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The flour beetle ’ s water butt
A new study has demonstrated the ability of red flour beetles (Tribolium castaneum) to recycle water in their rectums. This feat allows the beetles to survive in some of the driest environments on Earth. The research team of Kenneth Halberg and colleagues built a transcriptomic atlas of the beetles’ life stages, which allowed them to systematically compare gene expression across tissues and stages. By searching the atlas for genes with enriched expression in the rectum, the researchers were able to identify a specific gene associated with this phenomenon, Nha1. Electrophysiological experiments confirmed that Nha1 pl...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 21, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Invertebrates Source Type: blogs

Privacy concerns and device fingerprinting
TL:DR – If you’re online, you cannot ensure complete privacy. But, here are some tips on keeping at least some of your private life private. Often those in power declare that we shouldn’t worry about privacy, they often say “If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you’ve got nothing to worry about”. So let them all have clear bathroom windows and no shower curtains, shall we? Isn’t that a good idea? No? Didn’t think so! Wanting privacy isn’t about hiding something it is about being in control of what other people can see, whether that’s your bathroom or bedroom...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 21, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Technology Source Type: blogs

Concerning privacy concerns and device fingerprinting
TL:DR – If you’re online, you cannot ensure complete privacy. But, here are some tips on keeping at least some of your private life private. Often those in power declare that we shouldn’t worry about privacy, they often say “If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you’ve got nothing to worry about”. So let them all have clear bathroom windows and no shower curtains, shall we? Isn’t that a good idea? No? Didn’t think so! Wanting privacy isn’t about hiding something it is about being in control of what other people can see, whether that’s your bathroom or bedroom...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 21, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Technology Source Type: blogs

British mothers in the early spring
TL:DR – Mothing is a simple, but educational and fascinating hobby. The data it accumulates can be useful scientifically. I have lit up with a couple of different traps through the winter, but with generally disappointing results. There are not a lot of trees in our neighbourhood, which I suspect is the reason we don’t get a huge number of moths. That said, very few moth-ers see lots of moths in the gardens during the winter months. 15Watt Heath type, portable moth trap in place and ready for lighting up time I put out my “spare” Heath trap last night. It is basically an ultraviolet fluorescent tub...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 20, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Lepidoptera Source Type: blogs

How to be your own ChatGPT
The title of this post might have you imagining some kind of AI interface that lets you tap into your subconscious and create output based on prompts you give yourself…will…in a way it is. But the interface isn’t what you think… When I was writing my book Deceived Wisdom, there were lots of ideas constantly swarming around my brain for weeks and months on end. Sometimes, I’d fall asleep and be dreaming I was still writing at my desk, I’d wake up at 5am and be writing for an hour or two some days before I got on with my regular, non-book commitments. Some nights though I’d not only...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 19, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Artificial Intelligence Other Source Type: blogs

Protected: Jason Gaston speaks to me
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Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 18, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Other Social Media Source Type: blogs

The orgasmic heart beat
TL:DR – Sex can double or treble a person’s heart rate, but this is a normal physiological response provided the rate goes back to normal within a few minutes. Love might make your heart skip a beat, but love-making definitely gets it pumping. Indeed, sexual activity will inevitably raise your bpm, beats per minute, especially as a person approaches orgasm. A friend with a fake FitBit was curious about the trajectory of heart rate during sex and wore his monitor (around his wrist) in the bedroom one night. As he and his missus slid between the sheets, he set it to “other” workout and then synced th...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 17, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Health and Medicine Sex Source Type: blogs

How to sing
Years ago, I and a bunch of singing friends did a couple of vocal technique workshops with jazz maestro Pete Churchill. He had lots of words of wisdom to dispense. I put together a cribsheet for our choir and for anyone else who might have a need for singing tips: Get into the groove, feel the beat, get with the swing, get off the page! (No looking down at scores, watch the musical director and keep an eye for the audience) Understand the “form” (structure) of the song, don’t count bars, feel the rhythm, and know where the repeats and codas fit Be aware of what the other singers and musicians are doing, from the top ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 16, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Music Source Type: blogs

Mindfulness. Is there an app for that?
TL:DR – The idea of an app for mindfulness is inherently contradictory, but they may have some use if used mindfully… The notion of mindfulness is often discussed in light of an apparently epidemic of mental health crises, anxiety, depression, phobias, addictions, and other problems. It is considered a state of being where one is fully present in the moment and aware of one’s thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. The aim of mindfulness is not to exclude external stimuli nor to ignore one’s memories and preclude predictions of the future, but rather to live in the moment, to try to feel satisfi...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 15, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Health and Medicine Psychology Source Type: blogs

You want the moon on a stick?
In the wake of controversy regarding Samsung’s purported manipulation and “enhancements” of user moonshots taken on Android phones, I asked MidJourney to “Generate a photorealistic image of the full moon that might have been augmented by controversial mobile phone camera enhancing technology.” Is this better than the faked moonshots users have been reporting? I think so…especially that one bottom-left which looks like a gravitational lensing image superimposted on a mobile phone! Faked moonshots If you want to see some real moonshots I’ve taken occasionally with a dSLR and a 600mm ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 15, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Photography Technology Source Type: blogs

Every honey dance
TL:DR – The waggle dance of the honeybee carries more information than scientists previously thought, allowing the bees to find known food sources even if they start their journey from a place other than the hive. Here’s the buzz… Scientists and beekeepers have known for years that honeybees have a way of communicating the location of food sources that involves hitting the dancefloor in the hive. The dance that the bees use to communicate is called the waggle dance, and the moves tell other bees where to find food, specifically nectar and pollen-rich flowers. The dance conveys both the distance and dire...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 15, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Invertebrates Source Type: blogs

A foreboding of petrels
I have just finished reading the latest novel in Steve Burrows’ series of “birder murder” stories. This one was called A Foreboding of Petrels and hinges on apparently unconnected murders on the North Norfolk coast and at an environmental research station in The Antarctic. The plot of the novel alludes to the Storm Petrel, perhaps the world’s most abundant avian species. It and related species have an incredibly sensitive sense of smell and can detect keystone odourant molecules on the wind. Compounds such as dimethyl sulfide (DMS) are released into atmosphere when other organisms are feasting on a...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 14, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Birds Environment Source Type: blogs

Search engine market share
TL:DR – The final launch of Google was in 1997 after it was prototyped in 1995 (the year I launched my first website). It remains the dominant search engine to this day having pretty much seen off all of the competition at the time and pushed down any recent upstarts. Back in the 1990s, long before Google existed as an official tool, there were several search engines that were my go-to search engines, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, a couple of others. Then along came Google proper in 1997 and changed everything. Everything. If you had a website, which I had done since 1995, you had to rank on Google or nobody would find you....
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 13, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Social Media Technology Source Type: blogs

Whooper Swans spread their wings thanks to nature reserves
TL:DR – Even small wetland nature reserves could help boost Whooper Swan wintering populations in the UK. A new study has shown that protected wildlife areas are crucial for the survival of Whooper Swans, a species of migratory bird. These protected areas are important for species conservation, but it has been uncertain how effective they are when species move between protected and nonprotected areas throughout their lives. The research, conducted by Stuart Bearhop, Richard Sherley, and their colleagues, analyzed data on more than 10,000 Whooper Swans (Cygnus cygnus, also known as the Common Swan) over 30 years at 2...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 13, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Birds Source Type: blogs

Spawn again amphibian
Son reported from our garden pond #PondLife on 11th March that there were at least a couple of dozen frogs visible in the pond mating and spawning. First dollop of spawn was seen on this date. He counted at least 30 frogs. I got a bit of video of the activity a day later in the rain. I will try and do better if it is dry this evening. The video was done as more of a hasty record of the sound of the frogs croaking. https://www.sciencebase.com/images/spawning.mp4     (Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science)
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 13, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Biology PondLife Vertebrates Source Type: blogs