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Birdsong detector developed |
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Computer scientists from the University of Bonn, in conjunction with the birdsong archives of Berlin’s Humboldt University, have developed a helping device for birds. |
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KideX 2008 |
21 -23 November, 2008
Chennai Trade Centre
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
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December 26-28, 2008
Hitex Exhibition Centre
Hyderabad, India |
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| News |
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Birdsong detector developed
Computer scientists from the University of Bonn, in conjunction with the birdsong archives of Berlin’s Humboldt University, have developed a helping device for birds. The new type of voice detector involved can reliably recognize the characteristic birdsong of different species of birds, thereby facilitating surveys of the bird population. What this implies is that in the preliminary stage microphones are placed at selected points in the wild; record all the sounds made, in some cases over a period of months. The new computer software can then sift through the many hundreds of hours of recorded material overnight and say how many birds of which species have been singing and how often they have been doing this. Scientists initially concentrated on the bio-acoustic recognition of the Savi’s warbler and the chaffinch. |
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New Star' Makes The Universe Dusty
Using ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer, and its remarkable acuity, astronomers were able to witness the appearance of a shell of dusty gas around a star that had just erupted, and follow its evolution for more than 100 days. This provides the astronomers with a new way to estimate the distance of this object and obtain invaluable information on the operating mode of stellar vampires, dense stars that suck material from a companion. Although novae were first thought to be new stars appearing in the sky, they are now understood as signaling the brightening of a small, dense star. |
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Don’t be amazed, fish can talk!
Nemo fish can talk, laugh and tell jokes—at least on television and the silver screen. But can real fish verbally communicate? Researchers say, "Yes." Further, the findings put human speech—and social communications of all vertebrates—in evolutionary context. By mapping the developing brain cells in newly hatched midshipman fish larvae and comparing them to those of other species, scientists found that the neural network behind sound production in vertebrates can be traced back through evolutionary time to an era long before the first animals ventured onto dry land. The neural circuitry that enables human beings to verbally communicate — not to mention birds to sing and frogs to "ribbit"—was likely laid down hundreds of millions of years ago with the hums and grunts of fish. |
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Chinese Earthquake provides a lesson
The recent Sichuan earthquake in China was unexpectedly large. Analysis of the area, however, now shows that topographic characteristics of the highly mountainous area identified the mountain range as active and could have pointed to the earthquake hazard. Topographic analysis can help evaluate other, similar fault areas for seismic risk, according to geologists from Penn State and Arizona State University. The researchers note that "the landscape itself encodes information about the rates and patterns of tectonic activity." The ability to read these erosional landscapes is now good enough that researchers can use topographic analysis as a reconnaissance tool to identify areas of active rock uplift. In remote mountainous areas, this approach can shed light on the activity of blind and hidden faults. |
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Fresh clues about human evolution
Research on the genome of a marine creature is shedding new light on a key area of the tree of life. In a latest research, oceanographers have deciphered and analyzed fundamental elements of the genetic makeup of a small, worm-like marine animal called amphioxus, also known as a lancelet. Although amphioxus split from vertebrates more than 520 million years ago, its genome holds tantalizing clues about evolution. Because amphioxus is evolving slowly-its body plan remains similar to that of fossils from the Cambrian time-the animal serves as an intriguing comparison point for tracing how vertebrates have evolved and adapted. This includes new information about how vertebrates have employed old genes for new functions. Further, deeper analyses between the amphioxus and human genomes in the years ahead will provide even more important clues about genetic evolution. |
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