Category Every Day Science

HOW CAN RADIOS HELP NATURALISTS?

By putting collars with radio transmitters onto wild animals, naturalists have been able to track their movements, night and day, adding enormously to our knowledge of animal behaviour. The collars do not interfere with the animals’ normal lives. As well as learning about animal migrations and hunting patterns, naturalists are also able to discover more about the life span of animals in the wild, which may differ enormously from that of those kept in zoos and wildlife parks.

Since a protracted durable the tightlipped animals are studied by man, creating use of the many a method. Of course, within the starting it had been the employment of the fundamental explanation that helped them study animals. Folks would watch them, follow their tracks, creating interpretations etc. Those were the times of the co–existence for man and animal. The diversity of the kingdom is exploited so as that each little and enormous animals is tracked and monitored victimization constant system. Application of geoinformatics (remote sensing, Geographic system (GIS) associate degreed GPS) has enjoying an progressively vital role in conservation biology and life management by providing means that for grouping point and habitats data of life. Another advantage of the system is that the facility to integrate non–spatial knowledge directly, purpose knowledge collected from the sphere, GPS knowledge of life observance, pugmarks, scats, pellets etc. are fed directly and might generate a separate layer. But the trendy research goes on the far side the radio signals. It helps researchers to urge additional precise answers to the targeted queries concerning environs, migration patterns among others. And these answers are quantitative and analytical. Also, the advancement in technology has helped scientists to try to analysis victimization additional non–invasive means that and besides create the invasive ways safer. Each time a GPS radio collars tries to record a location it records data on the date, time and latitude. This data is then utilized to calculate the gap between locations, travel speed, location methods, direction, daily activity levels, home ranges, and analysis of spatial and temporal variations in behavior.

Recent technologies have helped solve the matter of untamed life following. Some electronic tags provide off signals that are picked up by radio devices or satellites whereas alternative electronic tags may embody deposit tags. Scientists will track the movement and locations of the labeled animals. These electronic tags will offer a good deal of information. Also, owing to their size and weight, electronic tags could produce drag on some animals, fastness them down. However, they’re costlier than the low–tech tags that are not electronic.

Tracking an animal by radio involves 2 devices. A VHF receiver picks up the signal, a bit like a home radio picks up a station’s signal. The receiver is sometimes during a truck, an ATV, or an airplane. To stay track of the signal, the soul follows the animal victimization the receiver. A transmitter attached to the animals sends out a proof within the type of radio waves, even as a radio station does. A soul would possibly place the transmitter around associate degree animal’s ankle, neck, wing, carapace, or dorsal fin. This approach of victimization radio following is accustomed track the animal manually however is additionally used once animals are equipped with alternative payloads.

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HOW DOES A VIDEO RECORDER WORK?

A video recorder stores television sound and pictures on a magnetic tape. It receives the electric signal that comes through a cable or aerial into the machine, then records it on tape in much the same way as a tape recorder does, although the video recorder makes diagonal tracks so that more information can be held on the tape. A record – replay head in the video recorder enables the information on tape to be sent to a television set.

Video tape recorder, also called Video Recorder, electromechanical device that records and reproduces an electronic signal containing audio and video information onto and from magnetic tape. It is commonly used for recording television productions that are intended for rebroadcasting to mass audiences. There are two types of video tape units: the transverse, or quad, and the helical.

The transverse unit uses four heads rotating on an axis perpendicular to the direction of 2-inch (5-centimetre) tape. The transverse format achieves a 1,500-inch-per-minute head-to-tape speed necessary for high picture quality. For broadcast industry needs, an audio track, control track, and cue track are added longitudinally. These units follow the standards of the North American Television Standards Commission—i.e., the electron beam sweeps 525 horizontal lines at 60 cycles per second.

The helical unit, designed for home and amateur use, uses half- or three-quarter-inch tape traveling around a drum in the form of a helix. There are various forms of these recorders: the playback deck can play back recorded programs but cannot record or erase; the video-record deck can record directly from a camera but cannot record off-the-air programs; the TV-record deck has an antenna and tuner for recording off-the-air programs. Portable reel-to-reel or cassette recorders are also produced.

Videotape has many uses in sport. For example, it may be used for an “action replay”, to check what really happened in a fast-moving sport. Athletes are also able to study videotape in order to see where they are making errors and so improve their technique.

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HOW DOES A TELEVISION SHOW PICTURES?

Television technology uses electric signals through cables or ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio waves to transmit pictures and sound to a television set, which acts as a receiver. The signals come into the television through a cable or an aerial. The picture signals are divided into three — one each for red, green and blue. In the television, there is an electron gun for each colour, which fires electron beams (also known as cathode rays) onto the screen. The screen is covered with chemicals called phosphors. The electron beams scan rapidly across the screen, causing tiny dots of phosphors to glow red, green and blue. Viewed with normal vision, from a distance, the dots blur into a full-colour picture.

Most people spend hours each day watching programming on their TV set, however, many people might wonder how in fact television works. There are many parts to this process and many technologies that are involved. Following are the most important processes and technologies involved in making television work.

Main Elements of the TV Process

There are many major elements that are required in order for TV to work. They usually include a video source, an audio source, a transmitter, a receiver, a display device, and a sound device.

Video Source

The video source is the image or program. It can be a TV show, news program, live feed or movie. Usually the video source has already been recorded by a camera.How TV Works?

Audio Source

Besides the video source, we also need the audio source. Practically all movies, TV shows and news programs have some sought of audio. Audio source can be in the form of mono, stereo or digitally processed to be later played back with surround sound.

Transmitter

The transmitter is necessary for broadcast television companies that broadcast a free signal to viewers in their area. The transmitter transmits both the video and audio signals over the air waves. Both audio and video signals are electrical in nature and are transformed into radio waves which can then be picked up by receivers (your TV set). A transmitter not only transmits one channels audio or video signal, but in most cases many different channels.

Receiver (TV set)

A receiver is usually integrated in your TV set and this receiver is able to grab radio waves (the transmitted signal) and process these radio waves back to audio and video electric signals that can now be played on your TV set.

Display Device

A display device is usually a TV set, but can also be just a monitor. The display device is able to receive electrical signals (usually sent from the receiver) and turn these electrical signals to a viewable image. Most standard TV sets incorporate a cathode ray tube (CRT), however new display devices can include LCD (liquid crystal display) and Plasma (gas charged display) display devices among others.

Sound Device

While most sound devices are built into your TV set in the form of speakers. Audio signals are obviously needed to match up with the video being shown to the viewer. Many newer TV sets have outputs to send the TV sound to high quality speakers that reproduce sound much better. Since audio signals can include surround sound technology, the TV set is able to send audio signals to the proper speakers located around your room.

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HOW CAN LENSES CHANGE OUR VIEW?

The way in which we see the world has been greatly influenced by photography. We are used to seeing printed images that we could never see with our naked eyes, either because they happen too fast, or because a special camera lens has allowed an extraordinary view to be taken.

Macro-photography is a way of photographing very small objects by using special macro lenses. Used for both still and moving pictures, macro-photography has transformed our knowledge of the way that living things, such as insects, behave.

Macro photography is extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects and living organisms like insects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size (though macro-photography technically refers to the art of making very large photographs). By the original definition, a macro photograph is one in which the size of the subject on the negative or image sensor is life size or greater. However, in some uses it refers to a finished photograph of a subject at greater than life size.

The ratio of the subject size on the film plane (or sensor plane) to the actual subject size is known as the reproduction ratio. Likewise, a macro lens is classically a lens capable of reproduction ratios of at least 1:1, although it often refers to any lens with a large reproduction ratio, despite rarely exceeding 1:1.

Apart from technical photography and film-based processes, where the size of the image on the negative or image sensor is the subject of discussion, the finished print or on-screen image more commonly lends a photograph its macro status. For example, when producing a 6×4 inch (15×10 cm) print using 35formet (36×24 mm) film or sensor, a life-size result is possible with a lens having only a 1:4 reproduction ratio.

Reproduction ratios much greater than 10:1 are considered to be photomicrography, often achieved with digital microscope (photomicrography should not be confused with microphotography, the art of making very small photographs, such as for microforms).

Due to advances in sensor technology, today’s small-sensor digital cameras can rival the macro capabilities of a DSLR with a “true” macro lens, despite having a lower reproduction ratio, making macro photography more widely accessible at a lower cost. In the digital age, a “true” macro photograph can be more practically defined as a photograph with a vertical subject height of 24 mm or less.

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HOW CAN PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MADE TO MOVE?

Moving pictures, or movies, do not really have moving images at all. They are simply a series of still photographs, shown rapidly one after the other. Our brains are not able to distinguish the individual images at that speed, so we see what appears to be a moving picture.

Film, also called movie or motion picture, is a visual art-form used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty or atmosphere, by the means of recorded or programmed moving images, along with sound (and more rarely) other sensory stimulations. The word “cinema”, short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.

The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects.

Traditionally, films were recorded onto celluloid film through a photochemical process and then shown through a movie projector onto a large screen. Contemporary films are often fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition, while films recorded in a photochemical form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack (a graphic recording of the spoken words, music and other sounds that accompany the images which runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it, and is not projected).

The movie camera, film camera or cine-camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on an image sensor or on a film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the movie camera takes a series of images; each image constitutes a “frame”. This is accomplished through an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a movie projector at a specific speed, called the frame rate (number of frames per second). While viewing at a particular frame rate, a person’s eyes and brain merge the separate pictures to create the illusion of motion.

Since the 2000s, film-based movie cameras have been largely (but not completely) replaced by digital movie cameras.

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WHO INVENTED THE LOCOMOTIVE?

A Locomotive is an engine that can travel under its own power, not pulled by horses, for example. But we usually think of it as running on tracks, or tramways, as they were first called. In 1804, Richard Trevithick (1771-1833), an English inventor, designed a train to pull coal wagons in a Welsh colliery. Trevithick was convinced that steam engines had a great future and later travelled to Peru and Costa Rica, where he introduced steam engines into the silver mines.

In 1802, Richard Trevithick patented a “high pressure engine” and created the first steam-powered locomotive engine on rails.  Trevithick wrote on February 21, 1804, after the trial of his High Pressure Tram-Engine, that he “carry’d ten tons of Iron, five wagons, and 70 Men…above 9 miles…in 4 hours and 5 Mints.”  Though a ponderous-sounding journey, it was the first step toward an invention that would utterly change man’s relationship to time and space. 

George Stephenson and his son, Robert, built the first practical steam locomotive.  Stephenson built his “travelling engine” in 1814, which was used to haul coal at the Killingworth mine.  In 1829, the Stephenson built the famous locomotive Rocketwhich used a multi-tube boiler, a practice that continued in successive generations of steam engines.  The Rocket won the competition at the Rain-hill Trials held to settle the question of whether it was best to move wagons along rails by fixed steam engines using a pulley system or by using locomotive steam engines. The Rocket won the £500 prize with its average speed of 13 miles per hour (without pulling a load, the Rocket attained speeds up to 29 miles per hour), beating out Braithwaite and Erickson’s Novelty and Timothy Hackworth’s Sans Pareil.  The Stephenson incorporated elements into their engines that were used in succeeding generations of steam engines.

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