Post has attachment
Fay Dowker The Life Scientific
Despite or perhaps because of the fact that her Father was a Physicist, the young Fay Dowker chose Maths as her first love, and only took Physics at A-level to round out the Pure and Applied Maths classes, and would have taken more Maths if it were available. Now she is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London.
🎧
For a long time Fay Dowker was mathematically precocious, but emotionally uncertain.These days, despite working in an area with few academic allies, she is more confident than ever. Her approach to a Theory of Everything, known as causal set theory, acknowledges the quantum nature of the universe and takes the arrow of time more seriously than Einstein. Bye bye time travel.
Fay started her Life Scientific working on the assumption that the texture of the universe was continuous and smooth, with Stephen Hawking as her supervisor. But mid-career, she changed her mind. She now thinks in terms of 'atoms' of space-time. Down at the tiniest scale imaginable, the universe is granular, made of discrete entities that represent a point in space and a moment in time.
Most theoretical physicists were shocked to discover in 1998 that the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating. Not the causal set theorists. Unlike everyone else, they were expecting this result. What's more, if casual set theory is right, there will be no need to explain dark energy, an idea which seems just wacky and a little bit malicious to Fay.
Listen here (stream, podcast, download MP3): https://goo.gl/X1iOD4
If you are mobile search for the programme in the Global Radio iPlayer app but it also works in mobile browsers.
Post: https://goo.gl/oJBwf0)
📖🖼
A trio of dichotomies, Atomicity versus Continuity, Locality versus Global-ness and, Being versus Becoming, are persistent themes in our struggle to understand the physical world. In the present era, they are finding concrete expression in the attempt to create a theory of "quantum gravity", which phrase is a shorthand for a framework in which all of physics will find unified expression. In my research these ancient tensions reveal themselves to be intertwined one with another and I am attempting, not so much to resolve them but to put them to work as heuristics in discovering quantum gravity. [...]
More here (Professor Fay Dowker): https://goo.gl/LPa8cJ
🎬
Black holes are hot! This discovery made by Stephen Hawking ties together gravity, spacetime, quantum matter, and thermal systems into the beautiful and exciting science of "Black Hole Thermodynamics". Its beauty lies in the powerful way it speaks of the unity of physics. The excitement arises because it tells us that there is something lacking in our understanding of spacetime and, at the same time, gives us a major clue as to what the missing ingredient should be. Theoretical physicists at Perimeter Institute and elsewhere are pioneering a proposal, known as Causal Set Theory, for the structure held by these most fundamental atoms of spacetime. In this talk, Professor Dowker describes black hole thermodynamics and argue that it is telling us that spacetime itself is granular or "atomic" at very tiny scales.
Video (YT 1hr 12 mins.): https://goo.gl/TQh4aO
Image from fist link.
Despite or perhaps because of the fact that her Father was a Physicist, the young Fay Dowker chose Maths as her first love, and only took Physics at A-level to round out the Pure and Applied Maths classes, and would have taken more Maths if it were available. Now she is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London.
🎧
For a long time Fay Dowker was mathematically precocious, but emotionally uncertain.These days, despite working in an area with few academic allies, she is more confident than ever. Her approach to a Theory of Everything, known as causal set theory, acknowledges the quantum nature of the universe and takes the arrow of time more seriously than Einstein. Bye bye time travel.
Fay started her Life Scientific working on the assumption that the texture of the universe was continuous and smooth, with Stephen Hawking as her supervisor. But mid-career, she changed her mind. She now thinks in terms of 'atoms' of space-time. Down at the tiniest scale imaginable, the universe is granular, made of discrete entities that represent a point in space and a moment in time.
Most theoretical physicists were shocked to discover in 1998 that the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating. Not the causal set theorists. Unlike everyone else, they were expecting this result. What's more, if casual set theory is right, there will be no need to explain dark energy, an idea which seems just wacky and a little bit malicious to Fay.
Listen here (stream, podcast, download MP3): https://goo.gl/X1iOD4
If you are mobile search for the programme in the Global Radio iPlayer app but it also works in mobile browsers.
Post: https://goo.gl/oJBwf0)
📖🖼
A trio of dichotomies, Atomicity versus Continuity, Locality versus Global-ness and, Being versus Becoming, are persistent themes in our struggle to understand the physical world. In the present era, they are finding concrete expression in the attempt to create a theory of "quantum gravity", which phrase is a shorthand for a framework in which all of physics will find unified expression. In my research these ancient tensions reveal themselves to be intertwined one with another and I am attempting, not so much to resolve them but to put them to work as heuristics in discovering quantum gravity. [...]
More here (Professor Fay Dowker): https://goo.gl/LPa8cJ
🎬
Black holes are hot! This discovery made by Stephen Hawking ties together gravity, spacetime, quantum matter, and thermal systems into the beautiful and exciting science of "Black Hole Thermodynamics". Its beauty lies in the powerful way it speaks of the unity of physics. The excitement arises because it tells us that there is something lacking in our understanding of spacetime and, at the same time, gives us a major clue as to what the missing ingredient should be. Theoretical physicists at Perimeter Institute and elsewhere are pioneering a proposal, known as Causal Set Theory, for the structure held by these most fundamental atoms of spacetime. In this talk, Professor Dowker describes black hole thermodynamics and argue that it is telling us that spacetime itself is granular or "atomic" at very tiny scales.
Video (YT 1hr 12 mins.): https://goo.gl/TQh4aO
Image from fist link.
Post has attachment
Giant Larvaceans
A vital part of the Carbon Cycle (https://goo.gl/ynAhSd) is the oceanic 'down elevator' that takes Carbon from the air converted by seagoing plant life into food for animals and thanks to the resulting food chain eventually deposits it into the reactive sediments and the swimming, crawling, and burrowing animals that live there, at the bottom of the deep, or benthic, ocean.
Given that we are taking vast quantities of carbon that had been previously tucked-away in plant fossils deep under the ground or seabed and are rapidly re-introducing ancient Carbon into the current Carbon Cycle, without a compensating human-made Carbon recovery mechanism of a similar scale, we are increasingly reliant on not overwhelming the natural biogeochemical cycle.
Some years ago +Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) scientists and engineers discovered that, surprisingly, Giant Larvaceans played a role in moving significant amounts of Carbon from their midwater habitat to the depths of the Monterey Bay using filter nets up to a meter wide made of natural polymers called polysaccharides (sugar chains) and proteins.
These mucus filter nets are a gelatinous version of an exoskeleton called a house, with an albeit fragile but complex structure designed for capturing, segregating, and concentrating particles from above. Particles that have been whisked in by the animal's sinusoidal tail, but are too large to eat, are stored in an outer filter net and the pieces that are smaller are concentrated for consumption in the other, and the waste product stored. Due to the quantity of water filtered and the number of particles processed, the house becomes full roughly once a day and is dropped, so that a fresh house can be created relatively inexpensively, and falls quickly to the ocean floor.
It was, however, difficult to get a precise estimate of the filtration rate and number and size of the particles processed by each Giant Larvacean until a special instrument called a DeepPIV was developed and recently built which could slice through the darkness with a laser light and allow a high-definition science camera to capture the dynamics.
📖🖼🎬
Instead of trying to build a tank large enough to harbor a giant larvacean and its house, MBARI Principal Engineer Kakani Katija has been investigating ways to study larvaceans in the open ocean, using a technique called particle image velocimetry (PIV). PIV systems have been used in laboratories for decades to observe and measure complex water-flow patterns such as currents, swirls, and eddies.
In 2015 Katija set out to adapt a PIV system for use in the deep sea. Her “DeepPIV” system consists of a laser that emits a thin sheet of light and a video camera that records tiny particles in the water, which are lit up by the laser as they pass through this sheet of light. Working with MBARI engineers Alana Sherman, Dale Graves, and Chad Kecy, Katija mounted the laser and video camera on MBARI’s MiniROV, a small remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
More here (Press Release): https://goo.gl/ID97lt
🎬📖
Bathochordaeus is considered a giant among larvaceans. The giant larvacean’s claim to fame is the huge mucous house it builds. The house is made up of two filters and basically functions as an elaborate feeding apparatus. They eat tiny particles of dead or drifting plants and animals that float through the water column. The outer filter traps larger particles too big for the animal to eat, while the inner filter guides smaller food particles into the larvacean’s mouth. Eventually the filters get clogged and the larvacean abandons them. The sinking houses, packed with food particles, provide an important source of food for animals living on the seafloor. Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) are using remotely operated vehicles, video cameras, and lasers to study giant larvaceans right in their own habitat. We just described a new species of giant larvacean, Bathochordaeus mcnutti, making a total of three species of giant larvacean now found in Monterey Bay, California.
Video (YT ~4 mins.): https://goo.gl/uYPWrW
🎬📖
Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) recently published a paper describing a new laser device called Deep Particle Image Velocimeter (DeepPIV). By mounting this instrument on a remotely operated vehicle (a type of underwater robot), scientists can measure the flow of seawater through the filters of giant larvaceans--tadpole-like marine animals that are important players in ocean ecosystems.
This video shows an experiment in which DeepPIV (on MBARI’s MiniROV) is used to illuminate the flow of particles through the filter of a giant larvacean. After measuring this flow, scientists discovered that larvaceans can filter more water than any other drifting marine animal known to science.
Video (YT ~2 mins.): https://goo.gl/9wBpys
🎬📖🖼
In a study published in Science Advances on Wednesday, scientists near California’s Monterey Bay have found that, through this process, giant larvaceans can filter all of the bay’s water from about 300 to 1,000 feet deep in less than two weeks, making them the fastest known zooplankton filter feeders.
In doing so, the creatures help transfer carbon that has been removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesizing organisms to the deep sea, where it can be buried and stored long term. And given their abundance in other parts of the world, these organisms likely play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle.
More here (article): https://goo.gl/VVaYby
📖📈📊🎬
[...] Through this process, giant larvaceans contribute significantly to the biological pump and can be regionally responsible for as much as one-third of the carbon flux from near-surface waters to the deep benthos. [...]
More here (paper open): https://goo.gl/lXwnLF
🖼📖
The DeepPIV (particle image velocimetry) instrument consists of a laser and optics that illuminates a sheet of fluid. Using the ROV’s high-definition science camera to capture the motion of suspended particles in the laser sheet, the motion of fluid can be quantified. In addition, gelatinous structures (such as larvacean mucus houses) can be revealed as shown in the above frame from video footage.
Deep PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry): https://goo.gl/rUOIml
🖼📖
A giant larvacean lives inside two net-like mucus filters, which are collectively called its “house.” The outer filter traps coarse particles, and can be up to one meter (three feet) across. The inner filter is slightly more dense, and traps small particles that the animals eats. The larvacean constantly pumps water through both filters, which typically become clogged after about 24 hours of use. At this point the larvacean abandons its house and swims off to create a new one. The cast-off larvacean house eventually deflates like a punctured balloon and sinks rapidly toward the seafloor, carrying large amounts of detritus as well as tiny animals that colonize the mucus.
More here (press release): https://goo.gl/CVqhcm
Related posts (Pyrosomes and MBARI): https://goo.gl/DxVZxT and https://goo.gl/S8hM8Z
Image from first video.
A vital part of the Carbon Cycle (https://goo.gl/ynAhSd) is the oceanic 'down elevator' that takes Carbon from the air converted by seagoing plant life into food for animals and thanks to the resulting food chain eventually deposits it into the reactive sediments and the swimming, crawling, and burrowing animals that live there, at the bottom of the deep, or benthic, ocean.
Given that we are taking vast quantities of carbon that had been previously tucked-away in plant fossils deep under the ground or seabed and are rapidly re-introducing ancient Carbon into the current Carbon Cycle, without a compensating human-made Carbon recovery mechanism of a similar scale, we are increasingly reliant on not overwhelming the natural biogeochemical cycle.
Some years ago +Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) scientists and engineers discovered that, surprisingly, Giant Larvaceans played a role in moving significant amounts of Carbon from their midwater habitat to the depths of the Monterey Bay using filter nets up to a meter wide made of natural polymers called polysaccharides (sugar chains) and proteins.
These mucus filter nets are a gelatinous version of an exoskeleton called a house, with an albeit fragile but complex structure designed for capturing, segregating, and concentrating particles from above. Particles that have been whisked in by the animal's sinusoidal tail, but are too large to eat, are stored in an outer filter net and the pieces that are smaller are concentrated for consumption in the other, and the waste product stored. Due to the quantity of water filtered and the number of particles processed, the house becomes full roughly once a day and is dropped, so that a fresh house can be created relatively inexpensively, and falls quickly to the ocean floor.
It was, however, difficult to get a precise estimate of the filtration rate and number and size of the particles processed by each Giant Larvacean until a special instrument called a DeepPIV was developed and recently built which could slice through the darkness with a laser light and allow a high-definition science camera to capture the dynamics.
📖🖼🎬
Instead of trying to build a tank large enough to harbor a giant larvacean and its house, MBARI Principal Engineer Kakani Katija has been investigating ways to study larvaceans in the open ocean, using a technique called particle image velocimetry (PIV). PIV systems have been used in laboratories for decades to observe and measure complex water-flow patterns such as currents, swirls, and eddies.
In 2015 Katija set out to adapt a PIV system for use in the deep sea. Her “DeepPIV” system consists of a laser that emits a thin sheet of light and a video camera that records tiny particles in the water, which are lit up by the laser as they pass through this sheet of light. Working with MBARI engineers Alana Sherman, Dale Graves, and Chad Kecy, Katija mounted the laser and video camera on MBARI’s MiniROV, a small remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
More here (Press Release): https://goo.gl/ID97lt
🎬📖
Bathochordaeus is considered a giant among larvaceans. The giant larvacean’s claim to fame is the huge mucous house it builds. The house is made up of two filters and basically functions as an elaborate feeding apparatus. They eat tiny particles of dead or drifting plants and animals that float through the water column. The outer filter traps larger particles too big for the animal to eat, while the inner filter guides smaller food particles into the larvacean’s mouth. Eventually the filters get clogged and the larvacean abandons them. The sinking houses, packed with food particles, provide an important source of food for animals living on the seafloor. Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) are using remotely operated vehicles, video cameras, and lasers to study giant larvaceans right in their own habitat. We just described a new species of giant larvacean, Bathochordaeus mcnutti, making a total of three species of giant larvacean now found in Monterey Bay, California.
Video (YT ~4 mins.): https://goo.gl/uYPWrW
🎬📖
Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) recently published a paper describing a new laser device called Deep Particle Image Velocimeter (DeepPIV). By mounting this instrument on a remotely operated vehicle (a type of underwater robot), scientists can measure the flow of seawater through the filters of giant larvaceans--tadpole-like marine animals that are important players in ocean ecosystems.
This video shows an experiment in which DeepPIV (on MBARI’s MiniROV) is used to illuminate the flow of particles through the filter of a giant larvacean. After measuring this flow, scientists discovered that larvaceans can filter more water than any other drifting marine animal known to science.
Video (YT ~2 mins.): https://goo.gl/9wBpys
🎬📖🖼
In a study published in Science Advances on Wednesday, scientists near California’s Monterey Bay have found that, through this process, giant larvaceans can filter all of the bay’s water from about 300 to 1,000 feet deep in less than two weeks, making them the fastest known zooplankton filter feeders.
In doing so, the creatures help transfer carbon that has been removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesizing organisms to the deep sea, where it can be buried and stored long term. And given their abundance in other parts of the world, these organisms likely play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle.
More here (article): https://goo.gl/VVaYby
📖📈📊🎬
[...] Through this process, giant larvaceans contribute significantly to the biological pump and can be regionally responsible for as much as one-third of the carbon flux from near-surface waters to the deep benthos. [...]
More here (paper open): https://goo.gl/lXwnLF
🖼📖
The DeepPIV (particle image velocimetry) instrument consists of a laser and optics that illuminates a sheet of fluid. Using the ROV’s high-definition science camera to capture the motion of suspended particles in the laser sheet, the motion of fluid can be quantified. In addition, gelatinous structures (such as larvacean mucus houses) can be revealed as shown in the above frame from video footage.
Deep PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry): https://goo.gl/rUOIml
🖼📖
A giant larvacean lives inside two net-like mucus filters, which are collectively called its “house.” The outer filter traps coarse particles, and can be up to one meter (three feet) across. The inner filter is slightly more dense, and traps small particles that the animals eats. The larvacean constantly pumps water through both filters, which typically become clogged after about 24 hours of use. At this point the larvacean abandons its house and swims off to create a new one. The cast-off larvacean house eventually deflates like a punctured balloon and sinks rapidly toward the seafloor, carrying large amounts of detritus as well as tiny animals that colonize the mucus.
More here (press release): https://goo.gl/CVqhcm
Related posts (Pyrosomes and MBARI): https://goo.gl/DxVZxT and https://goo.gl/S8hM8Z
Image from first video.
Post has attachment
Golden Tortoise Beetle
(Charidotella sexpunctata)
Another gem of Nature is the American Golden Tortoise Beetle that can appear in a variety of metallic colours and colour patterns and dynamically transform itself from one to another beneath its translucent extended elytron.
📖🖼🔗
Publishing in The Coleopterists Bulletin in 1979, professor of biology Edward M. Barrows from Georgetown University described the results of his investigation into the mating and colour change of the golden tortoise beetle. Barrows collected a bunch of tortoise beetles from Washington and housed them in petri dishes in his lab, feeding them, breeding them and observing their sexual habits. Not only did he find that golden tortoise beetle copulation could last anywhere between 15 to 583 minutes, but he also observed that they would change colour as quickly as two minutes into it. Those beetles that started off a brilliant gold would turn to a goldish orange with black spots and then to a brownish orange with black spots, and those that started out a duller orange would turn golden. The same changes occurred when Barrows gently applied pressure to the beetles when holding them between his fingers. Other reports have these beetles turning from golden to a shimmering red when copulating or agitated.
More here (article): https://goo.gl/Fk0zGy
📖🖼🔗
[...]a modified, hardened forewing of certain insect orders, notably beetles[...]
Elytron (Wikip): https://goo.gl/mvsyun
Image: Ilona Loser https://goo.gl/m708Kn
Other images: https://goo.gl/Mx7hHh https://goo.gl/OZOvQE
(Charidotella sexpunctata)
Another gem of Nature is the American Golden Tortoise Beetle that can appear in a variety of metallic colours and colour patterns and dynamically transform itself from one to another beneath its translucent extended elytron.
📖🖼🔗
Publishing in The Coleopterists Bulletin in 1979, professor of biology Edward M. Barrows from Georgetown University described the results of his investigation into the mating and colour change of the golden tortoise beetle. Barrows collected a bunch of tortoise beetles from Washington and housed them in petri dishes in his lab, feeding them, breeding them and observing their sexual habits. Not only did he find that golden tortoise beetle copulation could last anywhere between 15 to 583 minutes, but he also observed that they would change colour as quickly as two minutes into it. Those beetles that started off a brilliant gold would turn to a goldish orange with black spots and then to a brownish orange with black spots, and those that started out a duller orange would turn golden. The same changes occurred when Barrows gently applied pressure to the beetles when holding them between his fingers. Other reports have these beetles turning from golden to a shimmering red when copulating or agitated.
More here (article): https://goo.gl/Fk0zGy
📖🖼🔗
[...]a modified, hardened forewing of certain insect orders, notably beetles[...]
Elytron (Wikip): https://goo.gl/mvsyun
Image: Ilona Loser https://goo.gl/m708Kn
Other images: https://goo.gl/Mx7hHh https://goo.gl/OZOvQE
Post has attachment
Their Elements
In a new educational series, In Their Element, BBC Radio 4 asks scientists to champion a favourite element each. In Episode 1, Chemist, Andrea Sella, tells how he fell for Mercury when health and safety concerns were not as hyped by the media as they are today. These are available worldwide.
The most beautiful and shimmering of the elements, the weirdest, and yet the most reviled.
Chemist Andrea Sella tell the story of Mercury, explaining the significance of this element not just for chemistry, but also the development of modern civilisation.
Listen here: https://goo.gl/ybYz8h
Mercury - Chemistry's Jekyll and Hyde
Episode 2 Oxygen: The Breath of Life will be presented by Professor of Acoustic Engineering +Trevor Cox next Tuesday and there are more episodes to come.
If you are mobile you may want to use the Global iPlayer App (post): https://goo.gl/oJBwf0)
If you prefer videos...
The Periodic Tables of Videos is a series of short films exploring every element in the most famous table in the world.
Shot in a hand-held style by independent video journalist Brady Haran in a variety of locations, the videos combine spectacular demonstrations with rigorous scientific explanation.
Led by Professor Martyn Poliakoff – who has acquired something of a cult status as the videos have grown in popularity – the series features a range of scientists from the University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry.
📖🎬🎬
More here (text and videos): https://goo.gl/hfWUBe
By +The Royal Institution.
Image: by Medvedev https://goo.gl/61l4yM
Mercury Discharge Tube
In a new educational series, In Their Element, BBC Radio 4 asks scientists to champion a favourite element each. In Episode 1, Chemist, Andrea Sella, tells how he fell for Mercury when health and safety concerns were not as hyped by the media as they are today. These are available worldwide.
The most beautiful and shimmering of the elements, the weirdest, and yet the most reviled.
Chemist Andrea Sella tell the story of Mercury, explaining the significance of this element not just for chemistry, but also the development of modern civilisation.
Listen here: https://goo.gl/ybYz8h
Mercury - Chemistry's Jekyll and Hyde
Episode 2 Oxygen: The Breath of Life will be presented by Professor of Acoustic Engineering +Trevor Cox next Tuesday and there are more episodes to come.
If you are mobile you may want to use the Global iPlayer App (post): https://goo.gl/oJBwf0)
If you prefer videos...
The Periodic Tables of Videos is a series of short films exploring every element in the most famous table in the world.
Shot in a hand-held style by independent video journalist Brady Haran in a variety of locations, the videos combine spectacular demonstrations with rigorous scientific explanation.
Led by Professor Martyn Poliakoff – who has acquired something of a cult status as the videos have grown in popularity – the series features a range of scientists from the University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry.
📖🎬🎬
More here (text and videos): https://goo.gl/hfWUBe
By +The Royal Institution.
Image: by Medvedev https://goo.gl/61l4yM
Mercury Discharge Tube
Post has attachment
Feline Physics
via u/Leto33 for #caturday
For those who haven't already seen the Slow Motion Flipping Cat Physics | Smarter Every Day video...
So as simple of a question as this is, it turns out to be a MAJOR POINT OF STUDY in Physics, Robotics, Space Satellite Control, Weapons Development, Biomedical Engineering, etc. It's stumped scientists and engineers since Newton's day. Here's something interesting. The cat isn't twisting his back.. he's actually BENDING it. The next video will go into great detail about what's going on there, and explain how it relates to studying the farthest points in the universe (Seriously... the fact that a cat can do this allows us to study the Universe.. no exaggeration).
🎬📖🔗
More here (YT ~6 mins.): https://goo.gl/BH5SHR
Next video (YT ~8 mins.): https://goo.gl/a0LfHD
Space Telescopes Maneuver like CATS
Image: https://goo.gl/PQ5lvk
inc. gif controls
via u/Leto33 for #caturday
For those who haven't already seen the Slow Motion Flipping Cat Physics | Smarter Every Day video...
So as simple of a question as this is, it turns out to be a MAJOR POINT OF STUDY in Physics, Robotics, Space Satellite Control, Weapons Development, Biomedical Engineering, etc. It's stumped scientists and engineers since Newton's day. Here's something interesting. The cat isn't twisting his back.. he's actually BENDING it. The next video will go into great detail about what's going on there, and explain how it relates to studying the farthest points in the universe (Seriously... the fact that a cat can do this allows us to study the Universe.. no exaggeration).
🎬📖🔗
More here (YT ~6 mins.): https://goo.gl/BH5SHR
Next video (YT ~8 mins.): https://goo.gl/a0LfHD
Space Telescopes Maneuver like CATS
Image: https://goo.gl/PQ5lvk
inc. gif controls
Post has shared content
Earth Day 2017
Not all flowers are suitable for bees' special eyesight and many modern garden flowers don't contain much of the nectar and pollen that bees need in order to do their busy pollination work for us. I've provided Wikipedia links for many bee friendly plants below.
Not all flowers are suitable for bees' special eyesight and many modern garden flowers don't contain much of the nectar and pollen that bees need in order to do their busy pollination work for us. I've provided Wikipedia links for many bee friendly plants below.
Bee Borders
Not all flowers are friendly to bees, but this list contains plants that are suitable for bees and usually available from garden centres. We can choose to plant bee-friendly plants in our window boxes, grow bags, and garden borders.
Bees visit flowers for food: nectar provides sugars for energy whilst pollen provides proteins essential for growth. Many good bee plants have large, tubular flowers symmetrical along the vertical axis (rather like us). The lower petal is often lipped to provide a landing platform for the visiting bee. This specialised petal is also decorated with lines or spots, called nectar guides, that show the way to the nectar within. Foxgloves are a good example of this, and are used extensively in the planting along with snapdragons (Antirrhinum) and our native Viper’s Bugloss (Echium vulgare).
The colour scheme for the Bee Borders is a beautiful haze of blues, mauves and violets together with complementary yellows, as bees can see this part of the colour spectrum best. Bees can even see a colour invisible to the human eye called bee ultra-violet, which characterises many nectar guides. They, however, are unable to see bright red – one of the reasons red is absent from the planting scheme. Bees forage for food from early spring until the first frosts, and the Bee Borders have therefore been planted to provide a succession of food sources and give a long season of interest.
Bees, and especially honey bees, are in a major decline worldwide due to a complex range of factors thought to include climate change, pests and diseases, colony collapse disorder (whereby the worker bees abruptly abandon a hive causing the colony to die), and a decline in wildflowers due to intensive agricultural practices. And yet, honey bees are vital to our food chain as pollinators of crops accounting for about one third of our diet. Honeybees are essential to fruit-set in tomatoes, coffee, grapes, apples and other fruits in the Rose family. They also ensure seed production for oils such as Rapeseed, and play a major role in pollinating crops such as clover to provide seeds for farmers.
Gardeners can play an important role in shoring up the bee population by including some of these beautiful flowers in their own planting schemes and borders to provide a rich food source, helping to keep bees healthy. Most of the bee plants in the Bee Borders are readily available from garden centres, and many are straightforward to raise from seed.
More here (article and pdf plant list): http://goo.gl/6DY9lb
Insects (butterflies, bees, ...) and some animals are able to see in ultraviolet (UV) light. Bees for instance can see Green and Blue and UV, but no Red, but butterflies and birds can see Red, Green, Blue and UV, and both able to see what we humans cannot see - UV. To make that visible for us humans, I have developed a special color mapping method, which allows to simulate, how we would see the world, if we had such special receptive eyes. Dr Klaus Schmitt
See what bees see: http://goo.gl/l9XLey
The links and images are from Wikipedia and some are necessarily approximate.
Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Kelmscott’ https://goo.gl/8ZMZh2
Agastache foeniculum https://goo.gl/MlvKDo
Allium aflatuense ‘Purple Sensation’ https://goo.gl/hHrRQ0
Allium schoenoprasum https://goo.gl/aJ5HK1
Anchusa azurea https://goo.gl/K75Gd1
Anchusa officinalis https://goo.gl/8io228
Antirrhinum braun-blanquettii n/a https://goo.gl/ZP6nVo
Antirrhinum majus ‘Liberty Lavender’ https://goo.gl/Lu5xUt
Aquilegia vulgaris https://goo.gl/RSLbqV
Borago officinalis https://goo.gl/c1OZXX
Calamintha nepeta https://goo.gl/IVoMvW
Campanula carpatica ‘Blue Clips’ https://goo.gl/ExE9ki
Campanula fenestrellata n/a https://goo.gl/qoQYBy
Centaurea cyanus ‘Black Boy’ https://goo.gl/eVhF6z
Cerinthe major n/a https://goo.gl/AEXzvR
Cerinthe minor n/a https://goo.gl/AEXzvR
Cynoglossum nervosum n/a https://goo.gl/km37rG
Cynoglossum officinale n/a https://goo.gl/km37rG
Delphinium requienii n/a https://goo.gl/v5koXf
Digitalis purpurea ‘Excelsior Hybrids’ https://goo.gl/0YWTB6
Digitalis ferruginea https://goo.gl/FsTtHF
Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’ https://goo.gl/GjO5yR
Echium vulgare https://goo.gl/fdNRbd
Eryngium giganteum ‘Silver Ghost’ https://goo.gl/JGtT0I
Erysimum cheiri ‘Sunset Orange’ https://goo.gl/xC1le6
Euphorbia mellifera https://goo.gl/BLBMJ4
Geranium x monacense (hybrid cross n/a)
Iris orientalis https://goo.gl/IkfvWL
Iris sibirica https://goo.gl/vEAodO
Lamium maculatum https://goo.gl/auTXU0
Lathyrus vernus https://goo.gl/WEfwZK
Lavandula x intermedia ‘Sussex’ https://goo.gl/it6Vc4
Linaria purpurea ‘Canon J. Went’ https://goo.gl/V7n6vi
Linaria triornithophora https://goo.gl/g4wh8n
Narcissus ‘Tête-à-Tête’ https://goo.gl/B3HZ6c
Nepeta subsessilis ‘Pink Dreams’ https://goo.gl/vf53GV
Nonea lutea https://goo.gl/fm6uI0
Penstemon ‘Garnet’ https://goo.gl/d8qVJZ
Phacelia tanacetifolia https://goo.gl/fdcEtC
Prunella grandiflora https://goo.gl/CaZuv0
Salvia forsskaohlei https://goo.gl/07hKJK
Salvia nemerosa ‘Lubecca’ n/a https://goo.gl/X7Hbdh
Salvia transsylvanica https://goo.gl/7dxMwX
Scabiosa caucasica ‘Blausiegel’ https://goo.gl/joLpUD
Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ n/a https://goo.gl/m8v2It
Sedum ‘Ruby Glow’ n/a https://goo.gl/m8v2It
Stachys byzantina https://goo.gl/knYZhM
Trifolium rubens https://goo.gl/Ei3CBe
Valeriana officinalis https://goo.gl/Zac5nw
Verbena bonariensis https://goo.gl/lxH3BN
Veronicastrum virginicum https://goo.gl/speOi4
Viola ‘Blue Blotch’ https://goo.gl/It6IO0
Echium vulgare Viper's Bugloss post: https://goo.gl/PJ9rsn
Daylight Robbery post: https://goo.gl/vaQ7hQ
Image: https://goo.gl/Mo38sO
Not all flowers are friendly to bees, but this list contains plants that are suitable for bees and usually available from garden centres. We can choose to plant bee-friendly plants in our window boxes, grow bags, and garden borders.
Bees visit flowers for food: nectar provides sugars for energy whilst pollen provides proteins essential for growth. Many good bee plants have large, tubular flowers symmetrical along the vertical axis (rather like us). The lower petal is often lipped to provide a landing platform for the visiting bee. This specialised petal is also decorated with lines or spots, called nectar guides, that show the way to the nectar within. Foxgloves are a good example of this, and are used extensively in the planting along with snapdragons (Antirrhinum) and our native Viper’s Bugloss (Echium vulgare).
The colour scheme for the Bee Borders is a beautiful haze of blues, mauves and violets together with complementary yellows, as bees can see this part of the colour spectrum best. Bees can even see a colour invisible to the human eye called bee ultra-violet, which characterises many nectar guides. They, however, are unable to see bright red – one of the reasons red is absent from the planting scheme. Bees forage for food from early spring until the first frosts, and the Bee Borders have therefore been planted to provide a succession of food sources and give a long season of interest.
Bees, and especially honey bees, are in a major decline worldwide due to a complex range of factors thought to include climate change, pests and diseases, colony collapse disorder (whereby the worker bees abruptly abandon a hive causing the colony to die), and a decline in wildflowers due to intensive agricultural practices. And yet, honey bees are vital to our food chain as pollinators of crops accounting for about one third of our diet. Honeybees are essential to fruit-set in tomatoes, coffee, grapes, apples and other fruits in the Rose family. They also ensure seed production for oils such as Rapeseed, and play a major role in pollinating crops such as clover to provide seeds for farmers.
Gardeners can play an important role in shoring up the bee population by including some of these beautiful flowers in their own planting schemes and borders to provide a rich food source, helping to keep bees healthy. Most of the bee plants in the Bee Borders are readily available from garden centres, and many are straightforward to raise from seed.
More here (article and pdf plant list): http://goo.gl/6DY9lb
Insects (butterflies, bees, ...) and some animals are able to see in ultraviolet (UV) light. Bees for instance can see Green and Blue and UV, but no Red, but butterflies and birds can see Red, Green, Blue and UV, and both able to see what we humans cannot see - UV. To make that visible for us humans, I have developed a special color mapping method, which allows to simulate, how we would see the world, if we had such special receptive eyes. Dr Klaus Schmitt
See what bees see: http://goo.gl/l9XLey
The links and images are from Wikipedia and some are necessarily approximate.
Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Kelmscott’ https://goo.gl/8ZMZh2
Agastache foeniculum https://goo.gl/MlvKDo
Allium aflatuense ‘Purple Sensation’ https://goo.gl/hHrRQ0
Allium schoenoprasum https://goo.gl/aJ5HK1
Anchusa azurea https://goo.gl/K75Gd1
Anchusa officinalis https://goo.gl/8io228
Antirrhinum braun-blanquettii n/a https://goo.gl/ZP6nVo
Antirrhinum majus ‘Liberty Lavender’ https://goo.gl/Lu5xUt
Aquilegia vulgaris https://goo.gl/RSLbqV
Borago officinalis https://goo.gl/c1OZXX
Calamintha nepeta https://goo.gl/IVoMvW
Campanula carpatica ‘Blue Clips’ https://goo.gl/ExE9ki
Campanula fenestrellata n/a https://goo.gl/qoQYBy
Centaurea cyanus ‘Black Boy’ https://goo.gl/eVhF6z
Cerinthe major n/a https://goo.gl/AEXzvR
Cerinthe minor n/a https://goo.gl/AEXzvR
Cynoglossum nervosum n/a https://goo.gl/km37rG
Cynoglossum officinale n/a https://goo.gl/km37rG
Delphinium requienii n/a https://goo.gl/v5koXf
Digitalis purpurea ‘Excelsior Hybrids’ https://goo.gl/0YWTB6
Digitalis ferruginea https://goo.gl/FsTtHF
Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’ https://goo.gl/GjO5yR
Echium vulgare https://goo.gl/fdNRbd
Eryngium giganteum ‘Silver Ghost’ https://goo.gl/JGtT0I
Erysimum cheiri ‘Sunset Orange’ https://goo.gl/xC1le6
Euphorbia mellifera https://goo.gl/BLBMJ4
Geranium x monacense (hybrid cross n/a)
Iris orientalis https://goo.gl/IkfvWL
Iris sibirica https://goo.gl/vEAodO
Lamium maculatum https://goo.gl/auTXU0
Lathyrus vernus https://goo.gl/WEfwZK
Lavandula x intermedia ‘Sussex’ https://goo.gl/it6Vc4
Linaria purpurea ‘Canon J. Went’ https://goo.gl/V7n6vi
Linaria triornithophora https://goo.gl/g4wh8n
Narcissus ‘Tête-à-Tête’ https://goo.gl/B3HZ6c
Nepeta subsessilis ‘Pink Dreams’ https://goo.gl/vf53GV
Nonea lutea https://goo.gl/fm6uI0
Penstemon ‘Garnet’ https://goo.gl/d8qVJZ
Phacelia tanacetifolia https://goo.gl/fdcEtC
Prunella grandiflora https://goo.gl/CaZuv0
Salvia forsskaohlei https://goo.gl/07hKJK
Salvia nemerosa ‘Lubecca’ n/a https://goo.gl/X7Hbdh
Salvia transsylvanica https://goo.gl/7dxMwX
Scabiosa caucasica ‘Blausiegel’ https://goo.gl/joLpUD
Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ n/a https://goo.gl/m8v2It
Sedum ‘Ruby Glow’ n/a https://goo.gl/m8v2It
Stachys byzantina https://goo.gl/knYZhM
Trifolium rubens https://goo.gl/Ei3CBe
Valeriana officinalis https://goo.gl/Zac5nw
Verbena bonariensis https://goo.gl/lxH3BN
Veronicastrum virginicum https://goo.gl/speOi4
Viola ‘Blue Blotch’ https://goo.gl/It6IO0
Echium vulgare Viper's Bugloss post: https://goo.gl/PJ9rsn
Daylight Robbery post: https://goo.gl/vaQ7hQ
Image: https://goo.gl/Mo38sO
Post has attachment
Native Bluebells
When we were kids, in Spring, we would often visit a favourite, off-the-beaten-track, bluebell wood hidden amongst the gently rolling hills of the Hampshire countryside, to enjoy a carpet of deep blue, demurely nodding, scented flowers. We never gave much thought to the strategies deployed by bluebells to allow these plants to be some of the first wildflowers to show their heads each year.
The appearance of vivid bluebell carpets in British woodlands is a sure and spectacular sign of spring. Bluebells – Hyacinthoides non-scripta (L.) Chouard ex Rothm – are Britain’s favourite wildflower and particularly fine carpets attract visitors to well-known sites such as Kew Gardens in London and Coed Cefn in Powys, Wales.
📖🖼
More here (article): https://goo.gl/Hgcm8a
Spanish Bluebells have been introduced to gardens and probably due to the careless dumping of clippings in the woods and byways these are now hybridizing with the more vibrant native species.
📖🖼
Native bluebells are almost synonymous with English springtime, there is little more distinctive and evocative than the haze of blue they spread across a woodland floor. However the native English bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta), is not the only bluebell we have. The Spanish bluebell (Hyacinthoides hispanica) was introduced as a garden flower and can produce fertile hybrids with the natives. Below is a brief guide to help you tell the difference.
More here (blog post): https://goo.gl/7lxdML
Image: https://goo.gl/qJwLQy
When we were kids, in Spring, we would often visit a favourite, off-the-beaten-track, bluebell wood hidden amongst the gently rolling hills of the Hampshire countryside, to enjoy a carpet of deep blue, demurely nodding, scented flowers. We never gave much thought to the strategies deployed by bluebells to allow these plants to be some of the first wildflowers to show their heads each year.
The appearance of vivid bluebell carpets in British woodlands is a sure and spectacular sign of spring. Bluebells – Hyacinthoides non-scripta (L.) Chouard ex Rothm – are Britain’s favourite wildflower and particularly fine carpets attract visitors to well-known sites such as Kew Gardens in London and Coed Cefn in Powys, Wales.
📖🖼
More here (article): https://goo.gl/Hgcm8a
Spanish Bluebells have been introduced to gardens and probably due to the careless dumping of clippings in the woods and byways these are now hybridizing with the more vibrant native species.
📖🖼
Native bluebells are almost synonymous with English springtime, there is little more distinctive and evocative than the haze of blue they spread across a woodland floor. However the native English bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta), is not the only bluebell we have. The Spanish bluebell (Hyacinthoides hispanica) was introduced as a garden flower and can produce fertile hybrids with the natives. Below is a brief guide to help you tell the difference.
More here (blog post): https://goo.gl/7lxdML
Image: https://goo.gl/qJwLQy
Post has attachment
Dive, Dive!
As part of his work, Marine Ecologist, Dr. Ari Friedlaender, likes to develop tag technology to instrument the lives of the marine mammals such as the toothed whales, and those called baleen whales who sift their food from huge gulps of seawater.
His latest venture is to use the improved video capture and storage capabilities available today, and strong suction cups, to monitor the ecology of whales in the Antarctic. As we humans increasingly farm fish we are plundering the once plentiful krill, near the bottom of the food chain, that form an important part of the diet of baleen whales and many other lower creatures, in order to give our fish the omega 3 fatty acids we value in them.
Whales are awe-inspiring and often elusive creatures. Their distribution and critical feeding areas are currently poorly understood, and as climate change and krill fishing increase, our time to learn more about these giant mammals is running out. However, with the help of Dr. Ari Friedlaender, a whale ecologist and National Geographic Explorer, WWF is using whale tagging to discover a wealth of new information.
🎬📖🖼🖼
More here (article/press release): https://goo.gl/Z9UmIG
Scientists have attached cameras to unlock the mysteries of whales lives in Antarctica. The cameras have helped scientists gather information on where, when and how whales feed, their social lives, and even how they must blow hard to clear sea ice so they can breathe. Crucially, this data will enable better protection of whale feeding areas. The researchers use suction cups to attach non-invasive digital tags – which contain sensors and a 'whale cam' – onto the backs of humpback and minke whales. The camera tags stay on each whale for between 24 and 48 hours before they detach and are retrieved by scientists and reused. WWF-Australia has provided funding for three 'whale cams' to help scientists better understand critical feeding areas in the Southern Ocean and the impact of shrinking ice caused by warming sea temperatures. The research is being conducted in collaboration with scientists at the Australian Antarctic Division in Hobart and under the auspices of the International Whaling Commission's, Southern Ocean Research Partnership (IWC-SORP).
🎬
Video (YT ~1 min.): https://goo.gl/LfRTku
While still exceptionally abundant, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Antarctic krill populations have dropped an estimated 80 percent since the 1970s. Precisely why, scientists have not determined, but loss of sea ice is thought to be a major factor.
📖🖼
More here (article): https://goo.gl/UQ1HHr
Ari is an ecologist with a primary interest in the understanding the relationship between the foraging behavior of marine mammals and their prey. Ari works on a wide range of marine mammal species including baleen and toothed whales and dolphins across a range of geographic regions. Ari has long-term ecological research projects ongoing in Alaska, California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Antarctica. Ari has helped in the development of tag technology and analytical and visualization tools to better understand the underwater movements and behaviors of marine mammals. For his dissertation research, Ari used geospatial tools to quantify how the distribution of cetaceans related to environmental variables in Antarctica. At the MMI, Ari’s lab will focus on developing new telemetry applications to elucidate the underwater behavior of marine mammals.
📖🖼
More here (Ari Friedlaender): https://goo.gl/ChVHvC
Image: https://goo.gl/VGqmKy
Humpback Whale
As part of his work, Marine Ecologist, Dr. Ari Friedlaender, likes to develop tag technology to instrument the lives of the marine mammals such as the toothed whales, and those called baleen whales who sift their food from huge gulps of seawater.
His latest venture is to use the improved video capture and storage capabilities available today, and strong suction cups, to monitor the ecology of whales in the Antarctic. As we humans increasingly farm fish we are plundering the once plentiful krill, near the bottom of the food chain, that form an important part of the diet of baleen whales and many other lower creatures, in order to give our fish the omega 3 fatty acids we value in them.
Whales are awe-inspiring and often elusive creatures. Their distribution and critical feeding areas are currently poorly understood, and as climate change and krill fishing increase, our time to learn more about these giant mammals is running out. However, with the help of Dr. Ari Friedlaender, a whale ecologist and National Geographic Explorer, WWF is using whale tagging to discover a wealth of new information.
🎬📖🖼🖼
More here (article/press release): https://goo.gl/Z9UmIG
Scientists have attached cameras to unlock the mysteries of whales lives in Antarctica. The cameras have helped scientists gather information on where, when and how whales feed, their social lives, and even how they must blow hard to clear sea ice so they can breathe. Crucially, this data will enable better protection of whale feeding areas. The researchers use suction cups to attach non-invasive digital tags – which contain sensors and a 'whale cam' – onto the backs of humpback and minke whales. The camera tags stay on each whale for between 24 and 48 hours before they detach and are retrieved by scientists and reused. WWF-Australia has provided funding for three 'whale cams' to help scientists better understand critical feeding areas in the Southern Ocean and the impact of shrinking ice caused by warming sea temperatures. The research is being conducted in collaboration with scientists at the Australian Antarctic Division in Hobart and under the auspices of the International Whaling Commission's, Southern Ocean Research Partnership (IWC-SORP).
🎬
Video (YT ~1 min.): https://goo.gl/LfRTku
While still exceptionally abundant, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Antarctic krill populations have dropped an estimated 80 percent since the 1970s. Precisely why, scientists have not determined, but loss of sea ice is thought to be a major factor.
📖🖼
More here (article): https://goo.gl/UQ1HHr
Ari is an ecologist with a primary interest in the understanding the relationship between the foraging behavior of marine mammals and their prey. Ari works on a wide range of marine mammal species including baleen and toothed whales and dolphins across a range of geographic regions. Ari has long-term ecological research projects ongoing in Alaska, California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Antarctica. Ari has helped in the development of tag technology and analytical and visualization tools to better understand the underwater movements and behaviors of marine mammals. For his dissertation research, Ari used geospatial tools to quantify how the distribution of cetaceans related to environmental variables in Antarctica. At the MMI, Ari’s lab will focus on developing new telemetry applications to elucidate the underwater behavior of marine mammals.
📖🖼
More here (Ari Friedlaender): https://goo.gl/ChVHvC
Image: https://goo.gl/VGqmKy
Humpback Whale
Post has attachment
Liz Sockett The Life Scientific
Professor Liz Sockett and her team study and characterize a bacterium that has specialized in killing other bacteria using a number of sophisticated predation strategies. Thanks to her work Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus may one day, after we have made antibiotics useless, and if we are lucky, work with our immune systems to eliminate Gram-negative infections.
🎧📖🔗
Professor Liz Sockett studies an extraordinary group of predatory bacteria. Bdellovibrio may be small but they kill other bacteria with ingenious and ruthless efficiency.
Liz has devoted the last fifteen years of her career as a microbiologist to work out how this microscopic killer invades and consumes its victims - victims which include a host of disease-causing bacteria which have also acquired resistance to antibiotics which once killed them.
As well as studying the numerous tricks and weapons which Bdellovibrio have evolved to despatch and feed on other bugs, Prof Sockett's lab at the University of Nottingham is also testing the bacteria's potential as a new kind of treatment in the era of antibiotic resistance. Deadly infections may not be able to outwit this bacterial top predator in the way they have with ever increasing numbers of antibiotic drugs.
More and listen here: https://goo.gl/hvzOXQ
Available worldwide online as a stream, MP3 download or Podcast. Also see links for references and more reading.
(There is also a dedicated listening mobile app.
Post: https://goo.gl/oJBwf0)
📖🖼🔗
Dr Michael Chew, from the Wellcome Trust medical research body, said: "It may be unusual to use a bacterium to get rid of another, but in the light of the looming threat from drug-resistant infections the potential of beneficial bacteria-animal interactions should not be overlooked.
More here (article): https://goo.gl/IQFzlJ
📖📈📉
In our study, the prokaryotic predator Bdellovibrio works together with the host immune system, which would otherwise be overwhelmed by a Gram-negative infection. These biological experiments suggest that when tackling pathogenic AMR bacterial infections in a human medical setting, active predation and any associated/limited immune-stimulatory side effects can be beneficial as long as patient physiology and well-being can be supported. Future experiments will allow us to characterize the host immune response in more detail, determine how predators can be prepared with modified immune-stimulatory properties, and examine how multiple doses of predators can be applied in more long-lived infections. The data in this study represent key milestones in future use of Bdellovibrio as a “living antibiotic” in vivo, and they warrant further research into the development of predatory bacteria as an antibacterial agent for infected sites or wounds in higher vertebrates and, ultimately, humans. The strength of such prokaryotic-predator: eukaryotic-leukocyte combinations is an important therapeutic consideration as we move forward in responding to new Gram-negative bacterial threats.
Paper (open): https://goo.gl/Idm3j4
Thanks to funding by the Wellcome Trust
Image: https://goo.gl/I8z23Y
Bdellovibrio lifecycle
Professor Liz Sockett and her team study and characterize a bacterium that has specialized in killing other bacteria using a number of sophisticated predation strategies. Thanks to her work Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus may one day, after we have made antibiotics useless, and if we are lucky, work with our immune systems to eliminate Gram-negative infections.
🎧📖🔗
Professor Liz Sockett studies an extraordinary group of predatory bacteria. Bdellovibrio may be small but they kill other bacteria with ingenious and ruthless efficiency.
Liz has devoted the last fifteen years of her career as a microbiologist to work out how this microscopic killer invades and consumes its victims - victims which include a host of disease-causing bacteria which have also acquired resistance to antibiotics which once killed them.
As well as studying the numerous tricks and weapons which Bdellovibrio have evolved to despatch and feed on other bugs, Prof Sockett's lab at the University of Nottingham is also testing the bacteria's potential as a new kind of treatment in the era of antibiotic resistance. Deadly infections may not be able to outwit this bacterial top predator in the way they have with ever increasing numbers of antibiotic drugs.
More and listen here: https://goo.gl/hvzOXQ
Available worldwide online as a stream, MP3 download or Podcast. Also see links for references and more reading.
(There is also a dedicated listening mobile app.
Post: https://goo.gl/oJBwf0)
📖🖼🔗
Dr Michael Chew, from the Wellcome Trust medical research body, said: "It may be unusual to use a bacterium to get rid of another, but in the light of the looming threat from drug-resistant infections the potential of beneficial bacteria-animal interactions should not be overlooked.
More here (article): https://goo.gl/IQFzlJ
📖📈📉
In our study, the prokaryotic predator Bdellovibrio works together with the host immune system, which would otherwise be overwhelmed by a Gram-negative infection. These biological experiments suggest that when tackling pathogenic AMR bacterial infections in a human medical setting, active predation and any associated/limited immune-stimulatory side effects can be beneficial as long as patient physiology and well-being can be supported. Future experiments will allow us to characterize the host immune response in more detail, determine how predators can be prepared with modified immune-stimulatory properties, and examine how multiple doses of predators can be applied in more long-lived infections. The data in this study represent key milestones in future use of Bdellovibrio as a “living antibiotic” in vivo, and they warrant further research into the development of predatory bacteria as an antibacterial agent for infected sites or wounds in higher vertebrates and, ultimately, humans. The strength of such prokaryotic-predator: eukaryotic-leukocyte combinations is an important therapeutic consideration as we move forward in responding to new Gram-negative bacterial threats.
Paper (open): https://goo.gl/Idm3j4
Thanks to funding by the Wellcome Trust
Image: https://goo.gl/I8z23Y
Bdellovibrio lifecycle
Post has attachment
Image Database
+NASA has created a new, unified database of curated images and videos, related information and links, with a simple search engine and filters, which together bring attention to some of the best sensations across multiple NASA entities and make them more accessible. It replaces the older NASA Multimedia Search.
📖🖼
When the Internet came along in the 1990s, like a lot of government agencies, NASA kind of scratched its head and wondered what to make of all this freely shared information. But unlike a lot of other agencies, NASA had a trove of images, audio, and video the general public wanted to see. After all, this was the agency that had sent people to the Moon, taken photos of every planet in the Solar System, and launched the Hubble Space Telescope.
So each of the NASA field centers—there are 10 of them—began digitizing their photo archives and putting them online. Johnson Space Center in Houston, for example, had thousands of images of space shuttle astronauts training and flying in space. Kennedy Space Center had launch photos. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory had planets, rings, comets, and more. Unfortunately, these images were spread across dozens of NASA dot gov sites, with no good way to search the different databases.
More here (article): https://goo.gl/TMJ0U1
🖼🖼📖🔗
New Database: https://goo.gl/vJf3JS
🖼📖🔗
On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home planet, Earth. With the sun's powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini's onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn's orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.
[...]
Finally, in the lower right of the mosaic, in between the bright blue E ring and the faint but defined G ring, is the pale blue dot of our planet, Earth. Look closely and you can see the moon protruding from the Earth's lower right. (For a higher resolution view of the Earth and moon taken during this campaign, see PIA14949.)
Image: https://goo.gl/jcdLxq
From (image and more): https://goo.gl/7pG59W
+NASA has created a new, unified database of curated images and videos, related information and links, with a simple search engine and filters, which together bring attention to some of the best sensations across multiple NASA entities and make them more accessible. It replaces the older NASA Multimedia Search.
📖🖼
When the Internet came along in the 1990s, like a lot of government agencies, NASA kind of scratched its head and wondered what to make of all this freely shared information. But unlike a lot of other agencies, NASA had a trove of images, audio, and video the general public wanted to see. After all, this was the agency that had sent people to the Moon, taken photos of every planet in the Solar System, and launched the Hubble Space Telescope.
So each of the NASA field centers—there are 10 of them—began digitizing their photo archives and putting them online. Johnson Space Center in Houston, for example, had thousands of images of space shuttle astronauts training and flying in space. Kennedy Space Center had launch photos. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory had planets, rings, comets, and more. Unfortunately, these images were spread across dozens of NASA dot gov sites, with no good way to search the different databases.
More here (article): https://goo.gl/TMJ0U1
🖼🖼📖🔗
New Database: https://goo.gl/vJf3JS
🖼📖🔗
On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home planet, Earth. With the sun's powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini's onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn's orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.
[...]
Finally, in the lower right of the mosaic, in between the bright blue E ring and the faint but defined G ring, is the pale blue dot of our planet, Earth. Look closely and you can see the moon protruding from the Earth's lower right. (For a higher resolution view of the Earth and moon taken during this campaign, see PIA14949.)
Image: https://goo.gl/jcdLxq
From (image and more): https://goo.gl/7pG59W
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