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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.
Does this mean I don't have to wear deodorant anymore?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.