Understanding the chicken’s squawk

Translating poultry-speak could help farmers breed healthier birds in a more eco-friendly way

Mirror Bureau

Posted On Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 08:37:39 AM

Chickens can’t speak, but they can definitely make themselves heard. Most people who have visited a poultry farm will recall chicken vocalisation — the technical term for clucking or squawking — as a memorable part of the experience. • Researcher David Anderson analyses chicken vocalisations digitally for clues that may help engineers and poultry scientists better control environmental conditions for the birds Researchers now believe that such avian expressiveness may be more than idle chatter. A project being conducted by the Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia are investigating whether the birds’ volubility can provide clues to how healthy and comfortable they are. And that could be valuable information. “Many poultry pros swear they can walk into a grow-out house and tell whether a flock is happy or stressed just by listening to them vocalise,” said Wayne Daley, the lead researcher. “The trouble is, it has proved hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that they’re hearing.” Nevertheless, scientists are convinced that poultry farmers are detecting something real. Recent research indicates that it is possible to differentiate how the birds react to various conditions based on their vocalisations. “The behaviour of chickens is one of the best and most immediate indicators of their well-being,” said Bruce Webster, who is part of the project. “Chickens are vocal creatures and produce different types of sounds at different rates and loudness depending on circumstances.” “If what farmers hear and sense can be defined and quantified, sensors to detect cues from the birds themselves could really make a difference in providing real-time data on house environment, bird health, and comfort,” said Michael Lacy, from the University of Georgia. The industry has guidelines covering temperature, air quality and stocking density. Nevertheless, costly problems can still crop up — control systems malfunction, or ideal levels can turn out to be problematic. “That’s where being able to judge the flock’s behaviour can be so important,” Daley said. “Your temperature sensors might say that things are fine, but the birds could be telling you that they think it’s too warm or other changes have occurred to make the conditions less ideal.” From a professional’s viewpoint, the flock’s opinion is the definitive one. Chickens take only six weeks to go from hatching to full weight; stressful conditions can retard their growth, reducing their market value. The research team has conducted several experiments in which they have exposed flocks to mildly stressful environmental changes. For example, temperature or ammonia levels might be increased from their initial settings for a few hours, then returned to the original level. The researchers have recorded the flocks’ vocal reactions, with videos. To date, more than 4TB of audio data has been gathered. To decode mass vocalising, the researchers are extracting particular features of the sound, such as speed, volume, pitch and other qualities. Then he’s utilising machine learning — in which computers recognise complex patterns in data and make decisions based on those patterns — to analyse the extracted features that may convey specific meanings.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012 Riddle of rising sea levels said solved

PARIS — Massive extraction of groundwater can resolve the puzzle over rising sea levels seen in past decades, Japanese scientists said Sunday.

Global sea levels rose an average of 1.8 mm per year from 1961 to 2003, according to data from tide gauges. But the big question is how much of this can be pinned on global warming?

In its landmark 2007 report, the U.N.'s Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ascribed 1.1 mm per year to thermal expansion of the oceans — water expands when it is heated — and to meltwater from glaciers, icecaps and the Greenland and Antarctica icecaps.

That left 0.7 mm per year unaccounted for, a mystery that left many scientists wondering if the data were correct or if there were sources that eluded them.

In a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team led by Yadu Pokhrel of the University of Tokyo says the answer lies in water that is extracted from underground aquifers, rivers and lakes for human development but is never replenished.

The water eventually makes its way to the sea via rivers and evaporation in the soil, they noted.

Groundwater extraction is the main component of additions that account for the mystery gap, according to their paper, which was based on computer modeling.

"Together, unsustainable groundwater use, artificial reservoir water impoundment, climate-driven change in terrestrial water storage and the loss of water from closed basins have contributed a sea-level rise of 0.77 mm per year between 1961 and 2003, about 42 percent of the observed sea-level rise," the paper said.

The probe sought to fill one of the knowledge gaps in the complex science of climate change.

Researchers admit to many unknowns about how the oceans respond to warming, and one of them is sea-level rise, an important question for hundreds of millions of coastal dwellers.

Just a tiny rise, if repeated year on year, can eventually have a dramatic impact in locations that are vulnerable to storm surges or the influx of saltwater into aquifers or coastal fields.

In its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC said the oceans will rise by between 18 and 59 cm by the end of the century.

But this estimate did not factor in meltwater from the mighty Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

reveal your vital blood information in real-time, simply by shining a light through the skin.

WASHINGTON: Does the sight of a needle raise your anxiety level? Don't worry, scientists have now developed a new device which they say can reveal your vital blood information in real-time, simply by shining a light through the skin.

Devised by a team at the Israel Institute of Technology, this optical instrument, no bigger than a breadbox, is able to provide high-resolution images of blood coursing through our veins without the need for harsh fluorescent dyes.

"We have invented a new optical microscope that can see individual blood cells as they flow inside our body," study researcher Lior Golan was quoted as saying by ScienceDaily. The new microscope can eliminate the wait-time for blood test results and help spotlight warning signs, like high white blood cell count, before a patient develops severe medical problems, Golan said.

The device's portability could also enable doctors in rural areas without easy access to medical labs to screen large populations for blood disorders, he noted.

Using their new device, the researchers imaged the blood flowing through a vessel in the lower lip of a volunteer. They successfully measured the diameter of the red and white blood cells and also calculated the per cent volume of the different cell types - a key measurement for many medical diagnoses.