123 years ago, Thomas Edison produced the very first commercially-available recording - a woman reciting “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”
And today, thanks to the work of a few scientists at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, we can hear the recording again. Using a confocal microscope, the researchers were able to map the topology of a badly damaged cylinder on which the recording was made. They then converted the grooves into sound, and - voila! - a century-old woman’s voice came back to life. The recording was sold with a doll, which could be cranked to recite the nursery rhyme.
You can listen to the rather haunting recording here.
