Bees learn and teach new lessons

Bridges AD et al. Bumblebees acquire alternative puzzle-box solutions via social learning. PLOS Biology, March 2023.

A recent study showed that bumblebees can learn to solve puzzles from each other, and this behavior can quickly spread throughout a colony, suggesting an unexpected social capacity for these humble insects. The scientists designed a two-option puzzle box that could be opened either by pushing a red tab clockwise or a blue tab counter-clockwise to reveal a sugar reward.

“Demonstrator” bees were trained to use either the red or blue tabs, while “observer” bees watch. When it was the observers’ turn to solve the puzzle, 99% of the time they chose the same method that they had seen, even after discovering the alternative option. On the other hand, the control group, without a demonstrator still managed to open the puzzle boxes with much less success. For example, observer bees with a demonstrator opened 28 boxes in a day, whereas the control group was able to open only 1 box.  Once the demonstrator bumblebees

learn how to open lids, the researchers released them into colonies with hundreds of individuals. Over 6-12 days, many other naive bees picked up the behavior from demonstrators.

These results provide strong evidence that social learning underpins the transmission of novel foraging behaviors in bumblebees. People tend to overlook the complex structures formed by bees, ants and wasps and they were typically attributed to hardwired instinct-based behaviors.

However, emerging studies suggest that even small sized animals can innovate, teach and spread new learnings to the rest of the colony in response to new environmental changes.

Origin of water in our solar system

Tobin JJ et al. Deuterium-enriched water ties planet-forming disks to comets and protostars. Nature, March 2023.

Have you ever wondered where the water on earth came from originally? The current hypothesis suggests that the water was locked up in icy comets before collected on our planet’s surface. A recent study discovered gaseous water in the disc of a protostar from the Orion constellation. Experts got really excited by this discovery as this star can help explain how Earth first got its water. In this study, a team from the European Southern Observator, measured the chemical signatures of the water around V883 Orionis, a baby star about 1300 light years away from Earth, using the powerful radio telescope ALMA. They found that the gaseous water around V883 Orionis was remarkably similar to the kind found in comets near Earth and remained relatively unchanged between each stage of solar system formation: protostar, protoplanetary disk, and comets. These and other findings from the study support the idea that the water in our Solar System was formed billions of years ago in interstellar space, long before the Sun, planets, and comets came into being, and it got directly incorporated into the Solar System during its formation likely in large icy bodies. So, next time you drink water or wash your hands, stop and reflect that the water you see most likely came from the dark spaces between the stars even before the Earth or the Sun existed.

Diabetes managed by Artificial Pancreas

Daly AB et al. Fully automated closed-loop insulin delivery in adults with type 2 diabetes: an open-label, single-center, randomized crossover trial. Nature Medicine, January 2023.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a lifelong disease which affects the body’s ability to process glucose for energy, leading to dangerously high levels of blood sugar. There are around 415 million people worldwide living with T2D and the disease is usually managed through a combination of lifestyle changes and medication that aims to keep blood glucose levels low. Scientists have developed a fully automated closed-loop insulin delivery system that improved glucose control in T2D patients without leading to low blood sugar levels (hypoglycemia) compared to standard insulin therapy. This newly designed “artificial pancreas” combines an off-the-shelf glucose monitor and insulin pump with an app called “CamAPS HX.” This app is run by an algorithm that can precisely calculate how much insulin is needed to maintain glucose levels in the target range. Recently released clinical trial results were also extremely encouraging for the CamAPS HX system. On average, patients using the CamAPS HX system spent two-thirds (66%) of their time within the target range, which was twice as much on the standard therapy (32%) without any liability for hypoglycemia. Moreover, CamAPS HX doesn’t require any input from users at mealtimes. Many patients with T2D struggle to manage their blood sugar levels using  currently available treatments and this simple yet effective “artificial pancreas” can provide an alternative and  safe approach to help them.

The solar system consists of planets, dozens of moons, and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteors revolving around the Sun at its center. Along with all these celestial bodies revolving it, the Sun turns around the Milky Way. This movement model is called the spiral model.

The planets in the solar system, based on their proximity to the Sun, are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars (terrestrial planets), Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (Jovian planets), and Pluto (if accepted as a planet). The terrestrial planets are closer to the Sun. They are smaller and denser than Jovian planets. They have rocky surfaces and their cores are molten. Venus, Earth, and Mars have atmospheres. Mercury, on the other hand, does not have an atmosphere, as its surface gravity is not enough to keep atmospheric gases around the planet. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, but the surface temperatures on Venus are significantly higher compared to Mercury due to its dense atmosphere (also known as the greenhouse effect). For this reason, Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system.

Jovian planets are larger than terrestrial planets. They consist mainly of gases, and they have lower densities and do not have rocky surfaces. They have a small, liquid and solid core. Their atmospheres consist of the same elements as the terrestrial planets. The density of Saturn is 0.687 gram per cubic centimeter. This makes it the only planet in the solar system with a density less than water. Neptune and Uranus are the coldest ice giants of our solar system.

Pluto is small and cold, and it is hard to observe. It consists of ice and rocks and has a thin atmosphere and a very low gravity.

As is seen, although they are assumed to have formed from the same nebular dust, each planet is unique manifesting magnificent beauty.

The Sun accounts for 99.86 percent of the total mass of the solar system. All other celestial bodies combined (planets, asteroids, satellites, meteors, etc.) make for only 0.14 percent of mass. This is similar to the fact that about 99.9 percent of an atom’s mass belongs to the nucleus and 0.1 percent is coming from the electrons. The Sun is approximately 333,000 times heavier than Earth. It is so large that it can house approximately 1.3 million Earths inside it [1]. However, the Sun is a medium-sized star compared to hundreds of thousands of stars in the Milky Way.

The Sun’s mass is 27 million times greater than that of the Earth’s moon [2]. During a total eclipse of the Sun, the moon moves in between the Sun and Earth. The moon’s diameter is approximately 400 times smaller than the Sun’s, and the moon is approximately 400 times closer to the Earth than the Sun [3]. The moon’s perfect positioning makes a total eclipse possible.

Distances and dimensions in the universe are so huge that astronomers use special units to define distances in space. Commonly used units for space include astronomical units (AU), light years, and parsecs.

An astronomical unit is the average distance of Earth from the Sun. Earth’s orbit is elliptical, and the Sun is not properly at its center. The minimum distance between Earth and the Sun is approximately 147 million km, and the maximum distance is approximately 152 million km along the semi major axis. The average of these distances is called 1 AU and equals approximately 149.6 million km [4].

One light year is the distance light can travel in space in one year, and it is calculated as 9.46 trillion km. The speed of light in a void is around 300,000 km per second (299,792,458 km/s). 1 parsec is approximately 3.26 light years.

The distances of planets to the Sun are not random. They seem to follow a mathematical sequence called Bode’s sequence. This sequence was first announced by German astronomer Johann Daniel Titius, in 1766. The sequence, popularized later by J. E. Bode in 1772, became very popular among the astronomical community as it held true for the distances of six planets – all that were known at that time – from the Sun [5]. The planets were found to conform considerably to this sequence. This sequence became all the more important with the discovery of Uranus, in 1781, as this sequence predicted the distance of Uranus from the Sun. Bode’s sequence starts with 0, followed by 3, and then, the next number is the twice the previous number.

0;    3;    6;    12;    24;    48;    96;    192;    384; …

Actual distances of planets from the Sun:

To adapt this sequence to the distances of planets from the Sun, Bode added 4 to these numbers before dividing them by 10. These changes do not break the original sequence. Adding 4 to the numbers of Bode’s sequence:

0+4=4;    3+4=7;    6+4=10;    12+4=16;    24+4=28;    48+4=52;    96+4=100;    192+4=196;    384+4=388

and then, dividing them by 10, we get:

0.4;    0.7;    1;    1.6;    2.8;    5.2;    10;    19.6;    38.8 (AU).

Looking again at the distances of planets from the Sun, we see that these distances are very much like the numbers calculated by Bode:

This sequence suggests that there should be a planet at a distance of 2.8 AU from the Sun, but there is none. However, there is the asteroid belt (between 2.2 AU and 3.2 AU) at this position. Bode’s law led to the discovery of the asteroids as a result of a search for a planet between Mars and Jupiter. The largest astronomical object at a distance of 2.7 AU from the Sun is Ceres. Ceres is the largest object in the main asteroid belt in orbit between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres has a width that is the half of the moon’s, but its mass is 1 percent of the moon’s. That is, it has a very low density. It is the largest asteroid in the solar system and has a round shape thanks to its gravity. Many astronomical sources refer to Ceres as a dwarf planet.

Neptune is the only planet that does not conform to Bode’s sequence.

As seen, the planets are not randomly lined up around the Sun. It is not a coincidence that these planets are positioned like beads of a rosary according to a special mathematical formula.

References

1. How large is the Sun compared to Earth? | Cool Cosmos (caltech.edu)
2. Currents: NOAA’s National Ocean Service Education
3. Why do the sun and moon seem like the same size? | Space | EarthSky
4. Solar System Math (nasa.gov)
5. Bode’s law – Oxford Reference

Formula One (F1) auto racing, organized by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, [1] consists of a series of races held in specially built circuits in different countries. Drivers and teams are evaluated based on the total points they scored at the end of each season.

Michael Schumacher, who suffered a severe brain injury in a skiing accident in 2013, has a joint-record seven World Drivers’ Championship titles. In today’s F1 races the maximum speed is nearly 400 km/h and Lewis Hamilton holds the record of average speed of 264.4 km/h throughout the race.

Unless you are a Formula 1 driver, the maximum speed you can reach is 200-220 km/h in a car, an average speed of 300 km/h on a high-speed train, or approximately 1,200 km/h on a plane.

The truth is we are already moving with a much higher speed on a much faster vehicle, which we call the planet Earth. When calculated at the Equator, Earth rotates around its own axis with an approximate speed of 1,669 km/h. It may sound scary when you image the world is spinning at such a high speed, but we do not get dizzy or lose our balance and fall because of it.

The Earth’s speed is much faster on its journey around the Sun, which is an approximate of 107,000 km/h. This is about 40 times faster than the speed of a bullet. Despite this seemingly alarming speed, how come can we continue our lives without feeling anything? The gravitational force is the agent assigned to ensure our safety in this matter. The fact that we are moving at the same speed with the world encapsulated in the atmosphere is like being on board a plane midair, and in both cases we can freely move unaffected by the speed of the “vehicle” we are in.

Our world is a part of a dynamic universe wherein everything moves in orderly fashion – just as implied in the word “cosmos,” which etymologically means “order.” Earth is a jewel of this wondrous system that moves in harmony with other celestial bodies that move at different and great speeds like stars.

The Earth does not only rotate on its axis and revolves around the Sun, but it also moves with the Solar System, which in turns moves with the Milky Way, which already has its own movements and rotations.

All of this speed may seem overwhelming to some, but it is impossible to slow down or speed up this mechanism. Billions of celestial bodies act in a specially designed system that if they do not move with their current speeds, many problems would arise one after another.

Suppose that Earth’s speed of rotation around its own axis is increased by 1 km/h. According to a study by Witold Fraczek from the University of Wisconsin, if this would ever happen [2] then we could expect the following things:

As the speed increases water would migrate from the poles to the equator and the sea around the equator would start to surge. This change would affect the tide in the oceans thus causing further alternations in the ecosystem and the order of life.

The increased speed would also cause the centrifugal force generated by Earth’s rotation to go up, disrupting the balance between it and the gravitational force that counters it. If Earth’s rotational speed increased to 27,000 km/h the centrifugal force would be equal to the gravitational force on the equator. This means that the gravitation would be effectively canceled out and the system is disrupted and the life on Earth would come to an end. For instance, the water in the oceans and seas would move toward the atmosphere.

Increased rotational speed would result in stronger winds and hurricanes. Stronger hurricanes would have more destructive effects. Earth’s rotation is one of the causes of wind formation. If Earth was not moving at all, the winds from the North Pole would directly blow toward the equator (or vice versa). However, Earth’s rotation ensures that winds are deflected eastward, which is one of the reasons why winds or hurricanes ever occur.

Another effect would be on Earth’s crust as it would slowly flatten out at the poles and bulging around the equator. This would in turn trigger the movement of tectonic plates, resulting in more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

All of these changes and upheavals would be greater in proportion to the increase in Earth’s rotational speed.

In our final analysis we are like microscopic living beings on a basketball spinning around its axis with a speed 40 times that of a bullet.

Today, scientists believe that Earth was spinning at a greater speed some 4.4 billion years ago when a huge celestial body crashed into Earth and the moon was formed thus giving our planet its current shape and speed.

If this theory is true, then this collision had been so precise that even a deviation of 1 in 1,669 (Earth speed of rotation on its own axis in km) would have caused disorder and disruption in this macro system. These amazing events can hardly be explained if all these complexities were to be dependent on blind chance or the non-existent will of these celestial beings. If we choose to rely on chance for an explanation, then we would be living with fear as people had once feared that Halley’s Comet could crash into Earth. Scientists say that there are approximately 2 billion stars in our galaxy. Yet, the distance of Halley’s Comet to Earth was 35 times the distance of the Sun to Earth, i.e., approximately 1.5 million km.

Notes

1. https://www.fia.com
2. https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Witold-Fraczek-35661189

REFERENCE

1. https://www.popsci.com/earth-spin-faster

Engineers have developed a new tool which can test for both past and current viral infections by analyzing a single drop of a patient’s blood. The new method, known as VirScan (Systematic Viral Epitope Scanning), is superior to existing technologies, which are only able to search for a single virus at a time. When we are infected by a virus, our immune system starts fighting it by producing antibodies that neutralize the foreign object that is carrying disease. VirScan simply screens those antibodies that are produced against any of the 1000 strains of the total 206 virus species known to infect humans. Since our immune system continues to produce these antibodies even long after the virus disappears, VirScan is able to detect both current and past infections. As a pilot study, scientists have used VirScan to screen the blood of 569 people in the US, South Africa, Peru, and Thailand. The findings showed that each patient, on average, had antibodies for around 10 different species of virus. They also found that blood samples from patients with HIV showed a larger number of antibodies for different viruses than those without HIV. The test is relatively simple and will only cost $25. VirScan will be particularly useful in underdeveloped regions of the world, where it can be used to track disease patterns among various global populations and to develop targeted therapeutic approaches.

New Computers Run on Water Droplets

After a decade of hard work, scientists have finally created a working computer based on the physical movement of water droplets. They devised a system in which water droplets are trapped in a magnetic field. When the field is rotated or flipped, droplets move in precise directions and distances, resulting in a synchronous computer based entirely on the physics of water. Researchers applied the physics of moving droplets to the operating clock, an essential component of any computer or computer-driven devices such as smartphones, airplanes, and even the internet. Almost every computer program runs several simultaneous operations and a clock ensures that the information is synchronized. In theory, the new line of computers can perform the very same operations as common computers, although a computer based on the physical movement of water will clearly run much slower than a conventional computer based on the movement of electrons. But scientists do not aim to compete with super-fast liquid CPU computers anyway; their goal is to build a completely new class of computers that can manipulate physical matters instead of bits of information. The current chips of new computers are about half the size of a postage stamp, and the droplets are smaller than poppy seeds. The fact that the magnetic field can control millions of droplets simultaneously makes the system exceptionally scalable. Scientists foresee that this technology can potentially turn computers into high-throughput chemistry and biology laboratories. Instead of running reactions in test tubes, each droplet can carry some chemicals and become its own test tube, and the droplet computer offers extraordinary control over these interactions.

Cosmic Dance at the Far End of Our Solar System

Astronomers find that 4.5 billion miles away, the Pluto system is more peculiar and complicated than anyone predicted. Hubble Space Telescope images revealed that Pluto, with its largest moon, Charon, and smaller moons Styx, Nix, Hydra, and Kerberos, shows unconventional rhythmic gyrations unlike anything in our solar system. Scientists suggest that this unpredictable lunar behavior stems from the gravitational pull exerted by Charon. Since Pluto and Charon are close in size, instead of one orbiting the other, they jointly orbit around a common center of gravity. It is like two unequal weights at the ends of a dumbbell, and the dumbbell is rotating. Astronomers called this phenomenon a “binary planet.” While Pluto and Charon perform their movements, the four little moons circle them, wobbling a bit when they go closer to either Pluto or Charon, being pushed and pulled by the two bigger objects. Since the small moons don’t have enough mass for their internal gravity to keep them in a round shape, they look more like American footballs than spheres. With the small moons wobbling and flipping around in unpredictable ways, if you lived on Nix ,for example, the sun would come up in different parts of the sky on different days. After a 9.5-year journey through the solar system, NASA’s $700 million New Horizon spacecraft will arrive at the Pluto system in July. The New Horizon is expected to take extremely high resolution images of Pluto and its moons, and astronomers hope to better understand how big Pluto system is and what it is made of.