FEAST OR FAMINE

American Foulbrood (AFB) disease kills bees. It’s a bacterial disease that affects honeybees in the larval stage of their development. The infected larvae die and rot in the bee hives, releasing infectious spores. If these spores become airborne, they can drift into another bee hive and infect more bee larvae. Therefore it’s important to detect AFB and the spores before more bee hives are infected. If a hive is infected, bee keepers destroy the whole hive because there’s no other way of preventing the disease. Early detection can save hives from being destroyed. The rotting larvae emit a scent—not detected by humans. However, trained bee sniffing dogs can smell it. Baz, a four-year-old black Labrador in Australia, has been trained to detect AFB. Once trained, he had to pass a test to become a fully qualified AFB early warning detector. In an apiary with 51 hives with AFB purposefully added to some of them, it took Baz only 45 minutes to assess all hives. Humans took 3 day...

Conflict is common in the animal world in which different species and individuals within species compete for food, partners, or status. Primatologists at the Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg have found that the Tonkean macaques of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi demonstrate peace building behaviour. Tonkean black macaques are large black monkeys of central Sulawesi and Togian Islands. In 1972 some were transported to France and studied at Louis Pasteur University’s Primate Centre in a wooded enclosure. Studies of primates found that macaques (particular Barbary macaques) showed bouts of intense aggression and submission, strict hierarchical rules, and a strong preference for kinship—preferring the company of their relatives with less tolerance towards others. So nepotism and dominance rule the realms of most macaque species. However, the Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) and those at the Primate Centre appear to be exceptions to the rule. Sub...

Improvisation for Scientists is a workshop at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Stony Brook at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. Alan Alda, and the Center, encourages the use of plain language in science subjects. Alda, the American actor best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H is a visiting professor at SUNY’s School of Journalism and a member of the advisory board of The Center for Communicating Science. Alda, who hosts workshops in the Center, encourages science students to mime their research in front of audiences. It’s not easy to do. How do you mime the research of coral reefs as early warning detectors of pollutants in marine environments? A study by the National Science Foundation found that only half (50%) of American adults surveyed understood that the Earth orbits the Sun once a year, and less than 10% could define a molecule. So science isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, or favourite subject. Some people say that their lack ...

Monday September 2 is Labor Day and the last holiday weekend of the American summer. With perfect weather, people are playing volleyball on Pennsylvania Avenue, riding the tourist bus around the city, visiting museums and memorials, kayaking on the Potomac, and enjoying the parks and gardens. The World War II memorial, with its cooling water fountains was popular with families. It commemorates the sacrifices of more than 40,000 who served in the US armed forces. It was open to the public in 2004 and is located on 17 th Street near the Reflecting Pool. Between the Pacific pillar and the Atlantic pillar is a pool and fountains, with a spectacular view of the Lincoln Memorial. T he Labor Day weekend unofficially marks the end of summer so people make the best use of their time off work. USA Today (August 30, 2013) reports that 34.1 million people will travel at least 50 miles from their home on the holiday period—a 43% increase over last year. Of these vacatio...

During the American long weekend to celebrate Labor Day on Monday, museums, monuments, and parks are enjoying an influx of people. Most of Washington’s musuems have free entry. A popular museum for families is the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Open from 10:00 am until 7:30 pm, it is the largest of the Smithsonian’s 19 museums and accommodates about 8 million visitors a year to the Washington DC and Virginia locations—the most visited museum in the country. Opened in 1976, it continually adds new exhibitions and special events, with exhibits ranging from early gliders and planes, to military aircraft and spacecraft. In September the museum is celebrating Women in Aviation and Space, and also Leonardo da Vinci’s contribution to flight since the 16 th century. From September 13, Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex on the Flight of Birds will be exhibited until October 22. The Codex is da Vinci’s notebook. It includes sketches and descriptions of flying d...

On August 22, 2013, I wrote in the blog “Spacewalker almost drowns from water in his helmet” that Italian astronaut, Major Luca Parmitano, had technical problems with water seeping into his helmet on July 16 this year as he was on his second space walk at the International Space Station. NASA’s initial investigations trace the problem to his backpack which contains the life-support equipment. I am currently in Washington DC, where I visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the exhibition “Suited for Space.” The exhibition, continuing until December 2, 2013, displays the history and development of the space suit, and accessories, worn by astronauts from the 1960s to present day. From spacesuits to backpacks to helmets and gloves, the museum shows the development through photographs and even x-rays of suits—from the Freedom 7 Suit of 1961 to the 1968 Apollo Suit and Skylab 3 Suit of 1973. The first helmets were extremely restrictive. Astronauts could...