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Flowers' Smell Not Traveling As Far
Ant writes in to note a study indicating that, because of air pollution, the smell of flowers is not wafting as far as it once did. Pollutants from power plants and automobiles destroy flowers' aromas, the study suggests: "The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters; but in today's polluted environment downwind of major cities, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters." The finding could help explain why some pollinators, particularly bees, are declining in certain parts of the world.
I hate all flying insects, especially bees!
more pollution please!
Does this mean I don't have to wear deodorant anymore?
.
And yet I can still smell my brother's farts from across the room.
I'd better get that SUV after all.
try flowers from one of the organic stores or Whole Foods. they smell a lot better and stronger than pretty much all other flowers i've ever bought
I still can't help but think that insecticides are having more to do with it. Bee keepers carry hives around to the farms. It's not like they have to fly too far to find the flowers, but hives are collapsing at farms.
When you hear something as poetically moralising, there is only one thing you can do: get out of the theater room in disgust.
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
can't they just genetically engineer flowers with more potent aromas?
/. story about long delays getting the product developed, and the whole idea of new smelly flowers will get tagged as vaporware, which would be an entirely inappropriate tag.
then we will inevitably have a
-I only code in BASIC.-
I have no sense of smell. Prior to about 16 years of age I honestly thought people were making it up. I thought the sense of smell was all some big elaborate joke, a conspiracy against me personally.
The finding could help explain why some pollinators, particularly bees, are declining in certain parts of the world.
I don't need to RTFA to point out how this conclusion does not bare up to even superficial examination. We have two types of bees in this world - domestic and wild. Bees in the wild are likely far from sources of pollution - by definition of "in the wild". Domestic bees are well known to be currently suffering a crises due a disease (or is it bee mites - or both?). What bees remain that are both not "in the wild" and not domestic are the only ones to potentially fit to the above conclusion. I would suggest that this is a very small group. I suppose other pollinators - like butterflies, etc, may find it a bit more difficult to find their flowers these days, but on the other hand, one would logically find these insects near flowers in the first place - their place of birth. Same goes for domestic bees, which are cultivated near flowering crops.
The perceptible scent of flowers drifted well over half a mile back in the day when the thick scent of horse shit and outhouses drowned the streets.
My wife has terrible allergies to anything like flowers, pets, perfumes, etc. When we lived in Atlanta, she didn't have nearly as many problems since the smog clobbered all those things.
With the glut of environmental decline stories, I'm left to wonder if there's anything left that's NOT wrong with the environment!
stuff |
Will this affect marijuana potency in any way?
How does this study stand up to any scrutiny? (he asks while not RTFA.)
I'm sure the pollen is still traveling the same distance that it used to unless pollution has also made it less windy (sure...). I bet what they meant to say is the scent is less noticeable at greater distance due to being overpowered by scents caused by pollution. I could believe that statement, but to say that pollution is preventing the smell from traveling is just goofy.
cr
Now now, there's no need to be angry and start name-calling. After all, even uninsightful people are still human after all. Shakespeare said that a rose by any other name would... oh, never mind.
I hate printers.
I'm not sure I agree with their postulation that somehow, because they, as human cannot receive smell as well as they theoretically could in a pollution free environment, that others in the cycle of existence for whom smell is more necessary,have lost enough of the smell to matter. (I said that in one breath,honest!)
I suspect perhaps there is some environmental alarmist bias in a subject that requires some scientific detachment. So, feel free to send me a slice o' that grant money for my input to the problem.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Wow, have dogs learned to post on slashdot? Maybe that was Link in wolf form after finding a computer?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
If pollution is degrading aroma molecules before pollinators can pick up on them, this is a selective pressure for plants to produce more scent or at least more durable scents. Given that peppered moths have been able to change from light to dark and back to light coloring in less than a century, I'd expect we'd already be seeing (or smelling) stronger-scented flowers.
This "study" is a computer simulation. Computer simulations have a place in science, but before they are the basis for policy, they need to be tested in the real world.
These scientists have tested a postulate in a computer simulation, that scents are diminished by the scent chemicals reacting with pollutants (especially ozone). Now they have to test that in the real world.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Nonsense. They're suggesting that the relevant effects from pollution aren't just local in the area of the polluters. Furthermore, colony collapse disorder, which is the crisis you refer to, affects both wild and domestic bees and is very poorly understood - it's certainly not been proven to be due to disease or mites, and there's no good reason to immediately jump to the conclusion that the problem mentioned in the study isn't a major or even dominant factor in colony collapse disorder.
"The person dismissing this scientific study does not even know the difference between bear and bare and yet you value his opinion on the on the effect of pollution on pollinators?"
I am not so sure that you can so easily dismiss somebody's comment because it contains a typo. If we do that, we would dismiss your response, since clearly you failed to proof read your own comment. If you had, you would have noticed that you repeated "on the" in "on the on the effect of pollution...". Obviously you are clueless and we should disregard your point of view, if we follow your way of thinking.
Then you cite the study upon which the FA was based, but it is a useless citation because only those with a subscription to that journal could read that study. There is certainly no information in the abstract that has any bearing on the comment to which you respond. You conclude that the author of the post is "clueless", but you give no rebuttal to his conclusion. Since you obviously RTFA, you should easily be able to find something to back up your critique. Finally, your implication is we cannot not criticize the FA because "The study is published in the journal Atmospheric Environment". That is dangerous thinking. Any intelligent person needs to question anything he reads as a matter of routine. The more prestigious the journal, the more we need to keep our eyes open sometimes.
Finally, contrary opinions such as yours can be quite valuable to a discussion if they contain well formed arguments. It may be that there are times when it is appropriate to call somebody out as being "clueless". If you are going to take such a bold position, and want to be taken seriously, you should not hide as AC. You should stand up proudly attaching your name to your point of view.
Nonsense...there's no good reason to immediately jump to the conclusion that the problem mentioned in the study isn't a major or even dominant factor in colony collapse disorder.
I don't see how you so easily can say "nonsense". I see it differently - that there is no good reason to immediately jump to the conclusion that the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder is caused by pollution. Colony Collapse Disorder seems to happen in sporadic bursts, whereas I believe pollution can be graphed with long graceful curves.
Wikipedia says "...late in the year 2006 and in early 2007 the rate of attrition was alleged to have reached new proportions, and the term "Colony Collapse Disorder" was proposed to describe this sudden rash of disappearances." To me, that implies that there is no correlation between Colony Collapse Disorder and pollution, since I don't think there was a sudden spike in pollution that corresponds with declines in bee populations.
Interestingly, I was just reading Boeing 787 Dreamliner Delayed Again, which links to a Wired Science article, which points to a Dan Rather video, which has a segment at the end that states that the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder has been determined to be caused by some Israeli bee virus. First time I heard that. I am certainly no expert, nor do I pretend to be. I was merely stating that for me, on the surface, the conclusion does not bear up to close scrutiny. In fact, I was implying that one doesn't need to be an expert, or even to RTFA to formulate a plausible critique.
That's real interesting, but bees and many other pollinators find the flowers through the color. Granted, pollution may be diminishing the color, but I'm sure they can still find them. Once found, the bees give directions to the hive.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
It makes no practical difference whether the radius of detection is 1300 meters or 300 meters if the bees have a large flight path. (and flowers are not bordering on extinction) The premise of this argument is that bees are unable to find flowers with a 300m radar system, which I believe to be intuitively absurd. What we may be more concerned about is flowers that have been disproportionately diminished in their scent trails. These may wind up not being pollenated.
"Flower's Smell Not Traveling As Far"
..." or "Flowers Odor not traveling as ..." , whatever.
Look , I know we're not exactly the New Your Times here (and I'm NOT a grammar troll) but flowers don't "smell" primarily because they don't have noses. Flowers can "smell bad" or WE can smell flowers but flowers can't "smell" anything. The headline should have read "Flowers Fragrance not traveling as
Frankly I read the title three times and couldn't make any sense of it until I read the text beneath it. I'm not expecting you guys to win a Pulitzer prize but could you please have enough respect for me, as your reader, to at least use basic high school syntax and grammar? Thanks in advance...
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
Please please please no one tell Al Gore or we'll all have to sit through another Keynote presentation, and all the hype that surrounds it.
Here's my theory: Whenever I drive through agricultural areas, I see all the hives set up in orchards, vineyards and other similar areas. One thing I've noticed about them is that the bee-keepers set their hives up where its easy to get trucks in. Inevitably, this turns out to be on access roads at the perimeter of the crops, adjacent to a public road or highway. If the bees search for flowers in all directions from the hives, probability states that half of them will head across the road ..... and end up on my windshield.
Have gnu, will travel.
CCD could be a chaotic event with increasing stress before a complete breakdown.
Sort of like this...
p= pollution level/stress
p0
p1
p2
p3
p4 sudden collapse may or may not happen from here on. (it's random so hard to prove scientifically)
p5 s.c. zone
p6 s.c. zone
p7 bees always die at this level ( so it is repeatable- so science can easily detect it)
We have a lot of problem with random/chaotic events.... then you add in politics (tree huggers, developers, industrialists, religious wack jobs) and it gets really messy.
And then science is generally probabilistic anyway. Even for Gravity it is "observed data holds true so far- but could change tomorrow".
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I say bio-engineer flowers with pollutant resistant scents. All in the name of Science.
IMO, most flowery fragrances are terrible. I can appreciate the "fresh" smell of grass and trees, but flowers tend to fall into the category of "pungent". I also can't stand those thick fruity scents that women rub on their hands, or in their shampoos.
Not that I'm suggesting that car exhaust (or methane, for country folk) is a better smell, just that this is probably not going to get that many people excited over environmentalism. I would rather be smelling barbeque charcoal (which is technically a type of pollution) than any flower.
Fruit and flowers have long been selected for shape and size, often at the expense of smell and taste. As a rule, old varieties of roses don't look as nice but they have more smell. Organic growers often go for older varieties. Old varieties grown non-organically are just the same though.
Organic growers don't force-grow their turnips and tomatoes that much either , which makes for a more concentrated taste.
The loss of plant diversity must be a huge factor too.
As for the loss of scent. Well duh! selective flower breeding is tending away from scent and more towards what the plants look like.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
BTW don't use ozonators in your grow-op, that stuff is poisonous.
A flower, by any name, would smell just as sweet, but it would effect its distance!
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
Politicians get their "flowers" with our money to the tune of 5000 "roses" / hr.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
"there is no good reason to immediately jump to the conclusion that the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder is caused by pollution"
******
See, I see it differently. I think it is completely logical to start with the premise that all these chemicals in the atmosphere are fucking shit up. The fact is that we are living in a horrible experiment whereby we try to see how far we can push biological systems before they collapse and we are conditioned to accept this as normal. I for one am tired of breathing benzene and drinking mercury.
Yes, the bees may be suffering from a virus. I contend that organisms are much more successful at fighting infections when they start from a baseline of a healthy immune system, adequate food supply and tolerable levels of stress. Much like we see in cancer in humans and in diseases in trees, the host is more likely to succumb to disease when under stress because their immune systems are weakened.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
You wouldn't necessarily need a sudden spike in any factor, just a steady rise, that reaches an unacceptable threshold.