CHAOTIC VOICES:
     WHEN A FRIEND HAS A COLD, YOU KNOW IT JUST BY LISTENING TO THEM TALK. 
BUT ALTERED VOICES CAN POINT TO MORE THAN JUST A STUFFY HEAD.  COMPARE THIS
HEALTHY VOWEL, (SFX: aaah) TO THIS ONE (SFX: unhealthy aaaaah) A RASPY VOICE LIKE
THIS CAN MEAN ANYTHING FROM POLYPS TO THROAT CANCER TO STROKE DAMAGE. 
CASEY WINKEL IS A MECHANICAL ENGINEERING GRAD STUDENT WHO'S DEVISED A
WAY TO MEASURE THE SOUNDS OF AN UNHEALTHY VOICE.  
     WINKEL: "The ultimate goal. . . is to be able to analyze speech from a speaker who may think that
they are a healthy normal speaker and be able to tell them almost as an early warning system that there's a
tendency that you may have a speech pathology sometime in the future. . . .it can be anything from cancer
to lesions, anything that can change your speech."
     WINKEL AND HIS ADVISOR P.G. VAIDYA AT WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
SEARCH THE VOICE FOR SIGNS OF CHAOS.  THE SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION OF CHAOS IS
SOMETHING THAT APPEARS RANDOM BUT ACTUALLY HAS HIDDEN PATTERNS OF
ORDER. THE FREQUENCIES IN NORMAL VOICES ARE HIGHLY ORDERED.  IF YOU SING,
SAY, A MIDDLE C, THE VOCAL CORDS ACTUALLY PRODUCE A COMBINATION OF NOTE S
FOR A FULL, RICH SOUND.  EVERY DAY SPEECH ALSO CARRIES A PRECISE MIX OF THESE
TONES, KNOWN AS SUBHARMONICS.  BUT WITH CERTAIN PHYSICAL CONDITIONS THE
SUBHARMONICS LOSE THEIR PRECISION.  WINKEL HAS DEVELOPED A SENSITIVE
MEASURING TECHNIQUE, CALLED A CASEYGRAM, THAT DETECTS EVEN THE TINIEST OF
THESE CHANGES.
     WINKEL:  "we take a microphone and we'll record vowel sounds. . . we'll have someone say
awww sustain for a few seconds and we'll record that data. . . and convert that data to numerical format . .
.so you can actually plot it out and look at the amplitudes as they change. "
     CASEYGRAMS ARE CURRENTLY BEING TESTED AT HOSPITALS TO SEE IF THEY
REALLY CAN HELP DOCTORS UNDERSTAND YOUR BODY TALK.