Our favorite ultra-skinny molecules have performed a lot of useful functions over the years, but keeping fruit flies away was never one of them. Now MIT scientists, with US Army funding, have discovered a way to give these nanotubes the canine-like sense of smell needed to stop produce spoilage and waste. Doping sheets of them with copper and polystyrene introduces a speed-trap for electrons, slowing them and allowing the detection of ethylene gas vented during ripening. A sensor produced from such a substance could be combined with an RFID chip, giving grocers a cheaper way to monitor freshness and discount produce before it's too late. If that works, the team may target mold and bacteria detection next, giving you scientific proof that your roommate needs to wash his socks.
Bigger isn't necessarily better but in the case of Jawbone's Jambox, it might actually work out. Typically known for their Bluetooth headsets and the ill-fated-but-not-quite-dead UP band, Jawbone has figured out what their "cool kids" product is and it happens to be a tiny portable speaker. But for the second generation version, simply called Big Jambox, the company is cranking up the volume from 10 to 11. While it retains some portability, the Big Jambox is really meant for those instances where you have 20 people posted up near the bonfire or you're looking for a no-fuss micro system for your home entertainment center. At less than three pounds -- 2.7 pounds to be specific -- it's still portable but everything else is on steroids. Jawbone says the built-in battery will last up to 15 hours for continuous playback and 500 hours of standby.
These days, renting a home can be a much more prudent move than trying to purchase a home. However, when you are searching for a rental property, there are many things you should know before you begin the big search. Consider the following prior to renting.
While you can certainly hit the streets alone, searching for a perfect rental, it can be much easier to find an ideal unit by going through a real estate agency that specializes in rental property management. Not only will they have an excellent selection of rental properties, they also will help you negotiate your lease and act as an intermediary between you and your landlord if you need maintenance work, have questions or need to settle a dispute.
Shearer Realty, for example, runs the website RentalHousesInCharlotte.com, and offers renters choices throughout the Charlotte metro area. They can help you find a rental unit in your ideal area for the best possible price. Their selection runs from one-bedroom apartments to townhouses to spacious single-family homes.
One of your worries might be finding a rental unit if you have less than perfect credit. In the past, this has certainly been an obstacle for some renters. However, in the current state of the economy, landlords are a bit more forgiving about a lower credit score. What might be most important is that you can provide proof of steady wages that easily cover the rent. Typically, you should only be spending about a third of your income on your rent.
One of the most important things to do when renting a home or apartment is to really take the time to read your entire lease. Occasionally, you will find a landlord that will add items about rent increases, automatic lease renewals or unlimited access to the rental. You want to make sure that the lease is reasonable and that you understand each part, which is another reason why it can be better to work with a property management firm, who will help you with the lease process.
Once you have found a place and successfully negotiated your lease, you will be taken on a walk-through of the unit. Be sure to bring a camera and make a note of any damages you find on the property from scratches on walls or stains on carpets. Your landlord probably already has cleaned and painted the property, but if you do find cosmetic damages or more serious damages, you want to show proof that these existed prior to your moving into the rental. This way, you are far more likely to get your security deposit back after you move out.
Something else you should not neglect is the purchase of rental insurance. Your landlord is not responsible for damages to your property, even if there is a fire or theft. So, you need to protect yourself. In addition, rental insurance does not cover flood damage, so you will have to purchase this separately if needed. Rental insurance usually costs less around $10 or $12 per month, so it isn?t a huge monthly expense, just a very important one.
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Among many male crickets, larger body size means a lower pitched song and more attention from the lady crickets. But male tree crickets break this rule: The pitch of their song changes with temperature.?
The basic mechanics are straightforward, according to new research that explores tree crickets' unusual song. Tree crickets have more elongated wings than other species, particularly field crickets, and tree crickets vibrate their entire wing when they call, rather than just part of it, as other crickets do.
But the discovery points to another, trickier question: Why?
The variability in male tree crickets' call creates a problem. Normally, female crickets find their mates by tuning into the precise frequency at which the males broadcast their chirpy song, tuning out other noise. But if males' calls aren't finely tuned, how do females home in on them? [ Cricket Sets Testicle Size Record ]
This unusual feature of tree crickets' song was first reported in 1962. To get a handle on how and why tree crickets' pitch varies due to temperature, a British and Indian team closely examined the movements of the insects' wings, using computer modeling to better understand them.
"If you look at a tree-cricket wing, they are longer than they are wide. What that does is it makes them ring not a one single note, but at a range of notes closer to each other in pitch," said lead researcher Natasha Mahtre, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.?
The body temperature of crickets, as with all insects, depends on the temperature of their environment. In warmer weather they are more active, and bring their wings together more quickly. As a result, the frequency of the vibration increases and the pitch ? the perceptual quality associated with frequency ? becomes higher. The opposite happens in cooler weather.
For example, the tree cricket Oecanthus henryi calls at 3.6 kilohertz when it?s 81 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) and a deeper 2.3 kHz when it?s 64 degrees F (18 degrees C) out.
Among field crickets, the frequency of the vibration is so finely tuned that the change in wing speed does not change it.
But the biggest mystery remains.
"There is no biological reason we can think of for them to want this geometry, or to want this frequency variation," Mahtre said of tree crickets.
It's possible that females can use the variation to pick up on clues to the attractiveness of the male cricket ? such as how much he's recently eaten or whether he is located in a desirably warm spot, Mahtre explained to LiveScience. But most likely, the variation originated as an unintended consequence.
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??
"They would want to be loud, and I think this is a byproduct of wanting to be loud," Mahtre said.
Tree crickets achieve more volume by having elongated wings and vibrating the whole wing, rather than part of it. But both of these traits prevent their calls from being finely tuned, their research indicated.
The study, funded by a U.K. India Research and Education Initiative, an EU Marie Curie fellowship grant and a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant, was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience? and on Facebook.
Goddard collaborates with international partners on MMS instrumentPublic release date: 30-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Susan Hendrix Susan.m.hendrix@nasa.gov 301-286-7745 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, for a planned launch in 2014
Whether it's a giant solar flare or a beautiful green-blue aurora, just about everything interesting in space weather happens due to a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection. Reconnection occurs when magnetic field lines cross and create a burst of energy. These bursts can be so energetic they could be measured in megatons of TNT. To study this phenomenon, NASA is readying a fleet of four identical spacecraft, the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, for a planned launch in 2014.
At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., a team of scientists and engineers are working on a crucial element of the MMS instrument suite: the Fast Plasma Instrument (FPI). Some 100 times faster than any previous similar instrument, the FPI will collect a full sky map of data at the rate of 30 times per second -- a necessary speed given that MMS will only travel through the reconnection site for under a second.
"Imagine flying by a tiny object on an airplane very rapidly," says Craig Pollock, the Co-Investigator for FPI at Goddard. "You want to capture a good picture of it, but you don't get to just walk around it and take your time snapping photos from different angles. You have to grab quick shots as you're passing. That's the challenge."
FPI is being assembled at Goddard, from sub-assemblies built there, at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and at the Meisei Electric Company, Ltd. in Isasaki Japan. FPI sensors are being tested at Goddard, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and at Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science near Tokyo.
During the last week of March, 2012, researchers from all four teams came together at the Low Energy Electron and Ion Facility (LEEIF) at the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville to test part of the FPI: the Dual Ion Spectrometer (DIS) flight sensors built at Mesei. The tests focused on the instrument's response when exposed to the space environment.
In the LEEIF facility, scientists and engineers expose the Dual Ion Spectrometer to ion beams of specific energy from specific directions to determine the response. This known response will be used to calibrate the flight data. Each of the MMS spacecraft will need four spectrometers, so there are 16 DIS instruments total. They will be paired with 16 Dual Electron Spectrometers (DES) and 6 Instrument Data Processing Units (IDPUs) that are being built at Goddard to complete the full FPI.
###
Goddard manages the MMS mission. Dr. James L. Burch at Southwest Research Institute is the principal investigator for the MMS science investigation. Marshall is a Co-Investigator institution and part of the FPI team.
For more information on the MMS Mission, visit:
http://mms.gsfc.nasa.gov/?
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Goddard collaborates with international partners on MMS instrumentPublic release date: 30-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Susan Hendrix Susan.m.hendrix@nasa.gov 301-286-7745 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, for a planned launch in 2014
Whether it's a giant solar flare or a beautiful green-blue aurora, just about everything interesting in space weather happens due to a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection. Reconnection occurs when magnetic field lines cross and create a burst of energy. These bursts can be so energetic they could be measured in megatons of TNT. To study this phenomenon, NASA is readying a fleet of four identical spacecraft, the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, for a planned launch in 2014.
At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., a team of scientists and engineers are working on a crucial element of the MMS instrument suite: the Fast Plasma Instrument (FPI). Some 100 times faster than any previous similar instrument, the FPI will collect a full sky map of data at the rate of 30 times per second -- a necessary speed given that MMS will only travel through the reconnection site for under a second.
"Imagine flying by a tiny object on an airplane very rapidly," says Craig Pollock, the Co-Investigator for FPI at Goddard. "You want to capture a good picture of it, but you don't get to just walk around it and take your time snapping photos from different angles. You have to grab quick shots as you're passing. That's the challenge."
FPI is being assembled at Goddard, from sub-assemblies built there, at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and at the Meisei Electric Company, Ltd. in Isasaki Japan. FPI sensors are being tested at Goddard, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and at Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science near Tokyo.
During the last week of March, 2012, researchers from all four teams came together at the Low Energy Electron and Ion Facility (LEEIF) at the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville to test part of the FPI: the Dual Ion Spectrometer (DIS) flight sensors built at Mesei. The tests focused on the instrument's response when exposed to the space environment.
In the LEEIF facility, scientists and engineers expose the Dual Ion Spectrometer to ion beams of specific energy from specific directions to determine the response. This known response will be used to calibrate the flight data. Each of the MMS spacecraft will need four spectrometers, so there are 16 DIS instruments total. They will be paired with 16 Dual Electron Spectrometers (DES) and 6 Instrument Data Processing Units (IDPUs) that are being built at Goddard to complete the full FPI.
###
Goddard manages the MMS mission. Dr. James L. Burch at Southwest Research Institute is the principal investigator for the MMS science investigation. Marshall is a Co-Investigator institution and part of the FPI team.
For more information on the MMS Mission, visit:
http://mms.gsfc.nasa.gov/?
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Happen to have an extra 2000 pounds of glass laying around? In need of a saturday afternoon project? Why not shatter all that glass and make it look like silicon oxide is oozing from your windows? More »
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Bigger isn't necessarily better but in the case of Jawbone's Jambox, it might actually work out. Typically known for their Bluetooth headsets and the ![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sFkw4fErVc9o8DrWeljOlwQGP6PyiV7eIzcXH72buQ30e2P88cVsu_YuSJEhFiyX9jExV-E1UI_Mdj3yrL2GiAsmnO8dGzewjz3M3-vkM=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 30-Apr-2012
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