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Fact: Dung beetles use the Milky Way to steer their poop balls
Dung beetles are seemingly humble creatures. It is literally humble in the sense that they raise their children by eating feces. They are deceptive in the sense that they exert incredible power, play an underappreciated ecological role, and (in some cases) can even exalt our place in the universe.
All dung beetles are members of the Scarabidae family. If the word “scarab” brings to mind ancient Egypt, there’s a reason for that. The scarab-headed god Khepri was actually a dung beetle. The ancient Egyptians saw these beetles rolling balls of dung and associated them with the sacred dung-ball-like orb of the sun itself and the concept of rebirth and rebirth.
In a terrestrial ecosystem, a pile of fresh poop represents the entire universe. Beetles eat feces, flies lay eggs, and other insects come to eat the larvae of these animals. It’s a beautiful and smelly cycle of life.
It’s also dangerous and competitive, so one group of dung beetles adopted a strategy to succeed. It involves taking poop, stuffing it into a ball, and rolling it out. These balls sometimes weigh 50 times his weight, and he moves them as far as 200 meters before burying them underground.
But first, they dance. The dung beetle hops on top of the freshly rolled poop ball, spinning around once or more before shoving its precious cargo into a safe hiding place. It probably plays a role in the orientation of these beetles towards landmarks in the sky– This may be one way to avoid these beetles from rolling in circles and ending up back where they started, in the center of the poop. Signals such as sunrises and sunsets, wind, and polarized moonlight are among the arsenal of compass cues in dung beetles, without which they orient themselves or navigate in erratic circular paths. I have a hard time.
And for at least one nocturnal species, a key clue on moonless nights seems to be our own Milky Way. In 2013, the research team collected several specimens. scarab satyr We went to a planetarium in Johannesburg, South Africa, to test our navigation skills with and without the galaxy’s trademark bands of diffuse light projected. Remarkably, the beetle went straightAnd I had a hard time putting on a little cardboard hat to block my eyes.
Subsequent research suggested that these beetles were taking advantage of it. Differences in brightness along the Milky Way, to find your own way, as opposed to the pattern of individual stars.And other studies have found that these nocturnal poop carriers May be vulnerable to increased light pollutionbecause bright light provides confusing new landmarks and diffuse light washes out important contrasts in the Milky Way.
Why is it important for beetles to flush their poop in a straight line? Dung beetle success is essential to the healthy dispersion of animal waste It affects the ecosystem by taking nutrients directly into the soil.There are unquoted numbers floating around the internet that say dung beetles make up 80 percent of the manure from cattle ranches in some parts of Texas, but these insects are Individual cowpats can be completely destroyed. By doing so, May help reduce methane and CO2 emissions from livestock manure.
And by burying and eating feces, you reduce the chances of flies and other pests breeding. This is a lesson Australians learned the hard way when it was discovered that native dung beetles were poorly adapted to help settlers with the influx of cattle and sheep dung. Fortunately for Australians, Government program to introduce and appreciate cow dung-eating beetles I have been active since the 1960s.
Fact: Bananas may be the secret to making beer taste better
Written by Laura Baisas
Bananas may be the secret to making beer delicious. In 2022, a team of Belgian microbiologists reported that they could improve the flavor of modern beer by genetically modifying a type of yeast. They focused on genes for banana-like flavors, “because banana is one of the most important flavors present in beer and other alcoholic beverages.” Beer brewing has a fascinating scientific, culinary and sociological history, with women serving as brewmasters for centuries. Listen to this week’s episode to learn more.
Fact: Made-up animals help us understand how language evolves online and how resistant people are to censorship
In recent years, people have often started talking about a phenomenon called “Argospeak”. It is a gathering place for users of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Come up with a codeword to circumvent the algorithm Something that suppresses or completely prohibits certain topics of discussion. However, this kind of linguistic innovation is by no means new. in fact, researchers have studied Similar tactics have been used among Chinese internet users for more than a decade.
A classic example of this phenomenon is the discussion about an animal called the “grass mud horse.” Despite millions of search results on Google, the animal doesn’t exist. The name is a kind of homonym that can only be used in-game. tonal language Like Mandarin or Cantonese.By changing your tone, you change your orientation sorry—To the grass mud horse— grass woman horse, that is a very blasphemous insult.talk about this made up animal (and Assortment of other imaginative species) Internet users could swear, discuss topics considered taboo by algorithms, and criticize government officials and their policies without risking censorship.You can see a great visualization How this kind of wordplay works here.
In some cases, this causes Seemingly random words are banned. For example, the band name Hoobastank became a censored substitute for the word “tank” and is now itself flagged.
Chinese social media platforms Weibo recently promised To permanently crack down on this type of pun-based censorship evasion. But luckily they’re up to the task because people just keep playing with words.
