Hoverflies use a time-compensated sun compass to orientate during autumn migration

Researchers Richard Massy, Will L. S. Hawkes, Toby Doyle, Jolyon Troscianko, Myles H. M. Menz, Nicholas W. Roberts, Jason W. Chapman and Karl R. Wotton

Investigated how hoverflies determine what direction to fly during their autumn migration.

They did this by catching hoverflies with hand nets as they traversed the Pyrenees.

They made a flight simulator from PVC pipe, a magnet to connect the fly to and a camera to film the flight. The flight simulator obscured the view of the surrounds but allowed a view of the sky and the sun.

A shortened sewing needle was glued to the fly’s thorax, then connected to the magnet, keeping them in place while allowing them to spin.

One batch of flies had their internal clocks shifted by turning their light on 6hours after sunrise and off 6 hours after sunset for 10 days.

Hoverflies that flew, with only the sun visible, headed almost due south.

Hoverflies that flew without a view of the sun oriented randomly.

Hover Flies that had their internal clocks set 6 hours out flew westwards. Flying in a different direction compared to the sun, indicating that they were compensating for its position given their perception of time.

With up to 4 billion hoverflies traveling large distances across southern Britain regions annually their migration is likely to have important ecological impacts on pollination, control of greenflys, breakdown of organic matter, nutrient transfer and the structuring of food webs

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Links:

Article: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.1805

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Informational images from the article:

How do hormonal levels in men change from pregnancy to after the birth of their firstborn child and what is their role in explaining the variation in parenting quality?

Researches Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, Martine W. F. T. Verhees, Anna M. Lotz, Kim Alyousefi-van Dijk and Marinus H. van IJzendoorn investigated.

75 expecting first-time-fathers (and 79 new fathers) collected saliva samples in the 36th week of pregnancy and again five weeks after birth.

Father infant interactions were observed at 2 months old during 10 minutes of free play.

Their interaction was videotaped and sensitivity was coded. By looking to see, when fathers picked up on their child’s distress or interest in a specific toy and responding to that, and when they missed signals of disinterest or distress, and when they did or didn’t interfere with their child’s ongoing activities.

The fathers saliva samples were used to measure five hormone levels oxytocin, vasopressin, testosterone, oestradiol and cortisol.

The hormone levels were then compared separately to parental sensitivity.

Then each pair was compared to parental sensitivity.

Oxytocin was hypothesized to have an effect on parental sensitivity, either alone or while interacting with other hormones. (but it did not)

There was not enough prior research to predict how the other hormones would interact.

From pre-birth to post-birth, oxytocin, and oestradiol levels were stable, vasopressin, Testosterone and cortisol levels all decreased.

When each of the 5 hormone levels were individually compared to sensitive parenting, None showed significant correlation.

In fathers with high oestradiol high testosterone was associated with lower quality parenting interactions.

Although no other hormonal levels predicted parental sensitivity the authors suggest this may be due to limitations in the study, such as timing of tests, or sample size.

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Links:

Article: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2021.0060

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Informational images from the article:

Researchers Heini Törnqvist, Sanni Somppi, Aija Koskela, Christina M. Krause, Outi Vainio and Miiamaaria V. Kujala compared the eye movements and focus time of dogs and humans when looking at images of dog and humans either looking towards or away from one another.

To do this 46 dogs were trained to rest their head on a chin rest where images could be shown to them, an eye tracker was set up and calibrated by offering treats where the screen would be. 60 images were shown depicting: dogs facing each other, dogs facing away from each other, human facing each other, humans facing away from each other, and pixelated images from both conditions as a control. The images were shown for 2.5 seconds each, in blocks of 6–9 at a time. (six dogs were excluded because of restless behavior and/or technical difficulties)

26 humans were instructed to explore the images freely and inspect the attitude of the beings towards one another or their surroundings. And shown the images for 2.5 seconds each while their eye movements were monitored.

Both dogs and humans gazed at the towards facing beings more than their away counterparts. Dogs gazed at humans for longer than dogs and humans gazed at dogs for longer than humans.

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Links:

Article: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.150341

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Unique Case of Spontaneous Left Main Coronary Dissection in Second Trimester of Pregnancy Successfully Treated with Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: A Happy Ending

Spontaneous Left Main Coronary Dissection, or SCAD, is a condition in which a blood vessel in the heart spontaneously tears. It can be difficult to find and treat during pregnancy and can be deadly.

Researchers Francesca Mantovani, Alessandro Navazio, Giovanni Tortorella and Vincenzo Guiducci reported on a 33-year-old woman with an unremarkable medical history and an otherwise healthy pregnancy in the second trimester who presented with chest pains. Many possibilities were investigated and the results suggested it may be SCAD (which had previously only been anecdotal in the second trimester) X rays were taken with shielded protection for the fetus.

A catheter, (a thin flexible tube) was inserted and a stent, (a tiny pipe) was placed. The patient recovered and had no issues for the rest of her pregnancy, having an uncomplicated C-section and a healthy baby.

At the 1 year follow up the patient and her baby were both well.

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Links:

Article: https://doaj.org/article/62f9dc1dfcef490aa11aec3ad49cbb98

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Researchers Péter Takács, Judit Slíz-Balogh, Ákos Horváth, Dániel Horváth, Imre M. Jánosi and Gábor Horváth

Studied the motion of the Sun through the sky and the direct and cloud diffused sunlight measured hourly throughout the year at_6 locations in the northern hemisphere.

Boone County, Tennessee, Georgia, Italy, Hungary, Sweden

They did a lot of maths and showed that the direction that fixed angle solar panels should be pointed to maximize energy is slightly eastward from the standard south if afternoons are cloudier than mornings averaged over the year.

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Links:

Article: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.211948

CC Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Domestic cats (Felis catus) prefer freely available food over food that requires effort, unlike pigs, giraffes, rats, manned wolves, grizzly bears, pigeons, jungle fowl, chickens, macaques, chimpanzees and humans.

Researchers — Mikel M. Delgado , Brandon Sang Gyu Han , Melissa J. Bain researched the behavior of 17 neutered indoor domestic cats, presenting them a food puzzle and a feed tray for 30 minutes 4 times a day.

More cats ate from the free feed tray more than the puzzle (16 out of 17) and more cats approached the feed tray before the food puzzle.

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Links:

Article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-021-01530-3

CC Licensing: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/