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Dung Beetles Navigate By the Milky Way; Pigeons Tune In To Magnetism
sciencehabit writes with this excerpt from Science magazine's colorful synopsis of a paywalled article at Current Biology "A day in the life of a male dung beetle goes something like this: Fly to a heap of dung, sculpt a clump of it into a large ball, then roll the ball away from the pile as fast as possible. However, it turns out that the beetles, who work at night, need some sort of compass to prevent them from rolling around in circles. New research suggests that the insects use starlight to guide their way. Birds, seals, and humans also use starlight to navigate, but this is the first time it's been shown in an insect." Also on the topic of How Animals Get Around Without GPS, new research has considerably heightened scientists understanding of birds' sensitivity to magnetic fields. For homing pigeons at least, this ability seems to be tied to a cluster of just 53 neurons (original paper, also behind a paywall).
...follows the donuts
This is why I like science and nature shows. You learn some pretty amazing things that living things do. And, you can watch them screw.
After enough decades, you have seen most things screw. And they are a LOT uglier than you...
C|N>K
An excerpt of a synopsis? Really? Is that what we're down to these days?
Seems to me like the upper management method of running things has come into full swing.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's been hypothesized that pigeons also use polarized light to sense the position of the sun in the sky-sphere, even if the sun itself is obscured from direct viewing. It's been definitely shown to be true for:
-- honeybees : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_navigation#Orientation_by_polarised_light
-- squids eyes : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_eye#Polarized_light
-- fishies : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_in_fishes#Polarized_light
.
Pigeons have been tested for polarization sensing and magnetic field sensing by William Tinsley Keeton.
Dung!
What's brown and sounds like a bell?
#DeleteChrome
Dung Beetles move structures 1141 times their own weight. A skill much regarded by the pyramid builders.
The reinvention of wheel was much inspired by this tiny creature.
If you believe anything you read just because the person claims it to be a scientific fact, then that's your fault--not science. Don't just believe everyone you hear, that would be a good place to start.
If something cannot be successfully proven or is in fact proven to be bullshit, then it is discarded as such. That is what is good about science. It's also really weird when you grew up interested in astronomy being taught and passing tests in school of the "nine planets" and all of a sudden there's eight. Poor little Pluto. :(
The experiment was conducted both outdoors under the night sky, and inside a planetarium where researchers could manipulate the starlight and hone in on the specific cues that the dung beetles were using.
Better trolling next time.
========== "Hello World" in my programming language of choice: ATG - LET THERE BE LIFE - TAG ==========
This sounds like shit science to me.
You dont have to be able to prove anything. You can just make up something and as long as it sounds good then youre a scientist. Hell you can be a good speaker and call yourself a scientist, if you can phrase and word things in a good way you can make up crazy stuff you have no idea about and people will believe you because there is no way to prove that youre wrong. And thats what a lot of "science" is, its saying something that sounds good while at the same not being able to be proved wrong.
"A dung beetle navigtes via the milky way" how you can you possibly prove that to be false?
Obviously you didn't get past the summary, or maybe even the title but what you claim is not science. Science is not spouting random things and waiting for someone else to prove you wrong. Go try that and you will have the credibility of the guy shouting that the end is near. Findings are whats published with procedures and methods used to reach those findings. Others interested can reproduce the experiment to try to get the same results to try to confirm those findings. If they can't reproduce the same results then the original finding must be declared false and reevaluated.
What you think of science is the result of journalists taking the findings and dumbing them down enough so people like you can understand a new fact.
but it's behind a paywall.
WTB a news site where one can actually *read* the articles ...
Welcome to Slashdot. Paywalls don't matter to us because reading the articles is frowned upon.
That doesn't stop us from bitching about them though.
...would be if the dung beetles could also navigate through the Galaxy.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/dung-beetle-astronomy/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21150721
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/retrieve/pii/S0960982212015072
African dung beetles orient to the starry sky to move along straight paths The beetles do not orientate to the individual stars, but to the Milky Way Summary When the moon is absent from the night sky, stars remain as celestial visual cues. Nonetheless, only birds [1,2], seals [3], and humans [4] are known to use stars for orientation. African ball-rolling dung beetles exploit the sun, the moon, and the celestial polarization pattern to move along straight paths, away from the intense competition at the dung pile [5,6,7,8,9]. Even on clear moonless nights, many beetles still manage to orientate along straight paths [5]. This led us to hypothesize that dung beetles exploit the starry sky for orientation, a feat that has, to our knowledge, never been demonstrated in an insect. Here, we show that dung beetles transport their dung balls along straight paths under a starlit sky but lose this ability under overcast conditions. In a planetarium, the beetles orientate equally well when rolling under a full starlit sky as when only the Milky Way is present. The use of this bidirectional celestial cue for orientation has been proposed for vertebrates [10], spiders [11], and insects [5,12], but never proven. This finding represents the first convincing demonstration for the use of the starry sky for orientation in insects and provides the first documented use of the Milky Way for orientation in the animal kingdom.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/retrieve/pii/S0960982212015072
How do you use a candy bar to navigate?
The G
Most, if not all authors, will be more than happy to send you the final copy of the manuscript if you email them, even if you aren't affiliated with a university or a researcher yet want still to learn about their work. In the case of old papers that can't be found on the Internet, which is common for some math journals that are no longer in print, I've found authors to be especially accommodating in sending hard copies.
I assume that the fairly trivial "put some dung beetles in an enclosure covered with black paper and make your grad students poke holes matching the milky way and watch what happens" strategy didn't occur to you?
No, science is not infallible, particularly once human and institutional factors come into play; but falsifying hypotheses on animal navigation methods is hardly the most difficult challenge faced by the sciences. Want to fuck with an animal that you suspect of celestial navigation? Advanced 'planetarium' technology may be for you! Suspect pigeons of navigating with magnetic fields? Exploit natural variations in earth's magnetism or just superglue a NIB magnet to the insouciant little fucker's beak, that'll show 'im which way north is...
Between a dung beetle and a Congressman? The Dung Beetle has at least 53 neurons...
http://www4.lu.se/o.o.i.s/32351
Events of a million years ago are guiding dung beetles. Consider: The beetles are about 20,000 light-years from the galactic center, but it took the light's energy an average of about 1,000,000 years to randomly walk out of the stars.
http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/
What do they do when it's cloudy?
It says that the dung beetles navigation was confused when the sky is obscured, so what about cloudy nights? Places like Seattle that overcast much of the time?
I'm mistrustful of the conclusion here a bit.
science == falsifiable
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
In the understanding of god do we become god.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
They just sound like the average IT worker: capable of dealing with huge piles of someone else's shit and when not doing that they are busy reinventing the wheel.
Dinosaurs navigated with Apple Maps and look where that got them.
If that's the case, you can grab the paper by Dacke, et al. from: https://mega.co.nz/#!ytIz2bpL!S2P0Nk4NigHmr4Y0keSURlNzNElroFnUzx23nqKG0js and that of Wu and Dickman from: https://mega.co.nz/#!z5ohjYza!HZafDHCHTh8r1XcxKqOS6CuT4epGwK6PUh6ARCJbwd0
And I do thank you for those links, please accept this smileyface as payment... :^)
Yep, finally an upper management method of running things.
53 neurons behind a pay wall!?! Dang even the pigeons are IP hoarding bastards.
It's gratifying that a humble creature that spends its days rolling dung about, can also reach for things on a cosmic scale.
lol
While birds and people are known to navigate by the stars, the discovery is the first convincing evidence for such abilities in insects, the researchers say. It is also the first known example of any animal getting around by the Milky Way as opposed to the stars.
"Even on clear moonless nights, many dung beetles still manage to orientate along straight paths," said Marie Dacke of Lund University in Sweden. "This led us to suspect that the beetles exploit the starry sky for orientation – a feat that had, to our knowledge, never before been demonstrated in an insect."
Dacke and her colleagues found that dung beetles can transport their dung balls along straight paths under a starlit sky, but lose the ability under overcast conditions. In a planetarium, the beetles stayed on track equally well under a full starlit sky and one showing only the diffuse streak of the Milky Way.
That makes sense, the researchers explained, because the night sky is sprinkled with stars, but the vast majority of those stars should be too dim for the beetles' tiny compound eyes to see.
The findings raise the possibility that other nocturnal insects also use stars to guide them at night. On the other hand, dung beetles are pretty special. Upon locating a suitable dung pile, ball-rolling dung beetles shape a piece of dung into a ball and roll it away in a straight line. That behaviour guarantees them that they will not return to the dung pile, where they risk having their ball stolen by other beetles.
"Dung beetles are known to use celestial compass cues such as the sun, the moon and the pattern of polarised light formed around these light sources to roll their balls of dung along straight paths," Dacke said. "Celestial compass cues dominate straight-line orientation in dung beetles so strongly that, to our knowledge, this is the only animal with a visual compass system that ignores the extra orientation precision that landmarks can offer.
http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24890&news_item=5999
And I had to get an astronomy minor to go with my comsci major to get the degree
why would you lie about this? you obviously did not complete or get far in to a science major or minor of any kind, as you have demonstrated by your total lack of understanding of even the most fundamental concepts of science. you went to one of the largest publicly-funded research universities in north america and obviously never passed a science, math, or economics course.
you could have constructed this joke without starting off with lies. why did you opt to do it this way?
One of the authors of the pigeon study was an invited speaker last summer at a conference I organize. I have not yet read the paper, but the presentation was arguably the best recieved of the 23 oral presentations, generating vigorous, positive discussion that spilled into after-hours interaction. Very, very good stuff.
While it may also be true that pigeons also navigate by polarized light, the evidence presented for a magnetic sense is overwhelming.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
It's also really weird when you grew up interested in astronomy being taught and passing tests in school of the "nine planets" and all of a sudden there's eight. Poor little Pluto. :(
It wasn't all that sudden really. I too grew up learning about the nine planets.
But as our telescope technology improved, suddenly there was a 10th planet even larger than pluto, aka Eris or 2003 UB313.
Then an 11th, Ceres.
Then a 12th, Vesta.
Then Haumea, Astraea, Quaoar, and Makemake... and more that all changed names and classifications so frequently that it's hard to keep things straight.
Even the list above can't be considered in the correct order due to planets being discovered, then demoted, then promoted, all at different times.
We accomplished launching a telescope into space - avoiding all the issues looking through the atmosphere can cause, and can see even further out than ever before.
We discovered essentially a second asteroid belt but containing much larger rocky bodies, and find hundreds, then thousands of rocks all roughly the same size range as pluto. A few bigger, most smaller,, some closer, most quite far out there.
Who wants to remember the names of thousands of planets and hundreds of thousands of moons all within our little solar system?
A line needed to be drawn. A lot of people did not want another "arbitrary line on a map" that so plagues borders here at home.
Yes it might be annoying that poor pluto was caught on the other side of that definition, but even if you want to still say it is a planet, why do you still discount a larger than pluto planets like Eris, or the other planets even closer to us than pluto?
If 8 is not the correct answer, then 9 most certainly is not either.
If you draw a line a certain distance out, right at the orbit of pluto, then there are 12 planets.
If you draw that line just within the orbit of pluto, then there are 8.
If you include the whole solar system, there are hundreds of thousands of planets.
I predict many replies to this post with even more definitions and planet counts, each perfectly valid within that definition. That is the scale of the problem, and not a trivial one at that.
The only condition where 9 is the correct number of planets is a point in time in our past when we were ignorant of the others. With that definition, again, why 9?
Why not 11, as was the case in the mid 1800's? Or 6, as was the case a thousand years ago?
They are all equal, in that is all that could be seen at the time.
Some people, perhaps even a lot of people, disagree with the definition as currently drawn, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is even nothing wrong with making and using your own definition. But just realize that, just like when pluto was demoted, in the future new discoveries will need to fit within that definition, and we can't keep changing it willy nilly as to keep the planet count from ever changing again.
All that we ask is that the definition is consistent.
Science is all about changing what we thought we knew as new discoveries are made and new evidence is found. If anything is certain, there is still plenty out there we still don't know about and our knowledge will continue to change.
Here is also a Finnish version.
I was being semi-sarcastic about being disappointed that Pluto was demoted; although serious that it was... bizarre, to say the least, that what I learned all along was wrong. To be honest, I always thought Pluto was a very boring object, certainly not as interesting as the gas giants, and didn't really fit in. But I remember reading about Eris and Makemake and whatever else, and thought, "whoopty do, another Pluto... boring." I actually didn't read much into it, but your explanation seems to paint the history pretty clearly.
I don't know why they didn't just name one of the damn things "Planet X" just to shut up all the sci-fi conspiracy theorists who use that name to make shit up and claim it's the end of the world or something. Then again, I guess they'd just claim the scientists are wrong, that it's not the "real" Planet X, or make up some new name.
"The experiment was conducted both outdoors under the night sky, and inside a planetarium where researchers could manipulate the starlight and hone in on the specific cues that the dung beetles were using."
... And don't touch anything!"
Scientist: "We'd like to use the planitarium for some exciting research! We'll need to bring in some beetles and some fresh elephant dun...."
Planitarium Curator: "No."
Scientist: "I can understand, but we'll make sure that..."
Curator: "No."
Scientist: "You didn't let me fin..."
Curator: "Get out.
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
A type of dung beetle known as the scarab beetle was sacred to the ancient Egyptians. They saw it's path as it rolled a ball of dung across the earth as an earthly manifestation of the Sun god Ra's path across the sky. Now we know there was a grain of truth in this belief.
Captain James T. Kirk quoted English poet Jonathan Masefield, "All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by." Scarab beetle celestial navigation was far beyond this with their, "All I ask is a ball of dung and a galaxy to steer her by."
Bit late to the party, but I think this is pretty old news; http://www.ted.com/talks/marcus_byrne_the_dance_of_the_dung_beetle.html