Hey look, everyone, I was on TV talking about bees in Connecticut!
(My boss, Kim, comes on around 2:05 and there’s me at 2:18 working in the field with my coworker Krystian! I even get to say a few derpy words at 2:43…)
No GPS Needed: Bumblebees Find Their Own Flight Paths
by Virginia Morell
Bumblebees foraging in flowers for nectar are like salesmen traveling between towns: Both seek the optimal route to minimize their travel costs. Mathematicians call this the “traveling salesman problem,” in which scientists try to calculate the shortest possible route given a theoretical arrangement of cities.
Bumblebees, however, take the brute-force approach: For them, it’s simply a matter of experience, plus trial and error, scientists report in the current issue of PLoS Biology. The study, the first to track the movements of bumblebees in the field, also suggests that bumblebees aren’t using cognitive maps—mental recreations of their environments—as some scientists have suggested, but rather are learning and remembering the distances and directions that need to be flown to find their way from nest to field to home again…
(read more: Science NOW) (image: Andrew Martin)
Bilateral gynandromorphism: a really fancy way of saying “half male, half female”.
This genetic anomaly is usually restricted to arthropods, but has been known to express itself in birds, as well. More interesting reading here.
(via tentaculata)
sun bear. recent studies have revealed this to be the best bear.
its science you can’t argue with it.
He’s right, you know.
(Source: silleloves)
My friend Jay works at the Harvard University Concord Field Station and was cool enough to show me around. The first picture is an insect flight wind tunnel. You can read a little more about what they do on the website. The next two pictures are me in the bird wind tunnel, because… well… clearly that was the only thing to do in that situation.
Rubber chicken survives solar storm radiation
The rubber chicken was equipped with badges to gauge the radiation in the Earth’s stratosphere.
SCIENCE!
(via memewhore)
