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What can we learn from individually tagging 960 bees? A lot!

by PorterMarron Posted on July 14, 2015

sticky stingers

What can we learn from individually tagging 960 bees? A lot!

By on 14 Jul 2015commentsShare

Here’s how it works:

“We just had to hold them in our hands and hope the glue dried quickly. It was actually quite a process – they had to be individually painted, then individually fed, then the tag glued on. Then individually scanned so we knew which tag was on what color and treatment bee and which hive it was going into. It all had to happen within about eight hours of emergence because as the day goes on they start learning how to fly and they get better at stinging.”

The above quote is from Lori Lach, researcher at James Cook University and, by now, perhaps the world’s foremost expert in attaching tracking tags to bees. The tags allow researchers to follow the movements of individual bees, in order to study how bee behavior changes when the insects get sick. Half of the tagged bees were infected with a common non-lethal parasite, called nosema. Here’s more from the press release:

In a just published paper, researchers say infected bees were 4.3 times less likely to be carrying pollen than uninfected bees, and carried less pollen when they did. Infected bees also started working later, stopped working sooner and died younger.

Dr Lach said nosema-infected bees look just like non-infected bees, so it’s important to understand the behavioral changes the parasite may be causing.

“The real implications from this work are for humans. About a quarter of our food production is dependent on honey bee pollination. Declines in the ability of honey bees to pollinate will result in lower crop yields.”

Not bad for a science project that basically relies on your ability to do arts & crafts with live, stinging insects.

Source:
Tagged bees causing a buzz in disease research

, James Cook University.

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What can we learn from individually tagging 960 bees? A lot!

Posted in Anchor, eco-friendly, Eureka, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on What can we learn from individually tagging 960 bees? A lot!

Climate change ruins everything — and now it’s coming for your tea

by MarlaTranter Posted on June 12, 2015

spoiler alert

Climate change ruins everything — and now it’s coming for your tea

By on 12 Jun 2015commentsShare

Have you ever noticed that climate change is ruining everything you love? It seems like every week a new study reveals untold threats to another one of our favorite things. Beer? Drink up while you still can. Wine? It’s getting weirder, not to mention greasier. Coffee? Might want to start cutting back now. If drinks are out, how about a nice walk in the woods? Uh, sure — you have fun being devoured by ticks.

Whatever you’re into — sportsball events, fresh guac, priceless historical sites, steamers, Venice, ice, any of these animals — I’m afraid I have bad news on all counts. And I really, really, REALLY hope you weren’t that into chocolate.

Welcome, friends, to Spoiler Alerts — your source for the latest (heart)breaking climate news. There may be no use crying over spilt milk chocolate, but at least we can cry about it together.

This week, we’re all about to get thirstier, as climate change levels its sights on the world’s second-most popular beverage: tea (water is first, duh). I may live in a coffee town, but in my secret British heart I always yearn for tea time — and now that time is running out. Here’s the story from Quartz:

Early research indicates that tea growing regions could decline in some parts of the world by up to 40-55% in the coming decades and the qualities, particularly for high-end teas, could also change.

…

Planting a tea bush is a decades-long investment—one not easily moved or replaced. That means, to prepare for future changes, farmers and companies need to act—if not now, then soon—if the tea in your mug is going to be there in the future.

And it’s not just the availability of tea that’s in danger — it’s the flavor, too:

In a preview of what’s to come, recent wet monsoon conditions led to a 50% increase in the quantity of tea produced, but a 50% decrease in some of the compounds that give Yunnan teas their distinct flavor, in essence diluting the tea.

You can read the rest of the story here, but I recommend taking it with a stiff upper lip and a nice, hot cuppa … while you still can.

Source:
Tea lovers beware, climate change is threatening your favorite beverage

, Quartz.

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Climate change ruins everything — and now it’s coming for your tea

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, ONA, organic, OXO, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Climate change ruins everything — and now it’s coming for your tea

This weird plant might be the future of Alaskan agriculture

by TammaraRuggieri Posted on May 12, 2015

This weird plant might be the future of Alaskan agriculture

By on 12 May 2015commentsShare

Alaska, the Last Frontier, is not known for its balmy climate or productive agricultural scene. But one new plant on the scene might be shaking up the state:

“I tried killing it—you can’t kill it. That’s my kind of plant,” says [Al] Poindexter. “It can go weeks without water. Moose don’t eat it, rabbits don’t eat it, weather doesn’t seem to bother it. It’s a real easy plant to grow.”

This is Rhodiola rosea—golden root, rose root—a succulent that was used for centuries as folk medicine and once considered something of a Soviet military secret. Decades ago, the Soviets realized that Rhodiola could boost energy and help manage stress. These days, a small group of Alaskan farmers are hoping that it could enter the pantheon of plants (coffee, chocolate, coca) whose powers people take seriously—and, along the way, become Alaska’s most valuable crop

The plant has been known in scientific circles since the 18th century, when Carl Linnaeus named it. Soviet scientists tried to keep it under wraps during the Cold War, using it to  buck up their soldiers and athletes, even the cosmonauts. And while I don’t know what a Rhodiola bar would taste like, nor whether it would help me climb flights of stairs without huffing, I do know that fitting the crop to its climate sounds pretty sensible.

“It’s actually an environment that the plant wants to grow in, as opposed to everything else we grow in Alaska,” says Stephen Brown, a professor and district agriculture agent at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. “It’ll grow in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. It wants our long days. It’s already coming up out of the ground—and the ground’s still frozen.”

It might not be the Fertile Crescent when it comes to corn and potatoes, but south-central Alaska just might be the cradle of the coming Rhodiola renaissance.

Source:
THE SOVIET MILITARY SECRET THAT COULD BECOME ALASKA’S MOST VALUABLE CROP

, Atlas Obscura.

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This weird plant might be the future of Alaskan agriculture

Posted in alo, Anchor, Annies, FF, GE, LG, Mop, ONA, organic, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This weird plant might be the future of Alaskan agriculture

Why ants are NYC’s unsung heroes

by HattieCoode Posted on December 6, 2014

More like M-ANT-hattan

Why ants are NYC’s unsung heroes

By on 6 Dec 2014 8:54 amcommentsShare

When you’re crammed into a city with a couple million other people, it’s easy to lose sight of the small things. And when I say “small things,” I mean, specifically, ants.

A recent census of New York’s smaller residents turned up 42 different species of ants all over the island of Manhattan — and that’s likely only the beginning. From the New York Times:

[Lead researcher Amy Savage] and her colleagues sampled 32 sites north of 59th Street in Manhattan, including urban parks, forests found within parks and vegetated road medians along Broadway. Not surprisingly, the medians harbored the fewest ant species, while the forests had the most.

But contrary to expectations, the ants’ tiny size did not limit their ability to get around town. Instead of colonizing places that were nearby, the same types of species tended to pop up in the same types of habitats, regardless of the distance between them. For example, even though the urban Morningside Park is relatively close to Central Park’s forests, the ants living in Central Park were more similar to those living many blocks north, in the forests of Inwood Hill Park.

Maybe we have ants on the brain since our visit with entomologist and big thinker E.O. Wilson — but it’s a reminder of the way some kinds of wildlife have so thoroughly colonized our cities. And it’s no wonder ants — one of only a handful of other animals ever to organize themselves in complicated social structures — would take to cities.

They also serve a real urban function, which even the most bug-averse amongst us can probably appreciate. In a place like Manhattan, literally thousands of pounds of discarded food are tidily devoured by ants and their brethren every year. That’s food that stays away from disease-carrying rats and larger pests, and streets that are cleaner as a result.

So next time you’re walking down your city block, scan the pavement, see what lil’ urbanists you’re missing and, you know, maybe don’t try to squash them.

Source:
The Ants of Manhattan

, New York Times.

New York Ants Eat The Equivalent Of 60,000 Hot Dogs A Year In Food We Drop

, FastCo Exist.

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Why ants are NYC’s unsung heroes

Posted in alo, Anchor, Broadway, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Wiley | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Why ants are NYC’s unsung heroes