SCIENCESEARCH - innovative new products - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), June, 1999

A flashlight that can detect a human's presence through walls and doors could be used one day by police officers and guards to make their jobs safer. The device, created at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, uses radar and a specialized signal processor to detect small movements in a hiding subject's chest wall. The flashlight discerns respiration from up to 10 feet away, with no physical connection between the subject and the device.

A detector that illuminates fecal contamination on meat, developed by scientists at Iowa State University, Ames, could help industry meet safety regulations designed to control disease-causing bacteria. When viewed through the handheld unit, similar to metal detectors utilized in airports, contaminated meat fluoresces (glows), a signal that it must be sanitized before being processed further.

An optical detector so sensitive that it can clock the arrival of a single particle of light and measure its energy with exceptional precision has been developed by physicists at Stanford (Calif.) University. When applied to light coming from celestial objects, the device's ability to measure directly the location, arrival time, and energy of individual photons could have a revolutionary impact on optical astronomy, they predict.

Astronomers from the University of Chicago (Ill) and the University of California, San Diego, have found evidence of early stars that formed between galaxies, countering previously accepted thought that all stars form within galaxies. If confirmed, this would substantially alter current theories of cosmic evolution.

Uranus' ring system has a wobble, which may be caused by the planet's slightly flattened shape or the pull of its moons. The wobble was discovered by astronomers from the University of Arizona. Tucson, through time-lapse images taken by the Hubble Space telescope.

Analysis of ice cores drilled from a glacier atop a Bolivian volcano is painting a vivid picture of climatic conditions in the tropics over the past 25,000 years, says researcher Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University, Columbus. The ice at the bottom of the cores was formed during the last glacial maximum--the coldest part of the last ice age--making it the oldest ever recovered from the tropics.

A "mean gene" in Africanized honey-bees--the so-called killer bees--has been identified by scientists Greg Hunt. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.; Robert E. Page, University of California-Davis: and Ernesto Guzman-Novoa of Mexico's Agricultural Research Service. Analyzing the gene may lead to an understanding of what causes Africanized bees' aggressive stinging behavior.

Carbon dioxide can provide consumers with an environmentally friendly option for cleaning clothes, according to Nick Lombardo, a commercialization manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash. A new process combining compressed CO2 with detergents could replace conventional solvent-based cleaning with a method that uses no water, has low energy requirements, contains no toxic substance, and creates no waste disposal problems.

Robots that can operate in the harsh environment of a poultry processing plant could help increase efficiency and improve productivity. The Intelligent Integrated Belt Manipulator, developed at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, can move packaged chicken from a conveyor belt to shipping boxes. solving a major problem for the food processing industry--a shortage of low-skilled workers.