Ant mega-colony takes over world

A queen and worker Argentine ant have many, many relatives

A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.

Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another.

The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.

What’s more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together.

Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica.

These introduced Argentine ants are renowned for forming large colonies, and for becoming a significant pest, attacking native animals and crops.

In Europe, one vast colony of Argentine ants is thought to stretch for 6,000km (3,700 miles) along the Mediterranean coast, while another in the US, known as the “Californian large”, extends over 900km (560 miles) along the coast of California. A third huge colony exists on the west coast of Japan.

While ants are usually highly territorial, those living within each super-colony are tolerant of one another, even if they live tens or hundreds of kilometres apart. Each super-colony, however, was thought to be quite distinct.

But it now appears that billions of Argentine ants around the world all actually belong to one single global mega-colony.

Researchers in Japan and Spain led by Eiriki Sunamura of the University of Tokyo found that Argentine ants living in Europe, Japan and California shared a strikingly similar chemical profile of hydrocarbons on their cuticles.

But further experiments revealed the true extent of the insects’ global ambition.

The team selected wild ants from the main European super-colony, from another smaller one called the Catalonian super-colony which lives on the Iberian coast, the Californian super-colony and from the super-colony in west Japan, as well as another in Kobe, Japan.

They then matched up the ants in a series of one-on-one tests to see how aggressive individuals from different colonies would be to one another.

Ants from the smaller super-colonies were always aggressive to one another. So ants from the west coast of Japan fought their rivals from Kobe, while ants from the European super-colony didn’t get on with those from the Iberian colony.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm

A Limb Regeneration Mystery Solved

Back again: Shwann cells are shown here in a salamander limb. When the limb regrew after being amputated, only these cells wrapped around nerve fibers; other cell types did not turn into Shwann cells.

Salamanders have an enviable ability to regrow appendages that are amputated or injured; they re-create all the bones, muscle, skin, blood vessels, and nerves of the new body part so adeptly that it’s hard to tell that it was ever missing. Because of this ability, salamanders have been popular subjects for scientists studying regeneration–and trying to learn how human cells might be coaxed to perform the same feat.

In salamanders, new tissues come from a tumorlike mass of cells that forms at the site of the injury, called the blastema. Until now, most scientists thought that the blastema contained a population of stem cells that had become pluripotent–capable of giving rise to all the needed tissues. But a new paper in the journal Nature provides evidence that this is not the case. Instead, stem cells involved in regeneration only create cells of the tissue that they came from. The finding suggests that regeneration does not require cells to reprogram themselves as dramatically as scientists had assumed.

Elly Tanaka, lead scientist of the study at the Center for Regenerative Therapies, in Dresden, Germany, says that “a lot of people had the impression that these blastema cells were all the same.” Tanaka’s lab had even shown previously that a single muscle fiber could give rise to several types of cells in a regenerated limb. But previous studies, she says, relied on imperfect methods of tracking cells, such as using fluorescent dyes that may have leaked out to other cells.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22955/

Amur Tigers Found to Have an Effective Wild Population of Just 35

A few months ago the Amur Tiger (also know as the Siberian Tiger) in a slideshow of animals which very well could go extinct in the coming decades. It was for good reason, as a new piece from the BBC shows. This largest of all the tigers has an effective wild population of just 35 individuals:

Though there are about 500 Amur Tigers left in the wild (with nearly as many in captivity around the world), the genetic diversity of the remaining animals is such that in terms of the species’ long-term viability there really are far fewer: Hence, the effective population being merely 27-35.

That’s the word coming from a team of researchers, led by scientists from the University of British Columbia, published in the Journal of Molecular Biology.

Lowest Genetic Diversity of Any Tiger Population
By sampling DNA from the cat’s droppings, the team determined that the genetic diversity among Amur Tigers is the lowest ever recorded for a wild population of tigers.

Not only that, but the tigers are segregated geographically into two groups which rarely intermingle.

The only bright spot in the research seems to be that 1) there is the possibility of reintroducing captive tigers back into the wild, and 2) the researchers found that in the captive population there are unique genetic features no longer found in the wild.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/amur-tigers-have-effective-wild-population-of-35.php

Transport TW: Zero Emission Car Powered By Magnetic Fields

Car designer Harsha Vardhan suggests that this two-wheeler concept is the car of the future.

His Transporter TW (Twin Wheel) is a single-seater electric vehicle that uses magnetic fields for driving the car. The two gianormous wheels, suspended over a superconducting fluid, are propelled by those shifting magnetic fields. Thus the power generation, and motion of the car, is a nice noiseless and smooth ride.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/electric-car-powered-by-magnetic-fields.php

http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/eco-cars-transport-tw-magnet-powered-vehicle-for-hi-tech-cities-of-tomorrow/

Funny: Never Search For an Outlet Again with Outlet Wall

Photographer David Friedman appears to have solved the problem of never having enough places to plug things in. It also really tells a tale about consumption; he should stick a big meter in the middle of it.

He writes: “Instead of hiding your outlets behind furniture and worrying about the mess of wires tangled behind your entertainment center, consider making an entire wall that’s nothing but outlets. Then you can artfully plug in your appliances wherever the cords look pleasing to you. Imagine no more crowded outlets or multi-plug adapters.”

Put it on a big throw switch by the door and you can kill everything in one blow.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/never-search-for-an-outlet-again.php

http://www.ironicsans.com/2009/06/idea_the_outlet_wall.html

Blackest Black Ever: Ultra-thin Material Absorbs Almost 100% Of Light

How much light is reflected and how much is absorbed depends on two factors: the angle at which the light falls onto the material, and the polarisation (the direction of oscillation) of the light. (Credit: Image courtesy of Leiden University)

It appears to be a paradox: ultra-thin material that absorbs all the incident light. Nonetheless, it does exist.

Ideal light detector

Two researchers, Eduard Driessen, MSc, and Dr Michiel de Dood, have demonstrated that at a thickness of 4.5 nanometer niobiumnitride (NbN) is ultra-absorbent. They have recorded a light absorption of almost 100%, while the best light absorption to date was 50%. This research brings the ideal light detector a step closer.

A cell made of this material can already collect light and convert it into an electrical signal. The high number of downloads indicates that this research is very special.

…..

Applications

This discovery gave Driessen and De Dood the idea for building a special detector. They want to use this detector to view individual light particles, photons. To date this has been very difficult because the absorption was not high enough. The most important part of the detector is a lattice of ultra-absorbent NbN filaments. When an s-light particle falls on the lattice, it is absorbed. A p-particle is reflected. This p-particle can then in turn be collected by a second detector so that all the light is detected.

Calculations show that the wavelength (colour) of the light particle has hardly any influence. The detector can therefore also be used for particles with completely different wavelengths, such as detection systems for telecommunications and infra-red equipment.

The research is being carried out in collaboration with the TU Delft and will be part-funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Foundation for Fundamental Materials Research (FOM).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090630082647.htm

Blog: The Secret to Bats’ Long Lifespan?

Two long-lived species of bats appear to have proteins that are especially resistant to stress, which may explain why they can outlive many other similar-sized mammals.

According to a press release from the FASEB Journal:

[Asish Chaudhuri, a biochemist at the VA Medical Center, in San Antonio] and colleagues made their discovery by extracting proteins from the livers of two long-lived bat species (Tadarida brasiliensis and Myotis velifer) and young adult mice and exposed them to chemicals known to cause protein misfolding. After examining the proteins, the scientists found that the bat proteins exhibited less damage than those of the mice, indicating that bats have a mechanism for maintaining proper structure under extreme stress.

Previous research covered by Technology Review suggested a similar characteristic underlying the lengthy life span of the naked mole rat, a rodent that can live for up to 30 years, compared to about 3 or 4 years for the average mouse.

The analyses showed that proteins in mole-rat cells are more resistant to unfolding, making them more stable than those of mice. The researchers also found evidence that the cells of mole rats have more efficient mechanisms for getting rid of improperly folded or oxidized proteins . . . The results suggest that naked mole rats can withstand oxidative damage better by keeping their proteins stable and quickly removing unfolded proteins before they can accumulate.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/23786/

(Additional info) – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090630101229.htm

Students Create Portable Device To Detect Suicide Bombers

Engineering undergraduates developed a wireless network of portable, hand-held sensors that could be hidden around an environment to detect improvised explosive devices, weapons often used by suicide bombers. Andry Supian, a recent University of Michigan mechanical engineering alumnus, explains the portable device.

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the weapons of suicide bombers, are a major cause of soldier casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. A group of University of Michigan engineering undergraduate students has developed a new way to detect them.

The students invented portable, palm-sized metal detectors that could be hidden in trash cans, under tables or in flower pots, for example. The detectors are designed to be part of a wireless sensor network that conveys to a base station where suspicious objects are located and who might be carrying them. Compared with existing technology, the sensors are cheaper, lower-power and longer-range. Each of the sensors weighs about 2 pounds.

“Their invention outperforms everything that exists in the market today,” said Nilton Renno, a professor in the U-M Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. The students undertook this project in Renno’s Engineering 450 senior level design class.

“They clearly have an excellent understanding of the problem. They also thought strategically and designed and optimized their solution. The combination of a movable command center with a wireless sensor network can be easily deployed in the field and adapted to different situations.”

The core technology is based on a magnetometer, or metal detector, explained Ashwin Lalendran, an engineering student who worked on the project and graduated in May.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090630180838.htm

1st AI-Powered RoboScientist Created

The rise of the robots hasn’t resulted in a murderous rampage quite yet, but it has reaped an enormous toll on low-level jobs.  Assembly lines, farms, factories – the machines have taken over millions of man-hours, but now the scientists have surpassed those systems and begun to make themselves obsolete.  Because Adam is online – and he’s a scientist.  

UK researchers hooked up an experiment-designing program to all the automated equipment needed to do its own lab work.  This isn’t arrays of repetitive tasks, although Adam can do that no problem, this is real science. 

The Adam system was basically told “go look at yeast” and successfully theorized, experimented, analyzed and refined its results from start to finish.  Other automated assistants have the humans coming back asking “Did you do what I told you?”  Adam is asked “What did you do?”

The system is completely self-starting, only needing human fleshbags to bring supplies – and not to sound alarmist, but some day it’s going to work out that other machines are far better at that.  There’s even an electronic Eve, an upgraded system built by the same researchers using their experience with Adam, their improved skills, and apparently no sense of impending doom or biblical metaphor whatsoever.

Summary:  An artificially intelligent Adam and Eve already exist, and are in charge of a cyber-genetics laboratory.  Somebody needs to make a movie about this immediately – if they want to make money before the real deal kills us all.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/1st-ai-powered-robot-scientist-created-a-galaxy-classic.html

FUTURE FARMS: High-Rise, Beach Pod, and Pyramid Pictures

The Pyramid Farm, designed by vertical farming guru Dickson Despommier at New York’s Columbia University and Eric Ellingsen of the Illinois Institute of Technology, is one way to address the needs of a swelling population on a planet with finite farmland.

Design teams around the world have been rolling out concepts for futuristic skyscrapers that house farms instead of–or in addition to–people as a means of feeding city dwellers with locally-grown crops.

In addition to growing fruits and vegetables, the Pyramid Farm includes a heating and pressurization system that converts sewage into water and carbon to fuel machinery and lighting, according to Inhabitat.com.

(More Pictures of design concepts) -
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/vertical-farm-towers/index.html