Dalsa Corp., of Waterloo, Ontario, announced it has received a $1.2 million contract to develop custom CCD cameras for a supplier of semiconductor inspection equipment. Dalsa said the high-speed cameras will be the "electronic eyes" in the customer's next-generation inspection system, which will enable semiconductor manufacturers to maintain better quality control, improve yield and lower costs. Development is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2006, with potential for follow-on volume production. . . . Gamma Scientific, a San Diego manufacturer of precision light-measurement instruments, recently hired Todd Heimer, formerly a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) research scientist, as director of East Coast sales and technical support at its new Malden, Mass., office. Heimer spent the past eight years at NIST, primarily as an independent research scientist in NIST's photometry group, and was responsible for the development of the laboratory's retroreflection-measurement facility. He also participated in NIST's infrared-imaging programs and research involving laser-based kinetic measurements on a new class of solar cells. . . . Hans Bethe, a Nobel laureate, emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University and an architect of atomic theory, was posthumously awarded the 2005 Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences by the American Philosophical Society (APS) Wednesday. Bethe died Sunday at age 98. The medal was presented to Bethe's widow, Rose, at their home in Ithaca by APS president Frank H.T. Rhodes, president emeritus of Cornell. Bethe's productive research career spanned eight decades. He played a pivotal role in designing the first atomic bomb and won a Nobel Prize in 1957 for figuring out how the sun and other stars generate energy. During World War II, he was a key figure in the building of the first atomic bomb as head of the Manhattan Project's theoretical physics division at Los Alamos, N.M. A senior statesman of science and advisor to US presidents on atomic energy, Bethe was a well-known critic of defense policy and a passionate advocate of arms control.