Week of May 29, 2004; Vol. 165, No. 22 , p. 339 Groovy Pictures: Extracting sound from images of old audio recordings Peter Weiss Songs and words preserved on antique vinyl records and wax cylinders become more precious with each passing day. They also grow increasingly fragile and are especially vulnerable to damage if played. Now, researchers using optical-scanning equipment have made exquisitely detailed maps of the grooves of such recordings. By simulating how a stylus moves along those contours, the team has reproduced the encoded sounds with high fidelity. Libraries with collections of old recordings "don't want to queue...