tingilinde

why some people appear to need less sleep

They may be wired that way

 

 

on forests and the planet

Watching for the Amazon's tipping point - what happens when it turns from carbon sink to carbon source?

And the importance of mature forests - guess where the greatest pressure is now.  Hint - it's not Indonesia or Brazil.

 

time crystals

A very clear discussion on time crystals by Frank Wilczek.

I had no idea Betsy named them, but I'm not surprised.

 

 

 

bird vision

Birds of prey have great visual acuity..  small birds don't.  Rather they have great temporal resolution.   The paper in PLoS ONE

 

Ultra-Rapid Vision in Birds

Jannika E. Boström1, Marina Dimitrova1,2, Cindy Canton1, Olle Håstad3, Anna Qvarnström1, Anders Ödeen1,3*
1 Department of Animal Ecology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, S-752 36, Uppsala, Sweden,
2 Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, S-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden, 3 Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7011, S-750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

 

Abstract

Flying animals need to accurately detect, identify and track fast-moving objects and these behavioral requirements are likely to strongly select for abilities to resolve visual detail in time. However, evidence of highly elevated temporal acuity relative to non-flying animals has so far been confined to insects while it has been missing in birds. With behavioral exper- iments on three wild passerine species, blue tits, collared and pied flycatchers, we demon- strate temporal acuities of vision far exceeding predictions based on the sizes and metabolic rates of these birds. This implies a history of strong natural selection on temporal resolution. These birds can resolve alternating light-dark cycles at up to 145 Hz (average: 129, 127 and 137, respectively), which is ca. 50 Hz over the highest frequency shown in any other vertebrate. We argue that rapid vision should confer a selective advantage in many bird species that are ecologically similar to the three species examined in our study. Thus, rapid vision may be a more typical avian trait than the famously sharp vision found in birds of prey.

 

remarkable image

from APOD the other day

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. - Douglas Adams A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

 

 

what egyptian fruit bats are talking about

They communicate directly with others and much of what they're talking about fits into four categories.

snip

...

They were able to classify 60 percent of the calls into four categories. One of the call types indicates the bats are arguing about food. Another indicates a dispute about their positions within the sleeping cluster. A third call is reserved for males making unwanted mating advances and the fourth happens when a bat argues with another bat sitting too close. In fact, the bats make slightly different versions of the calls when speaking to different individuals within the group, similar to a human using a different tone of voice when talking to different people. Skibba points out that besides humans, only dolphins and a handful of other species are known to address individuals rather than making broad communication sounds.

...

 

The paper in Nature Scientific Reports

 

Everyday bat vocalizations contain information about emitter, addressee, context, and behavior

Yosef Prat, Mor Taub & Yossi Yovel

Animal vocal communication is often diverse and structured. Yet, the information concealed in animal vocalizations remains elusive. Several studies have shown that animal calls convey information about their emitter and the context. Often, these studies focus on specific types of calls, as it is rarely possible to probe an entire vocal repertoire at once. In this study, we continuously monitored Egyptian fruit bats for months, recording audio and video around-the-clock. We analyzed almost 15,000 vocalizations, which accompanied the everyday interactions of the bats, and were all directed toward specific individuals, rather than broadcast. We found that bat vocalizations carry ample information about the identity of the emitter, the context of the call, the behavioral response to the call, and even the call’s addressee. Our results underline the importance of studying the mundane, pairwise, directed, vocal interactions of animals.

 

invest in livestock paint?

Painting cattle with zebra stripes helps them avoid biting flies.

 

Cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid biting fly attack

Tomoki KojimaID1*, Kazato Oishi2☯, Yasushi Matsubara1‡, Yuki Uchiyama1‡,
Yoshihiko Fukushima1‡, Naoto Aoki1‡, Say Sato1‡, Tatsuaki Masuda1‡, Junichi Ueda1,3☯, Hiroyuki Hirooka2☯, Katsutoshi Kino1☯
1 Animal Husbandry Division, Aichi Agricultural Research Center, Nagakute, Aichi, Japan, 2 Laboratory of Animal Husbandry Resources, Division of Applied Biosciences, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, 3 Aichi Veterinary Association, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

 

Abstract
Experimental and comparative studies suggest that the striped coats of zebras can prevent biting fly attacks. Biting flies are serious pests of livestock that cause economic losses in ani- mal production. We hypothesized that cows painted with black and white stripes on their body could avoid biting fly attacks and show fewer fly-repelling behaviors. Six Japanese Black cows were assigned to treatments using a 3 × 3 Latin-square design. The treatments were black-and-white painted stripes, black painted stripes, and no stripes (all-black body surface). Recorded fly-repelling behaviors were head throw, ear beat, leg stamp, skin twitch, and tail flick. Photo images of the right side of each cow were taken using a commercial digi- tal camera after every observation and biting flies on the body and each leg were counted from the photo images. Here we show that the numbers of biting flies on Japanese Black cows painted with black-and-white stripes were significantly lower than those on non- painted cows and cows painted only with black stripes. The frequencies of fly-repelling behaviors in cows painted with black-and-white stripes were also lower than those in the non-painted and black-striped cows. These results thus suggest that painting black-and- white stripes on livestock such as cattle can prevent biting fly attacks and provide an alterna- tive method of defending livestock against biting flies without using pesticides in animal production, thereby proposing a solution for the problem of pesticide resistance in the environment.

 

jim peebles

Half of the Nobel Prize in physics for pioneering physical cosmology.  To give a sense here's a recent non-speciaiist lecture at the Perimeter Institute

ghost forests of the mid-atlantic states

Rising sea levels are changing the landscape.  (via The New York Times)

 

 

herd immunity

Greg points out a nice visual explainer on herd immunity