‐science researchers to incorporate sonification into their own studies.

中文翻译：

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聆听生命：声音化促进生物研究的发现

声音化，或者说从数据中产生声音的实践，是探索生命科学研究问题的数据可视化的一种有前途的替代方案或补充。以声音而不是图形、表格或渲染的形式表达或交流数据可以为多任务处理或远程监控目的提供辅助信息源，或者在无法使用可视化时使数据可访问。虽然作为一种数据探索和通信技术在天文学、神经科学和地球物理学中很受欢迎，但它在生物和生物技术科学中的潜力尚未得到充分开发。在这篇综述中，我们介绍了超声处理这一概念、一些如何使用超声处理来解决生物学感兴趣领域的示例以及该技术的历史。然后，我们重点介绍一系列与生物学相关的出版物，其中涉及 DNA 数据集和蛋白质数据集的声音化、数据收集和解释的声音化以及旨在改善科学交流和可及性的声音化。通过这篇综述，我们的目的是展示可听化如何被用作发现工具和交流工具，并激励更多的生命科学研究人员将可听化纳入他们自己的研究中。