Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . Mosquitoes use their own kind of eHarmony to find a compatible mate. New research shows that male and female mosquitoes sing duets of matching love songs by vibrating their wings. The annoying recordings of mosquito duets aren’t likely to go platinum, but they give researchers some interesting new ways to think about courtship behavior in insects.http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.US
The study, published online January 8 in Science, finds that male and female Aedes aegypti — carriers of dengue and yellow fever — change the pitch of their buzzing to match each other’s harmonics. The results go “way beyond the accepted dogma on hearing in mosquitoes and perhaps indeed in other organisms,” comments Daniel Robert, an expert on insect hearing at the University of Bristol in England. http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.US
A female mosquito’s come-hither buzz, produced by vibrating her wings at a certain rate, is irresistible to males. Scientists have long thought that male mosquitoes could hear just enough sound to locate and home in on a female, says coauthor of the new study Ronald Hoy, of Cornell University.
What’s more, females were thought to be totally deaf. The importance of female behavior in animals has been overlooked until the last few decades, says Hoy. “The assumption was that it’s all about the guys,” he says.
Understanding how mosquitoes really woo one another may lead to new ways to stop their reproduction, which in turn could halt the spread of diseases mosquitoes carry.
A single female mosquito flying through the air produces a complex sound made up of a fundamental tone — which hovers around 400 hertz — and a stack of harmonics. Sometimes called overtones, harmonics are multiples of the fundamental tone. A female mosquito therefore can produce tones of around 400, 800 and 1200 hertz, says Hoy.
In the new experiments, researchers delicately tethered live mosquitoes to the ends of flexible wires, and recorded the tones made by the wings as a male and female mosquito came within a few centimeters of each other. Although the fundamental tones for each mosquito didn’t change very much during a “fly by”— females still produced a fundamental 400-hertz tone and males a 600-hertz tone — each mosquito produced a faint harmonic note, right around 1200 hertz, that was closely in sync.
That these sweet nothings are matched means that the female hears and responds to the presence of the male, and vice versa, shattering the notion that female mosquitoes are inactive bystanders in courtship behavior, the team suggests. At the same time, 1200 hertz far exceeds the accepted range of male mosquito hearing.
“You’re not going to hear the harmonic until you’re really close. It’s like whispering sweet nothings,” says Hoy. Picking out these loving murmurs is an acoustic feat. “I doubt that humans — except for a few musicians with great, and trained, ears — could do that,” he says.
A 2006 study first suggested that females may have an active role in courtship. That study showed that females of the nonblood feeding mosquito Toxorhynchites brevipalpis match fundamental notes with males, a feat that would be impossible if females were deaf.
This “acoustical interactivity,” as Hoy and colleagues call it, may be an important step for mosquito reproduction.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
smith 6.smi.0 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . Former suspect in teacher's murder tries to clear name with book
Friday, January 02, 2009
BY PETE SHELLEM
Of The Patriot-News
The day former high school principal Jay C. Smith was released from death row by the state Supreme Court, in his usual understated fashion, he asked for a nuclear bomb to drop on Pennsylvania. http://louis2j2sheehan.bloggerteam.com
"That's how bitter I feel," Smith said shortly after walking from the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon. "The Pennsylvania State Police tried to kill me."
That day was in 1992. Smith had spent six years on death row after being convicted of the murders of Montgomery County English teacher Susan Reinert and her two children.
Now Smith is trying to drop a bomb on author Joseph Wambaugh, the man he blames for his murder convictions, in the form of a self-published book, "Joseph Wambaugh and the Jay Smith Case."
"I wanted to make sure that if anybody ever studied Wambaugh in the future that they would find out what he wanted to do to me," Smith said.
Smith's case changed the state of the law in Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court overturned his convictions, ruling that prosecutors had acted so outrageously, hiding deals with informants and evidence that would have supported Smith's defense, that to try him again would amount to double jeopardy.
Usually, when errors are made in a criminal case, the remedy offered by appellate courts is a new trial. Before the Smith ruling, double jeopardy, which prevents a new prosecution, was granted only when defendants were acquitted or when prosecutors had deliberately provoked a mistrial.
A few months before the court's ruling, a junkman removed a box of evidence from the home of Jack Holtz, the lead investigator in the case.
The key piece of evidence in that box, dealing a major blow to the case, was a letter from Wambaugh offering $50,000 for information on the condition that Smith be arrested and face court. There also were documents that showed Holtz collected the money.
Although the high court didn't mention the new evidence when it ruled, it was clear the case was falling apart and another conviction would have been doubtful. Almost all of the evidence against Smith was compromised in some fashion before the court ruled.
Wambaugh, whose book about the Reinert case, "Echoes in the Darkness," was made into a television miniseries, recently told the Philadelphia Inquirer he still believes Smith is guilty.
In a telephone interview with The Patriot-News, which broke the story about Wambaugh's deal with Holtz, Wambaugh angrily denied that his actions affected the case.
"Nothing came out that would give him anything in a fair-minded court of law," Wambaugh said.
"You notice how big my name is and how little his name is on the cover of the book? He's trying to sucker people in and make them believe I wrote the book. He's trying to make a buck. He's using you. We have to have more integrity than this."
Smith's book is something of a memoir but concentrates mainly on his troubles with the law and his claims of persecution. At 80, he remains obsessed with clearing his name.
"I would like to make money -- anybody would -- but the principal motive was to make sure there was something in print about what happened to me," he said. "I don't believe there would have been a case had [Wambaugh] not got into it and paid them money."
Smith was convicted in 1986 of conspiring with William S. Bradfield Jr., another English teacher in the Upper Merion Area School District, to kill Reinert, whose nude and battered body was found in the trunk of a car abandoned in the parking lot of a Swatara Twp. motel in 1979. They also were found guilty of murdering her two children, whose bodies have never been found.
Bradfield, who was Reinert's fiance and the beneficiary of her $750,000 life insurance policy, was convicted in 1983 and died in prison in 1998 while serving three life terms.
Smith had been arrested on gun charges while creeping around vans in a parking lot in Chester County wearing a hood and brandishing two pistols.
A subsequent search of his home turned up three pounds of marijuana and property that had been taken from the school.
It also turned up a uniform that authorities used to tie him to the theft of money from Sears stores by someone wearing a Brinks uniform.
The day Reinert's body was found, Smith was being sentenced in Dauphin County Court for the other crimes. A commemorative comb from his Army Reserve unit was found under her body.
The same comb, which was supposedly being held in evidence, was found in the box in Holtz's attic, an apparent souvenir that was replaced by a duplicate at trial.
An Army Reserve colonel who holds a doctorate in education administration, Smith became a personal care home administrator after his release and most recently ran an adult day care center. He is retired and lives with his wife, Maureen, in Luzerne County.
Holtz, who was glamorized in Wambaugh's book, retired under internal investigation, and his work in other cases has since come under scrutiny. The prosecutor in the case, Richard L. Guida, was sent to jail for cocaine use.
Smith sued Wambaugh and the state police, but he lost. http://louis2j2sheehan.bloggerteam.com
In his book, Smith claims he is innocent of all the charges against him, not only the murders.
He blames his daughter's heroin addiction for his downward spiral. He said he had the guns and mask when he was arrested because his daughter had robbed his home and he was trying to recover his property.
"That was the beginning of it, and that set off a huge amount of publicity," he said.
Smith's daughter, Stephanie Hunsberger, and her husband, Edward, were reported missing in 1978 and have not been found.
Smith published his book through Xlibris, an online service that charged him $1,800 to print it. He receives about $10 for each book that sells. The book is listed on Amazon.com and is available in Barnes & Noble bookstores.
PETE SHELLEM: 255-8156 or pshellem@patriot-news.com
©2009 Patriot-News
© 2009 PennLive.com All Rights Reserved. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Friday, January 02, 2009
BY PETE SHELLEM
Of The Patriot-News
The day former high school principal Jay C. Smith was released from death row by the state Supreme Court, in his usual understated fashion, he asked for a nuclear bomb to drop on Pennsylvania. http://louis2j2sheehan.bloggerteam.com
"That's how bitter I feel," Smith said shortly after walking from the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon. "The Pennsylvania State Police tried to kill me."
That day was in 1992. Smith had spent six years on death row after being convicted of the murders of Montgomery County English teacher Susan Reinert and her two children.
Now Smith is trying to drop a bomb on author Joseph Wambaugh, the man he blames for his murder convictions, in the form of a self-published book, "Joseph Wambaugh and the Jay Smith Case."
"I wanted to make sure that if anybody ever studied Wambaugh in the future that they would find out what he wanted to do to me," Smith said.
Smith's case changed the state of the law in Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court overturned his convictions, ruling that prosecutors had acted so outrageously, hiding deals with informants and evidence that would have supported Smith's defense, that to try him again would amount to double jeopardy.
Usually, when errors are made in a criminal case, the remedy offered by appellate courts is a new trial. Before the Smith ruling, double jeopardy, which prevents a new prosecution, was granted only when defendants were acquitted or when prosecutors had deliberately provoked a mistrial.
A few months before the court's ruling, a junkman removed a box of evidence from the home of Jack Holtz, the lead investigator in the case.
The key piece of evidence in that box, dealing a major blow to the case, was a letter from Wambaugh offering $50,000 for information on the condition that Smith be arrested and face court. There also were documents that showed Holtz collected the money.
Although the high court didn't mention the new evidence when it ruled, it was clear the case was falling apart and another conviction would have been doubtful. Almost all of the evidence against Smith was compromised in some fashion before the court ruled.
Wambaugh, whose book about the Reinert case, "Echoes in the Darkness," was made into a television miniseries, recently told the Philadelphia Inquirer he still believes Smith is guilty.
In a telephone interview with The Patriot-News, which broke the story about Wambaugh's deal with Holtz, Wambaugh angrily denied that his actions affected the case.
"Nothing came out that would give him anything in a fair-minded court of law," Wambaugh said.
"You notice how big my name is and how little his name is on the cover of the book? He's trying to sucker people in and make them believe I wrote the book. He's trying to make a buck. He's using you. We have to have more integrity than this."
Smith's book is something of a memoir but concentrates mainly on his troubles with the law and his claims of persecution. At 80, he remains obsessed with clearing his name.
"I would like to make money -- anybody would -- but the principal motive was to make sure there was something in print about what happened to me," he said. "I don't believe there would have been a case had [Wambaugh] not got into it and paid them money."
Smith was convicted in 1986 of conspiring with William S. Bradfield Jr., another English teacher in the Upper Merion Area School District, to kill Reinert, whose nude and battered body was found in the trunk of a car abandoned in the parking lot of a Swatara Twp. motel in 1979. They also were found guilty of murdering her two children, whose bodies have never been found.
Bradfield, who was Reinert's fiance and the beneficiary of her $750,000 life insurance policy, was convicted in 1983 and died in prison in 1998 while serving three life terms.
Smith had been arrested on gun charges while creeping around vans in a parking lot in Chester County wearing a hood and brandishing two pistols.
A subsequent search of his home turned up three pounds of marijuana and property that had been taken from the school.
It also turned up a uniform that authorities used to tie him to the theft of money from Sears stores by someone wearing a Brinks uniform.
The day Reinert's body was found, Smith was being sentenced in Dauphin County Court for the other crimes. A commemorative comb from his Army Reserve unit was found under her body.
The same comb, which was supposedly being held in evidence, was found in the box in Holtz's attic, an apparent souvenir that was replaced by a duplicate at trial.
An Army Reserve colonel who holds a doctorate in education administration, Smith became a personal care home administrator after his release and most recently ran an adult day care center. He is retired and lives with his wife, Maureen, in Luzerne County.
Holtz, who was glamorized in Wambaugh's book, retired under internal investigation, and his work in other cases has since come under scrutiny. The prosecutor in the case, Richard L. Guida, was sent to jail for cocaine use.
Smith sued Wambaugh and the state police, but he lost. http://louis2j2sheehan.bloggerteam.com
In his book, Smith claims he is innocent of all the charges against him, not only the murders.
He blames his daughter's heroin addiction for his downward spiral. He said he had the guns and mask when he was arrested because his daughter had robbed his home and he was trying to recover his property.
"That was the beginning of it, and that set off a huge amount of publicity," he said.
Smith's daughter, Stephanie Hunsberger, and her husband, Edward, were reported missing in 1978 and have not been found.
Smith published his book through Xlibris, an online service that charged him $1,800 to print it. He receives about $10 for each book that sells. The book is listed on Amazon.com and is available in Barnes & Noble bookstores.
PETE SHELLEM: 255-8156 or pshellem@patriot-news.com
©2009 Patriot-News
© 2009 PennLive.com All Rights Reserved. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
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