Funnels breakdown inside the anthill

Funnels breakdown inside the anthill

This new defensive behavior , reported in the journal Social Insects , was discovered while scientists initially assumed funnels be a way to fight against the unwelcome visitors. However, during their tests, all the ants introduced to these inputs have proved potentially able to reach the interior of the colony.

Two other functions of these funnels were also evaluated. http://enjoycoloring.com/ If they help to divert rainwater to ensure the impermeability of the nest, the authors believe that simple tubes have the same efficiency.

However, these constructions flared six times better aerate the heart of the colony where ants produce a dangerous amount of carbon dioxide . "Gas exchange can explain the development of recurrent funnel several entries lines ants, in particular among species cliff " , is it concluded in the article.

Malagidris Sofina is an ant confined to a small area of ​​forest

When invader risk in one of these nests, a soldier grabbed him and jumps to evict him. After having released the ground, the bodyguard back to the colony healthy and sound ( see video ).

For researchers, it is a defense tactic original and very effective. To test it, they brought in such chimneys 78 individuals of a rival nest or belonging to another species . In 33 cases of intrusion, soldiers fought with the intruders, especially the potential predators from their congeners. http://enjoycoloring.com/ In half the cases, they have approached the rim of the funnel and have trained with them overboard.

"I know of no other ground dwelling ants jumping as this species " says Stephen Yanoviak, ant specialist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, United States. If ants tree are known to jump from branch to branch or floor, he adds, is to escape predators.

Malagidris Sofina is an ant confined to a small area of ​​forest, northwest of Madagascar.  The species is now & nbsp; endangered by habitat destruction, yet defined as a global mecca of tropical biodiversity.  © April Nobile, antweb.org
Malagidris Sofina an ant is confined to a small area of forest, northwest of Madagascar. The species is now threatened with extinction due to habitat destruction, yet defined as a global mecca of tropical biodiversity. © April Nobile, antweb.org

Ants soldiers jump off the nest with their intruders!

Ants soldiers jump off the nest with their intruders!

When junk is captured, the soldier ant Malagidris Sofina , Madagascar, do not hesitate to drop him down from his nest to the extract. Once on the ground, it goes back to the colony. http://enjoycoloring.com/ This radical defense strategy is new to science because ants tend to use the jump to move or to escape a predator.

On 08/14/2014 at 13:32 - By Andrea Haug, Futura-Sciences

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At the heart of a colony of Malagidris Sofina, an ant of another species is introduced to the clamp.  Soldier wins then the intruder near the nest funnel and flows with it into space.  © Jackson Helms, University of Oklahoma
At the heart of a colony of Malagidris Sofina , an ant of another species is introduced to the clamp. Soldier wins then the intruder near the nest funnel and flows with it into space. © Jackson Helms, University of Oklahoma
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Malagasy ants Malagidris Sofina , endemic to the island , do not have vertigo. On the cliffs of clay or rock, they build nests whose entrance forms a horizontal funnel at a height measured from the ground between 10 centimeters to 3 meters.

Temperature Anomalies in This Year

This world map shows temperature anomalies mean values ​​measured at the surface, between 28 July and 3 August 2014 © NASA MODIS Science Team
This world map shows temperature anomalies mean values ​​measured at the surface, between 28 July and 3 August 2014 © NASA MODIS Science Team

This value of the LSF is calculated from the reflectance measurements retrieved from the infrared heat (typically between 3 and 5 microns and between 8 and 14 microns).

Reading these cards is very simple. Enjoy Coloring The red and blue dots are temperature anomalies observed in relation to an average taken to refer, in this case the same week between 2005 and 2013, with many spread across the globe highlights the very unusual nature of that period, Straddling the months of July and August.

Red dots indicate areas that were up to 10 degrees Celsius above the average, while blue have below average reference temperatures. As for the gray areas, it is either the oceans, bodies of water or absence of data due, for example, an overly dense cloud cover.

Many anomalies observed for the month of July temperatures

Many anomalies observed for the month of July temperatures

In France, one can say that the beginning of the summer was dreary, marked by record rainfall and a lack of sunshine. Elsewhere, the weather has also made his own example, record heat recorded in Eastern Europe or steep temperature drops in some regions of the United States or Russia.

This map of Europe speaks for itself.  Clearly areas where it was very hot (Eastern Europe, Sweden ...) or abnormally low (Southern Europe, the heart of Russia) is seen.  © NASA MODIS Science Team

The Nasa has published global maps of temperature anomalies for July 2014 (and the week of July 27 to August 3, 2014). They were made ​​from data acquired by the MODIS instrument satellite Aqua. www.enjoycoloring.com This is a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer to measure cloud properties and the flow of radiant energy. Observing the entire planet every one to two days, it is able to deliver daily maps of surface temperature (LST). The latter is also called skin temperature as it reflects, to some extent, how a hot surface would feel to the touch.

These filter almost perfectly optimize their anatomical surface

For scientists, the anatomy of these animals pluribranche maximizes the body surface and is consistent with the osmotrophie, power fashion of filter feed , from substances dissolved in the seawater.

Because Rangéomorphes were radically different from all known forms of life, scientists knew little about how these creatures lived, were breeding or foraged.  We now know that these primitive animals were well adapted to their environment.  © Verisimilus, Wikimedia Commons, cc by sa 2.5

These filter almost perfectly optimize their anatomical surface

"Geometrically speaking, they were well organized to do it, capable of creating the largest possible area of absorption in any space they occupied, " says Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill from the University of Cambridge, UK , lead author of the article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

This result is consistent with the ecological conditions of the time: the competitors and predators were absent and the ocean environment rich in microscopic nutrients. Enjoycoloring.com "Oceans of Ediacaran more like a coarse soup, full of nutrients such as carbon organic, while nowadays, food particles in suspension are quickly collected by a myriad of animals, " says co-author Simon Conway Morris, a paleontologist at the University of Cambridge study.

With the explosion of multicellular life in the Cambrian period , the Rangéomorphes became extinct, there are about 540 million years. The supposed causes are competing for nutrients with other agencies, predation and depletion of specific resources they needed.

Fractal creatures filtered the Precambrian oceans

Fractal creatures filtered the Precambrian oceans

The comprehensive study of the anatomical organization of Rangéomorphes can lift a mystery about these strange marine living organisms on Earth, there are 575 million years. Branches that are composed and which duplicate according to a fractal model light on their feeding mode.

If they were all organized on the same basis of fractal branches, as shown in these 3D reconstructions, the Rangéomorphes grew vertically from 10 to 200 cm.  coloring book pages Horizontal spongy forms of these animals could also cover 58 square meters of ocean surface.  © University of Cambridge

We knew that was not Rangéomorphes plant nor fungus sailors, but many animals belonging to the phylum of Petalonamae . For about 40 million years ago, during the Ediacaran , they dominated the world's oceans, living attached to a substrate at different depths. Before they occur, life was microscopic.

However, we disregarded their mode of nutrition . From specimens fossils , researchers have managed to recreate the 3D morphology of 11 taxa and measure their functional properties.

Three main types, vertical and horizontal, have been highlighted: tall, thin, shaped fir other side flourished in the way of trees lapsed and a shape resembling a sponge deployed on the seabed. These plans fractal organization that are unlike any other known reinforce the idea that they have their clade, that is to say, their own group comprising the ancestors and all descendants.

the theory of Riemann

Located at the intersection of differential geometry, topology and complex analysis work Maryam Mirzakhani fall at first pure mathematics but we know that they often, sometimes decades or even centuries Later, unexpected implications in the natural sciences.

As the theory of Riemann surfaces occupies a very important position within the framework of the theory of superstrings, and even in different areas of physics, perhaps we can expect a few surprises. adults coloring pages Especially since some of the results obtained by the mathematician are already in connection with the string theory and the work of two other winners of the Fields Medal on the subject, Edward Witten and Maxim Kontsevich .

Presumably this first award of a Fields Medal to a woman used to reduce the gap between the number of male and female mathematicians as hope that the researcher said in a news release from the University of Stanford: 'c It is a great honor and I would be happy if it encourages young scientists and mathematicians "women , adding , "I am convinced that many more women will this type of reward in the coming years" .

Fertile complex surfaces in applications

Fortunately, this situation did not last long and in the years that followed, it turned out to be a prodigy in mathematics. It will stall twice the gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1994 in Hong Kong in 1995, in Toronto with the highest score possible.

Fertile complex surfaces in applications

The work of the mathematician deal with the geometry and topology of the so-called Riemann surfaces , surfaces like a sphere or a pretzel whose description is closely related to the functions whose variables are numbers complex (for those who want to know more, the mathematician Étienne Ghys, CNRS research director at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, recently devoted an entire article to Maryam Mirzakhani the must in the CNRS Images Math ).

The researcher was particularly interested in surfaces with a hyperbolic metric. coloring pages for boys The surface of a saddle, with its negative curvature different from that of a sphere which is positive, has a hyperbolic metric. With his colleague, mathematician Alex Eskin has established remarkable bridges between the theory of Riemann surfaces and the theory of dynamical systems. As with the work of Yakov Sinai on ergodic theory, the two researchers used the behavior of the trajectories of balls on pool tables of various shapes to explore the behavior of some of these dynamic systems.

Maryam Mirzakhani talks about his path from his childhood

The famous diary Quanta Magazine of Simons Foudation also devotes an entire article to the researcher. Pure product of the ultra-elitist education system in Iran, the mathematician does not least his doctorate at Harvard University in the United States under the direction of another winner of the Fields Medal, Curtis McMullen . coloring pages for adults After his graduation in 2004, she spent several years at Princeton before moving to Stanford where she is a professor since 2008 can find more details on its trajectory in a interview she granted and in the video below --Bra which supplements.

In this short video in English, accompanied by personal photos, the winner of the Fields Medal in 2014, the Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani talks about his path from his childhood as well as his work on Riemann surfaces which sometimes look like tori glued together to make pretzels. For a French translation, click the rectangle with two horizontal bars on the bottom right. Subtitles in English should then appear, if it is not already. By simply moving the mouse over the rectangle, you should see the words "Translate subtitles." Click to bring up the menu language selection, select "French" and then click "OK". © tywebbOOOOO, YouTube

Born in 1977 in Tehran, she was part of a generation she described as lucky, that is, those whose adolescence was held after the Iran-Iraq war. Initially, she did not intend to become a mathematician and was interested in all the books that could fall into his hands. Leaving primary school, she was for a time an unpleasant experience with mathematics. One of his teachers even thought she was not particularly good, which was a source of discouragement for her, temporarily breaking his nascent interest in mathematics.