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This story is from the category Sensors
Date posted: 03/02/2009 Scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on Barro Colorado Island in Panama have installed a new system for tracking their subjects that could help revolutionize the labour-intensive business of field biology. Called the Automated Radio Telemetry System, the method relies on seven 130-foot-high radio towers scattered across the island that can monitor data from many radio-tagged individuals simultaneously, round the clock, through the calendar. Once an animal has been outfitted with a transmitting device, the towers can track its unique radio signature and, by a process of triangulation, indicate where it is on the island, whether it?s moving or at rest, what other radio-endowed individuals it encounters. The constant data streams feed into computers at a central lab building on the island, allowing researchers to stay abreast of far more animal sagas than they could possibly follow through direct observation, and to make the best of their hours in the field. If you see an extended flat line on your computer monitor, it?s time to go out, retrieve the corpse and figure out what happened. And because transmitters can now be made as light as two-tenths of a gram, scientists can tag and track katydids, orchid bees, monarch butterflies, even plant seeds. ?Automated systems like this are ushering in a new era of animal tracking,? said Roland Kays, another institute research associate. ?There?s a lot of potential for seeing the routes animals take and the decisions they make every step of the way.? See the full Story via external site: www.nytimes.com Most recent stories in this category (Sensors): 22/05/2013: New study finds blind people have the potential to u se their ‘inner bat’ to locate objects |
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