Laboratory Equipment

Today in Lab History: May 20, 1851- Emil Berliner

Emil Berliner German-American inventor who made important contributions to telephone technology and developed the phonograph record disk, the microphone in 1877 and the gramophone in 1887. Whereas Thomas Edison invented cylindrical records, Berliner came up with the idea of using disks. He coined the word gramophone as is trademark. Later, he became a pioneer in helicopter design.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/09/today-lab-history

Physicists Explore the Secrets of Hearing Secrets

Scientists don’t fully understand how we detect faint sounds, because they should be drowned out by the background noise that the ear itself produces. Now, however, researchers at UCLA have produced clues to the process that allows us to hear a pin drop, or understand a whispered comment. They did so using hair cells taken from bullfrogs that they studied in laboratory glassware.

The UCLA team used an optical microscope and a high-speed camera to detect how the relationship between signals from faint sounds and bundles of the frogs’ ear hairs differs from that between signals from louder sounds and the hair bundles.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/physicists-explore-secrets-hearing-secrets

Glasses Read to the Blind

A unique pair of eyeglasses developed by a Florida International Univ. (FIU) student team could revolutionize the lives of the blind, enabling them to walk into a library or a store, pick up any book or a can of soup and read it. The Eyetalk concept, initially conceived for a student competition in social entrepreneurship, has been hailed by venture investors as a potentially breakthrough product that could make a difference for disabled people worldwide. This week, it was recognized as one of 12 semi-finalists in the FIU Track of the Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/videos/2013/04/glasses-read-blind

Hearing Aid Caters to Users’ Preferences

A new hearing instrument is challenging the commonly held perception that when it comes to sound quality, people with hearing difficulties prefer “louder.” In fact, people with hearing loss, like most people, have a wide range of preferences for the quality and type of sounds that sound best to them.

Oticon Alta, the newest hearing solution from leading manufacturer Oticon Inc., introduces a new and better way for hearing care professionals to factor more personal dimensions into each fitting for a hearing solution that is as unique and individual as each patient.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/hearing-aid-caters-users%E2%80%99-preferences

Researchers Reveal Laser-Based Acousto-optic Mapping

The National Physical Laboratory has developed a laser-based acoustic mapping technique, collaborating with PMC loudspeakers to adapt the technique into a valuable design tool.

NPL scientists have furthered their development of a novel acousto-optic laser-based measurement technique for mapping how sound radiates from acoustic sources. Through collaboration with PMC Ltd, a manufacturer of high-end loudspeakers, the experimental technique has been honed into an industrially relevant and valuable tool for the design and testing of acoustic products, namely loudspeakers.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/researchers-reveal-laser-based-acousto-optic-mapping

Ultrasound Key to More Efficient Engines

A system that uses ultrasound technology to look inside car engines could lead to more efficient engines – and huge fuel savings for motorists.

Ultrasound scans have long been a fundamental tool in healthcare for looking inside the human body, but they have never before been put to use in testing the health of a modern combustion engine. In the Univ. of Sheffield’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rob Dwyer-Joyce, professor of lubrication engineering, has devised a method of using ultrasound to measure how efficiently an engine’s pistons are moving up and down inside their cylinders.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/12/ultrasound-key-more-efficient-engines

Beluga Mimics Human Sounds

It could be the muffled sound of singing in the shower or that sing-songy indecipherable voice from the Muppets’ Swedish Chef. Surprisingly, scientists say the audio they captured was a whale imitating people. In fact, the whale song sounded so eerily human that divers initially thought it was a human voice.

Handlers at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego heard mumbling in 1984 coming from a tank containing whales and dolphins that sounded like two people chatting far away. It wasn’t until one day, after a diver surfaced from the tank and asked, “Who told me to get out?” did researchers realize the garble came from a captive male Beluga whale.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/10/beluga-mimics-human-sounds

Sound Waves Expedite Live Cell Research

Researchers from North Carolina State Univ. and Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed a new technique that uses sound waves to rapidly separate selected collections of cells for use in biomedical research.

“We think this is important because it will make it faster and easier for researchers to sort out the live cells they need for research ranging from disease study to drug development,” says Xiaoning Jiang, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/10/sound-waves-expedite-live-cell-research

Brain Wiring Explains Why Noises Make People Cringe

Heightened activity between the emotional and auditory parts of the brain explains why the sound of chalk on a blackboard or a knife on a bottle is so unpleasant.

In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience and funded by the Wellcome Trust, Newcastle Univ. scientists reveal the interaction between the region of the brain that processes sound, the auditory cortex, and the amygdala, which is active in the processing of negative emotions when we hear unpleasant sounds. Brain imaging has shown that when we hear an unpleasant noise the amygdala modulates the response of the auditory cortex heightening activity and provoking our negative reaction.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/10/brain-wiring-explains-why-noises-make-people-cringe

Researchers Hope to Find ‘Extinct’ Frog Through Sound

Queensland Univ. of Technology researchers could soon have sound reason to believe Queensland’s unique gastric brooding frog still exists in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Using world-first, QUT-developed environmental acoustic sensor technology, a team of researchers is harnessing the help of the conservation community around Maleny to place the continuous recording devices near creeks in ten locations on private land in the hopes of recording the frogs’ call. Last seen in the wild in 1981 in the Conondale Ranges, the unassuming, small, brown frog has a strange way of parenting, says QUT ecologist Ian Williamson from QUT’s School of Earth, Environmental and Biological Sciences.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/10/researchers-hope-find-%E2%80%98extinct%E2%80%99-frog-through-sound

Sound Wave Levitation Improves Drug Development

It’s not a magic trick and it’s not sleight of hand – scientists really are using levitation to improve the drug development process, eventually yielding more effective pharmaceuticals with fewer side effects.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a way to use sound waves to levitate individual droplets of solutions containing different pharmaceuticals. While the connection between levitation and drug development may not be immediately apparent, a special relationship emerges at the molecular level.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/videos/2012/09/sound-wave-levitation-improves-drug-development

Underwater Noise Harms Whale Communication

According to a NOAA-led paper published today in the journal Conservation Biology, high levels of background noise, mainly due to ships, have reduced the ability of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales to communicate with each other by about two-thirds.

From 2007 until 2010, scientists from Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center and Marine Acoustics Inc. used an array of acoustic recorders to monitor noise levels, measure levels of sound associated with vessels and to record distinctive sounds made by multiple species of endangered baleen whales, including “up-calls” made by right whales to maintain contact with each other.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/08/underwater-noise-harms-whale-communication

Acoustic Waves Can Be Used to Fight Fire

Fire in enclosed military environments such as ship holds, aircraft cockpits and ground vehicles is a major cause of material destruction and jeopardizes the lives of soldiers. For example, a shipboard fire on the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in May 2008 burned for 12 hours and caused an estimated $70 million in damage. For nearly 50 years, despite the severity of the threat from fire, no new methods for extinguishing or manipulating fire were developed. In 2008, DARPA launched the Instant Fire Suppression (IFS) program to develop a fundamental understanding of fire with the aim of transforming approaches to firefighting.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-Acoustic-Waves-Can-Be-Used-to-Fight-Fire-071812.aspx