Drones have a grandfather but no father...or Let the girls do ALL the work!

The lowly honeybee, feared by many, ignored by most is probably the most important insect that has ever lived on the Earth.  The Latin name, Apis mellifera, was coined in 1758 by Carolus Linnaeus.  The name literally means "honey-bearing bee."  Linnaeus soon realized his mistake--that is that bees carry nectar and make honey so he tried to change the name to Apis mellifica which means "honey-making bee."  Alas, the rules got Linnaeus too and the official naming committee said the earlier name had precedence.

Regardless of its name the honeybee is most important not for carrying or making honey but for its role in pollination.  Corn, wheat, oats, and other cereal crops are wind pollinated, meaning that wind blows the pollen from one plant to another, but all our field crops and fruit and nut crops depend on pollinators to move the pollen from one flower to another.  Most of the field, fruit, and nuts will not develop empty fruit--that is fruit without seeds.  (Yes, in another blog we will address seedless fruits like bananas, grapes, watermelon, and some oranges.)

Those pellets of pollen go back to the hive as feed.  The pollen grains on her body do the pollinating of the crops.

Without pollination, no seed formation, and no fruit formation, and no food on the shelf at the grocery store, farmer's market, or in your own pantry.

Almost all the work in the hive is done by sterile females called "workers."  There is one queen in the hive and it is her job to lay eggs where the workers tell her to.  When a new queen is needed, the workers know this and begin the process of producing a new queen and at the same time they produce some drones.

Drones have one function and that is to mate with the queen and then they die.  They do not eat on their own while in the hive, they are fed  by workers.  They have no sting to provide defense to the hive.  When the new, virgin queen leaves the hive, they accompany her.  It is best for the hive if drones from another hive also accompany her to provide diversity in genetic makeup; however, it is not absolutely necessary.

The new queen flies further and higher until all the drones have fallen away but one.  That one, the strongest of the "suitors" is the one with whom she mates.  He then dies and she saves his semen to be used throughout the rest of her life to fertilize her eggs.

The workers build the cells in the hive.  Most are the same, six-sided and small cells that fit together so well in the hive.  The workers keep track of the eggs laid by the queen, how many hatch, how healthy they are, etc.  When the queen shows signs of declining in her effectiveness as a worker bee producing machine, they build several larger cells called, not surprisingly, queen cells.  

The queen lays eggs in these cells as directed by the workers and in effect ensures her own demise.  The queen has an un-barbed sting so she can sting over and over, while the workers can only sting once.  If the queen figures out what is going on, she will sting the new queens to death right in their cells.

If she doesn't realize until the new queens are hatched, then she will be challenged by one of the new queens and will take her loyal followers and swarm.  That is where a swarm comes from.  One of the biggest facades of all is the beekeeper who comes and bravely captures the swarm and saves the lives of everyone around.  That is because, without a hive to protect, the bees are quite docile and go willingly into whatever he provides for them to build a new hive in.  Often this hive is not long-lived for obvious reasons.

The new queen who exhibits dominance is chosen by the hive as their new queen and the others that hatched near the same time are stung to death.

We need to get back to the three kinds of bees and where they come from or how they are formed from one queen having mated once.  It is a pretty cool method.  The workers who are the queens attendants form a shield around her.  There are three on each side, facing her, and one at each end, facing her.  They effectively push her around where they want her to go.  When she backs down into a cell to lay an egg, the posterior part of her body curves toward her head which allows a tiny amount of semen to be discharged from the seminal vesicle and fertilize the egg.  The workers then feed the larva that comes from this egg royal jelly and pollen for a few days and then just pollen until it forms a cocoon and pupates.  This egg eventually develops into a worker bee.  This bee has genes from the queen and her mate but cannot reproduce itself.

When it is time for a new queen, the old queen deposits the egg exactly as above but into a larger cell.  This time the workers feed the larva royal jelly and pollen for its entire life as a larva until it pupates.  This one comes out a queen.  She is fully developed and able to reproduce.

When it is time for drones, the workers make a larger cell but it is oriented slightly differently.  This time, to back down into this cell she must flex her posterior slightly away from her body, which pinches off the seminal vesicle so no semen is allowed to fertilize the egg.  This individual becomes a male with only half as many genes as the workers or queen.  Since he develops from an un-fertilized egg, he has NO father, but the queen's father is his grandfather...cool riddle, huh?

All the honeybees you see are sterile female workers with quite a busy schedule.  Since they have to gather pollen and nectar and get back to the hive, and since they die if they sting you, they really do not WANT to sting you.  If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone.

Their jobs include cleaning out the cells, carrying dead bees out of the hive, fanning their wings to keep the hive cool and fanning their wings to keep it warm in the winter, feeding larvae, gathering nectar and pollen and no doubt other things too.

The Big Bang Theory or Don't Forget Your Pants...

It was last Thursday evening I believe, I was searching the menu of DirecTV for some episode of NCIS or Criminal Minds or Bones that I had not yet seen.  Currently DTV was tuned to CBS and the show Big Bang Theory was showing.  Now you see why I was searching for something else to watch.

With our DirecTV, probably like yours, when searching for what else is on, the current selection is displayed in the upper right-hand corner and you can still hear what the characters are saying.  The Big Bang Theory is not a show I watch regularly, in fact, I have never seen it before, but I have the idea of generally what is going on in the show.

In this show, apparently Sheldon is trying to form a new group of friends and they are introducing themselves to each other—yeah, a little awkward, I guess.  One of the new friends introduces himself by describing a naked hot tub incident—at this point Sheldon interrupts with the story of Archimedes and the king’s gold crown.  Since I already knew about Archimedes and the king’s gold crown and I had NO interest in the friend's experience in the hot tub and I found something else to watch, I changed the channel.

For those of you who are dying to know the story of

Archimedes and the King’s Gold Crown

or

When you get out of the tub, don’t forget to get dressed…

Eureka! here it is:

Archimedes was one smart cookie.  He was one of those guys who was so smart that he only needed one name—you know, like Galileo, Newton, Plato, Aristotle, Einstein, K-Lock, people who are instantly recognized just by one name.

Archimedes was a mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer.  He lived in Greece in the third century BC (287 – 212 BC).  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes)  In fact, it was the tenacity with which he approached problems that cost him his life. 

During the Siege of Syracuse when the Romans took over Greece, a soldier told Archimedes to come with him.  When he replied that he had to finish this math problem first, the Roman soldier stabbed him.  (No this is not an excuse for not doing your homework!)

Two of his greatest contributions  were the understanding of the principal of the lever and the invention of the Archimedean screw for lifting and pumping things.

Well his uncle was King Hiero II, king of Syracuse.  King Hiero II had provided a certain quantity of gold to the royal goldsmith with which to fashion a votive crown to be placed in the temple.  The king was convinced that the royal goldsmith was dishonest and approached Archimedes for a method of determining whether the goldsmith had used all the gold he was given in the crown or if he had substituted a less valuable metal and kept part of the gold for himself.

Since the crown was of irregular shape, it was impossible to calculate its volume; and since it was a gift for the temple, it was not to be destroyed, damaged, or changed in any way…what to do?

Archimedes decided to take a bath and think about the problem—here is the segue to the naked hot tub incident.  Not paying complete attention, Archimedes filled the tub to the brim.  As he entered the tub, the water level rose and overflowed onto the floor.  At this point, he knew he had the solution to the problem.  Whereupon, he exited the tub and cried “Eureka! Eureka!”, which is Greek for “I’ve found it!  I’ve found it!” and ran home to tell his wife.  Unfortunately, in his excitement, he forgot to put his clothes back on so most of the people observing this thought he had LOST it rather than found it. 

What he had discovered was that solid objects immersed in water, displace water.  In fact, it turns out that the volume of water displaced equals the volume of the object doing the displacement.  Of course, knowing the volume and the weight gives the density and through some really neat math it can be determined, for example if the crown was made of pure gold or some mixture.

By the way, the royal goldsmith was shown to be a crook and had, in fact, doctored up the gold with silver to line his pockets with gold.

~klock

Great Backyard Bird Count 2011

 WHO?

Great Horned Owl (C.Zaffis)

 All can participate in the 14th annual great backyard bird count.

Come one, come all, young and old alike, and count the birds in your backyard, park, school yard, or wherever you would like.  The only restrictions are that you must

Horned Lark (C.Zaffis)

• count for at least 15 minutes—hey, that’s not long at all!

•  go to the website at http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/howto.html to get the proper forms

• do your observing on this Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday (Feb 18-21).

Ø   

Robin (C.Zaffis)

What a great opportunity to do something meaningful this weekend.  I mean, it’s President’s Day weekend.  For most of us it means no school, no work (if we work for the government), and great deals on furniture!  Is there really more to it?

Scrub Jay on Klock

Now you can help by being a scientist for a day.  This is a real deal, sponsored by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Audubon Society, and Bird Studies Canada.  These groups use the numbers you generate, your counts, to tell about how many birds survived the winter, how many are coming back to certain areas, and other important things.  In my home state of Florida, all the building of houses and theme parks and such is chewing up the natural habitat of a very important bird, the Florida Scrub Jay.  These counts, made by people just like you are helping to find patterns that may help save these beautiful birds from extinction.

White Raven (C.Zaffis)

From Cooper’s Hawks to Horned Larks, Great Horned Owls to Great Blue Herons, they all count and so should you…count all you see.  One day where I live in Utah it was a “…nice day for a white raven.”  This is a rare occurrence anywhere.

Yellow variant House Finch (C.Zaffis)

Be careful, this bird watching thing is addicting…you may not want to stop.

~klock

Solution to $ THE MISSING DOLLAR RIDDLE $ or Where IS the other dollar?

T

The Key is to Follow the Money, not the people.

• The girls check in and pay $10 each for a total of $30.
• The manager realizes his mistake and takes $5 back to return to the girls.  This leaves $25.
• He has the bellhop take the $5 to the girls.
• The bellhop is not so trustworthy and keeps $2 returning only $3 to the girls.

This is where the deception occurs.

• You now buy into the lie that the girls have only paid $9 each which adds up to $27 plus the $2 the bellhop kept makes only $29.
• The truth is, following the money, that the Motel still has $25, the girls have $3, and the bellhop has $2, which all adds up to the original $30.

I sounds so good and you begin to BELIEVE the perpetrator's logic.  The flaw is in switching sides of the equation during the presentation.  They move from the motel's perspective to the perspective of the girls in mid-stream and it seems to make sense, but it doesn't.

This is a classic: "figures don't lie, but liars figure!"

~klock

$ THE MISSING DOLLAR RIDDLE $

Three friends check into a motel for the night and the clerk tells them the bill is $30, payable in advance.  

So, they each pay the clerk $10 and go to their room.  A few minutes later, the clerk realizes he has made an error and overcharged the trio by $5.  He asks the bellhop to return $5 to the 3 friends who had just checked in.  

The bellhop sees this as an opportunity to make $2 as he reasons that the three friends would have a tough time dividing $5 evenly among them; so he decides to tell them that the clerk made a mistake of only $3, giving a dollar back to each of the friends.  He pockets the leftover $2 and goes home for the day!  

Now, each of the three friends gets a dollar back, thus they each paid $9 for the room which is a total of $27 for the night.  

We know the bellhop pocketed $2 and adding that to the $27, you get $29, not $30 which was originally spent.  

Where did the other dollar go????

Stay tuned for the solution.....

~klock

Cats in 'chutes

As scientists we observe and try to explain, or we predict based on what we believe to be true.  Usually we do not get to see the results of our prediction or if we do it may be clouded with political agenda.  Well one of my most favorite stories in science cuts through all the waiting, all the politics, and comes as close to “proving” a concept as I know of. 

The main part of the story starts in the 1950’s on an island in the South Pacific called Borneo.  The natives there lived in huts with thatched roofs.  That means the roof of their house was made of dried vegetation like straw, reeds, rushes, and so on.  Of course they didn’t have doors or windows that closed tight so mosquitoes and other bugs and creepy-crawly things came in and out of their homes quite easily.

One advantage to living on an island is that it is easy to see the ecosystem pretty completely right before your eyes.  For example, there was a moth that laid its eggs on the thatch of the roof.  When the caterpillars hatched, they would eat the vegetation that made up the thatch.  This sounds like a bad thing, but there was also a wasp that laid its eggs IN the caterpillar, yes, inside the caterpillar.  When the eggs hatched and started to grow they killed the caterpillar.  This is the way nature works to keep things in balance.  Not all the caterpillars lived so they didn’t eat up the people’s houses.

A little plug for nature:  all this balance among the plants and animals went on for a long, long time before man came along to “take charge.”   But I digress…

Malaria is caused by a parasite that enters your body and begins to take over certain functions that you need to stay healthy—rather like a terrorist who invades your country and makes new rules.  The typical way that this malarial organism enters your body is through the bite of a mosquito.  The mosquito bites someone who has malaria, sucks up some of their blood which has the parasite in it.  When the mosquito bites you, the first thing it does is to “spit” some saliva into you to keep your blood from clotting while the mosquito sucks your blood out.  When it puts this anti-coagulant in, it also introduces that parasite it got from the other guy.

Well for some reason around 1950 more and more of the people of Borneo began to get malaria.  The World Health Organization (WHO), just two years old at the time, decided to step in and fix the problem.

Back in 1873, some scientists had put 14 carbon atoms together with 9 hydrogen atoms and 5 chlorine atoms in a very special way.  This new molecule looked like this

 and was called 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis-(p-chlorophenyl) ethane.  Okay, that was too hard so they called it Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.  By 1939, other scientists had discovered that it would kill insects—really kill them, really well!  By this time they knew that news people and marketing people would have to say the word so they just called it DDT.

DDT had become so popular in killing insects that it was used far and wide during World War II.  In fact, trucks used to drive down the beaches in the evening spraying this miracle chemical onto beach goers and in the air to keep mosquitoes away.  And it worked really well!

So, the WHO decided to spray the entire island of Borneo with DDT.  It was cheap, effective, and they would be heroes.

It worked.  Malaria cases dropped to almost zero.  HOWEVER…a while later the people of Borneo noticed their houses falling apart, and there were fewer cats, and more rats—a lot more rats, and people were getting bubonic plague spread by the fleas on the rats.

DDT works in an interesting way.  Rather than being broken down into smaller molecules and being eliminated from the body of something that it comes in contact with, DDT makes itself at home in cells of the organism.  When a larger organism eats several smaller organisms, it gets the doses of each of the organisms it ate added together.  When something higher up the chain eats it ingests the sum of all that organism ate and so on.  For example, a robin might eat many grasshoppers and a hawk might eat several robins and so on.  This is called biomagnification.

It seems that the wasp that laid its eggs in the caterpillars was killed by DDT, so the caterpillar population exploded and ate the people’s houses.  The roaches and other crawly insects were slowed or killed by the DDT and so the geckos caught and ate many more of them and the cats ate the geckos.  By this time there was enough DDT accumulation to kill the cats.  The rats flourished and the people got sick.

Now the amazing conclusion and punch line to this whole story.  What did the WHO do to solve the problem?

Illustration by Louise E. Klock

YES, drop cats in by parachute to control the rat population.  Eventually the effects of DDT began to wear off enough that the people could rebuild their huts, the cats lived and killed the rats, the people got better, and somebody at WHO got fired.

It would appear that the DDT was first consumed in small amounts by the insects and accumulated in sufficient quantity ultimately to kill mammals.  This supports the concept of biomagnification or the concentration of this poison as it moves up the food chain.  We thus have a real live experiment under ideal conditions culminating in the obvious conclusion that it is concentrated in tissues of living organisms.

In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote a book called The Silent Spring.  It is a book about a time when springtime comes but no birds come back because they have all died.  DDT keeps bird eggs from being solid enough for the birds to sit on them.  No baby birds, no singing in the spring—hence, the “silent” spring.  President John F. Kennedy read the book and began the work that led to the banning of DDT for use in the US in 1972. 

Take home message:  Rachel Carson planted the first seeds of the environmental movement in 1962 with publication of The Silent Spring.

Also, the cats were in crates which broke open when they hit the ground and released the cats…no, they did not each have their own parachute.

--klock

A Real Live Unicorn?

This picture has been making the rounds of the internet for a couple of years now.  It was provided by the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, Italy, Wednesday, June 11, 2008, and shows a deer with a single horn in the center of its head. The one-year-old roe deer - nicknamed 'Unicorn' - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences, said. Since his twin has two horns, it is easy to explain what happened here.

Don't expect to find herds of unicorns spawned by this little buck when he matures.  His offspring, if he is allowed to mate, will very likely be normal and have two horns.  This is what is called a mosaic mutation.  It is like the case of someone being born with one blue eye and one brown eye or a blond streak in an otherwise dark head of hair.

There are a whole lot of genes in our makeup that are read-only.  There aren’t really any options or variants.  These genes make up about 97% of our entire genome and are the ones that make us human—you know, two arms, two legs, head on top, feet, hands, two eyes, stomach in the middle, those kinds of things.  They are the genes that make the little roe deer a roe deer instead of human or white-tailed deer or elephant or puppy.  Those are hard-wired in and don’t regularly change.  That goes for the two horns or antlers on the head genes.  

When we see a change in expression of a trait that is part of the make-up of an organism, it is usually a mosaic mutation.  A mutation that will not be passed along to the next generation, a mutation that comes about AFTER the egg is fertilized and is a result of some environmental factor during the development of the embryo/fetus.  This includes such things as birth defects caused by heavy smoking or drinking or drug use on the part of the mother.  It also includes drinking polluted water or breathing polluted air or being subject to such things as radiation while the embryo is developing.

A mosaic mutation may also occur when some external force comes to bear on the development of the embryo.  The genetic blueprint calls for two horns, one on each side of the top of the head of the deer.  Early in the development of the embryo, while the decisions are being guided by the enzymes and proteins made by the DNA a force—perhaps a physical force inside the womb causes one of the horns not to develop.  This happens quite frequently; however, what doesn’t happen so frequently is that the force also pushes the budding horn over toward the middle of the head so the single horn grows right out of the middle of the front of the skull.  In that case, you get this guy named, Unicorn.

His genes told the developing cells to produce two horns, but something prevented it.  The genes he will pass on to the next generation will have instructions for two horns, one on each side just like “normal.”

Earlier I said, “If he is allowed to mate.”  I said that because nature is pretty set on keeping things as is.  The females may choose not mate with a male who is so different.  Cruel?  Maybe from the “Bambi” point of view, humanizing the deer that is, it might seem cruel, but nature is rather unforgiving.  Adapt or die.  Predators take out the sick and the weak, the odd are not allowed to mate.  This keeps the species strong.

--klock