Crow cam observes rare bird
Observing New Caledonian crows in their native habitat on several Pacific islands is extremely difficult because they are easily disturbed and reside in densely forested, mountainous terrain. They are believed to be the only nonhuman species to invent new tools by modifying existing ones and to pass the innovations along to other crows. Video-tracking, however, has now enabled scientists at Oxford University (Oxford, UK) to observe crow behavior.
“Everyone thought that New Caledonian crows use tools to probe into holes and cracks in rotting wood and tree crowns, but we have discovered that they use tools even on the ground,” said Christian Rutz of the Oxford department of zoology (users.ox.ac.uk/~kgroup/tools/crowcams.shtml). For the study, 18 crows were fitted with ‘tailcams,’ each weighing 14 grams-only slightly heavier than a conventional radio-tag. The units were attached to two tail feathers with strips of adhesive tape so that they did not adversely affect the birds’ movements.
The video camcorder transmits live footage for 70 minutes and is safely shed with the natural molt of feathers. One crow was seen transporting a tool for more than 100 m, indicating that crows may keep particularly good tools for future use. Video tracking with cameras may enable studying the behavior and ecology of many other bird species that are shy or live in inaccessible habitats. Videos from the crow cam are available on Rutz’ Web site.
Terahertz imaging tests pills
TeraView (Cambridge, UK; www.teraview.com) says its terahertz imaging and spectroscopy products can be used in conjunction with wet dissolution testing to accelerate development of tablets and capsules and to maintain in-spec performance during manufacture. In a recent paper, the US FDA (Rockville, MD, USA; www.fda.gov) says that terahertz imaging may replace wet dissolution testing in both product development and eventually process analysis. The FDA study focused upon a delayed drug that uses coatings to break down and release the drug in the lower intestinal tract. The FDA found that the tablets dissolved erratically during conventional wet dissolution measurements. Terahertz imaging mapped the coating thickness. The mean dissolution times were found to correlate with the average tablet coating thickness, suggesting that the coating thickness played a significant role in product design and performance.
Michael Pepper, chief scientific officer of TeraView, says: “This study shows that terahertz technology has a potential role in optimization of therapeutic effectiveness of dosage forms during product development and stability assessment, as well as routine assessment of quality and uniformity.”
Separating sheep from goats
In an agricultural environment such as the Australian outback, resource management is a critical issue, especially since available water for both wildlife and livestock is limited, and access to piped water must be controlled. However, stations in the Australian outback cover extremely large areas, and so it is impossible for humans to supervise on any regular basis.
Mark Dunn and colleagues at the University of Southern Queensland (Toowoomba, Australia; www.ncea.org.au) have developed a prototype machine-vision system that will allow animals to be identified and tracked for access control. As an animal passes down a race toward the water, a low-cost CCD-based system, the Rugged Outdoor Camera, analyzes the animal and classifies its species based on edge-detection algorithms. When an animal is detected, the outline is traced and matched to a library of animal-shape templates. The best match is accumulated over multiple frames and a final decision made after a level of confidence is reached. A signal is then sent to open or close a gate to control access to water. The system has been integrated with an Australian National Livestock Identification System RFID tag reader. Field trials have demonstrated that sheep and goats can be separated with close to 100% success.