Author: Scientia

This article originally appeared in Scientia, a publication helping to connect science and society. It is republished under the licence of CC BY 4.0.For more interesting science news, visit the Scientia website.

Competition and Cooperation in Evolution

Post author By Scientia
Post date August 12, 2021
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Japanese Honeybee thermal defence against Japanese giant hornet — The Japanese honeybee (Apis cerana japonica) has a defense against the Japanese Giant Hornet (Vespa mandarinia japonica) attacks. When a hornet approaches the hive to release pheromones, the bee workers will retreat back to the hive, leaving an opening to allow the hornet scout to enter. At a given point, the bees emerge from their hiding places in an angry cloud formation containing some 500 individuals. They form a tight ball around the hornet that acts like a convection oven when the bees vibrate their wings to direct air over their bodies, warmed by their muscular exertion, into the inside of the ball. The interior temperature of the ball rises to 47 °C (117 °F). The hornet can survive maximum temperatures of 44–46 °C (111–115 °F), but the bees can survive up to 48–50 °C (118–122 °F), so the hornet is killed and the bees survive. It was found that the hornet can survive temperatures of up to 47°C, and temperature alone is not sufficient in killing the hornet via bee ball. The combined carbon dioxide concentrations increasing inside the bee ball coupled with the temperature increase causes the hornet to expire. The ability to withstand heat for the hornet decreases as carbon dioxide concentrations increase.

Despite the old adage “nice guys finish last”, cooperation is common in life – from the scale of genes or cells through to entire societies. Although these two ideas seem to contradict each other, Dr. Egbert Giles Leigh Jr. has demonstrated throughout his career at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama that working together has been the key to the success of multicellular life. Here, he explains his view of how competition and cooperation both played essential roles in bringing forth productive, diverse ecosystems.

Environment

Monitoring Atmospheric Pollution with Laser Imaging

Post author By Scientia
Post date July 13, 2021
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Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) is a laser-based remote sensing tool that can measure the concentration of small particles, called aerosols, in the atmosphere. Monitoring aerosols is crucial for climate modeling, air quality measurements, and understanding the health impacts of atmospheric pollution. However, existing lidar systems require sophisticated and expensive equipment and are usually deployed by research technicians. They also have trouble measuring atmospheric pollutants near the ground, where they impact human health. Scientist Dr. John Barnes at NOAA in Boulder, Colorado, and his colleagues have developed an inexpensive and straightforward commercial lidar solution using widely available camera and optical equipment.

Technology People

Developing Sustainable Water Purification Technologies using Nanotechnology

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Post date July 2, 2021
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Sustainable watr purification technologies — Photo by rawpixel.com form PxHere

A significant proportion of the world’s population has little to no access to clean water, and the water consumed by industrial activities continues to grow. Researchers from the Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center, which is headquartered at Rice University, are developing cutting-edge water purification technologies that can provide communities with access to clean and safe drinking water. They are also creating new wastewater treatment methods that allow the reuse of industrial effluent, to minimize freshwater withdrawals by industries. Instead of conventional methods that use large amounts of chemicals and energy, NEWT technologies are chemical-free, and often utilize solar energy.

Solar System Geology

From Destruction to Creation: Understanding Meteorite Impact Craters

Post author By Scientia
Post date June 14, 2021
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Barringer Crater aerial photo — Aerial photo of Barringer Crater which helped calculating the age of the Earth. Image: wikipedia. About 50,000 years ago, an asteroid hurled down from space to form Meteor Crater in Arizona: the Barringer Crater. Shards of that asteroid have been collected from the crater rim and named for the nearby Canyon Diablo. In 1953, the American geochemist Clair Cameron Patterson (June 2, 1922 – December 5, 1995) measured ratios of lead isotopes in samples that put tight constraints on Earth's age. The Canyon Diablo meteorite is important because it represents a class of meteorites with components that allow for more precise dating. Samples of the meteorite show a spread from 4.53 to 4.58 billion years. Scientists interpret this range as the time it took for the solar system to evolve, a gradual event that took place over approximately 50 million years. The age determined from the Canyon Diablo meteorite has been confirmed by hundreds of other age determinations, from both terrestrial samples and other meteorites.

Ever since the planets first formed, they have been bombarded with space rocks. Asteroid and cometary collisions are so powerful that planetary surfaces fracture and melt beneath them, leaving behind huge craters. These impact events have played an important role in our planet’s history, by shaping the geological landscape, producing valuable minerals, and affecting the evolution of life. Dr. Gordon “Oz” Osinski from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, aims to understand this fundamental process on Earth, Mars, and the Moon – with important implications for space exploration, mining, and understanding the origins of life.

Solar System Planet Earth

Measuring Meteorites to Reveal the Origins of the Earth

Post author By Scientia
Post date June 2, 2021
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Near-Earth asteroid — Asteroid composition depends on where they were formed in the solar system. S- type asteroids, such as Ida, are mostly composed of silicate and nickel-iron and found in the inner asteroid belt. Image credit - NASA/JPL

The planet we call home has a 4.5-billion-year history, but humans have only been around for a tiny fraction of this time. To discover what happened before life arose on Earth, and even before Earth’s formation, scientists can study objects sent from space – from icy comets and rocky asteroids to tiny particles of interstellar dust. Early in Earth’s history, primordial gases became trapped deep in the planet’s interior. By determining how they were trapped and where they might be stored, Dr. Manfred Vogt and his research group at the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg are shedding new light on Earth’s origins.

Solar System Education

Space Weather Underground: A Magnetometer Array with Educational Opportunities

Post author By Scientia
Post date May 9, 2021
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The complex processes of Earth’s ionosphere may occur far above the planet’s surface, but when monitored from numerous locations at sufficient distances, they can be measured using inexpensive equipment on the ground. Dr. Charles Smith at the University of New Hampshire has assembled an extensive team to do just that, with participants ranging from space scientists with decades of experience to high school students considering futures in science and engineering. Named Space Weather Underground, the project could soon make extensive data on ionosphere dynamics available to scientists and the public alike.

Biology Environment Life on Earth Plants

Creating Power Foods with Gene Technology

Post author By Scientia
Post date April 1, 2021
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At least 820 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition globally and human population growth is likely to exacerbate this problem in the future. It is becoming increasingly important to develop sustainable and efficient methods to meet food demands. To address this global issue, Dr. Sanju A. Sanjaya and Bagyalakshmi Muthan from West Virginia State University and their colleagues from Michigan State University have developed genetic technologies to improve the nutritional and energy content of crops. Their technology could increase production and improve profitability and sustainability across a range of important crop plants.

Scientific method

The Association for Women in Science

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Post date March 3, 2021
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Founded almost 50 years ago, the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) is a global network that inspires bold leadership, research, and solutions that advance women in STEM, spark innovation, promote organisational success, and drive systemic change. In this exclusive interview, we speak with AWIS president and world-renowned biomedical innovator Dr. Susan Windham-Bannister, who describes the barriers that women face in the STEM workplace, and the many ways in which AWIS supports women in science and works towards eliminating inequality through systemic change.

Global Warming Climate Technology

Mapping Cities’ Carbon Emissions Through Advanced Data Collection

Post author By Scientia
Post date February 18, 2021
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Shanghai is the second most populous city in China and the most populous city proper in the world. It is one of the four direct-controlled municipalities of China, with a population of more than 24 million as of 2014. It is a global financial centre, and a transport hub with the world's busiest container port. Located in the Yangtze River Delta in East China, Shanghai sits on the south edge of the mouth of the Yangtze in the middle portion of the Chinese coast. The municipality borders the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the north, south and west, and is bounded to the east by the East China Sea. A major administrative, shipping, and trading town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to trade and recognition of its favourable port location and economic potential.

As global emissions of greenhouse gas continue to rise, it is increasingly important for researchers and policymakers to identify exactly where and how much greenhouse gas is emitted and absorbed worldwide for global climate change mitigation. Over the past decade, Dr. Tomohiro Oda of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in Maryland has aimed to realize this need by combining emission data with night-time observations from satellites. Through this work, his team has now produced global maps that distinguish sources of carbon at unprecedented resolutions – high enough to identify variation across the regions where emissions are most intense: Earth’s cities.