Lovelorn frogs bag closest crooner

Monday, May 20, 2013

What lures a lady frog to her lover? Good looks, the sound of his voice, the size of his pad or none of the above? After weighing up their options, female strawberry poison frogs (Oophaga pumilio) bag the closest crooner they can, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers of Zoology. This seemingly short-sighted strategy turns out to be the optimal mate choice strategy for these colourful frogs.

Males of the species congregate in the Costa Rican rain forest 'lek-style' to display and call together, giving females the chance to weigh up multiple males at once. But despite their best efforts, build and territory size, females tend to mate with the closest calling male, Ivonne Meuche from the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Germany, and colleagues report.

The find was confirmed by playback experiments where females, played recordings of various male calls, failed to discriminate between different call rates or frequencies, preferring instead, the nearest speaker.

Female mate choice is a tricky business. Some species chose the first mate that is 'good enough' whilst others seek out and compare many mates before returning to choose the fittest. But the simplest, least costly option is to mate with the first or nearest male encountered, regardless of quality. The strategy doesn't seem an evolutionary winner as it means that nearby, unfit frogs sometimes get to pass on their genes at the expense of more distant, genetically-superior specimens. But it does make sense in certain situations.

Non-choosy behaviour like this has been noted in fishes, and some frog species with a lek-like mating system. It's thought the strategy works for them because it reduces 'costs' in terms of search time and competition for mates. Female strawberry poison frogs may also benefit little from 'shopping around' because strong inter-male competition means the available mates are all much of a muchness.

The team also noted that females unable to find a mate within a certain time period ended up laying unfertilised eggs that never hatch. So in species, like the strawberry poison dart frog, where the choosing sex outnumbers the chosen sex, it makes sense to 'grab the nearest guy' rather than run the risk of not mating at all.

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Only distance matters - non-choosy females in a poison frog population
Ivonne Meuche, Oscar Brusa, Karl E. Linsenmair, Alexander Keller and Heike Pr?hl
Frontiers in Zoology 2013 10:29, doi:10.1186/1742-9994-10-29

BioMed Central: http://www.biomedcentral.com

Thanks to BioMed Central for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128306/Lovelorn_frogs_bag_closest_crooner

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Pre-caffeine tech: Tumblr, typewriters, OKCupid cats!

Technology

Helen A.S. Popkin NBC News

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Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning.

Yahoo just bought Tumblr for $1.1B. But don't worry! The company vows "not to screw it up."

Hey! Remember that one time David Karp tweeted about Tumbler being acquired by Yahoo in 2009?

Meanwhile, Xbox is fixin' to flash steel in new console war.

And here's how Google beat Apple to a streaming music service.

Will "digital ethnic cleansing" be part of the Internet's future?Let's find out!

Tapping into old tech: Typewriters are totally making a comeback!

This teen's invention could charge your phone in 20 seconds!

YouTube says users upload more than 100 hours of video per minute to the video-sharing site ... which just turned 8!?

Here's the world's tiniest monkey eating a noodle!

In closing: The 17 creepiest cats you meet on OKCupid!

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Ant study could help future robot teams work underground

May 20, 2013 ? Future teams of subterranean search and rescue robots may owe their success to the lowly fire ant, a much-despised insect whose painful bites and extensive networks of underground tunnels are all-too-familiar to people living in the southern United States.

By studying fire ants in the laboratory using video tracking equipment and X-ray computed tomography, researchers have uncovered fundamental principles of locomotion that robot teams could one day use to travel quickly and easily through underground tunnels. Among the principles is building tunnel environments that assist in moving around by limiting slips and falls, and by reducing the need for complex neural processing.

Among the study's surprises was the first observation that ants in confined spaces use their antennae for locomotion as well as for sensing the environment.

"Our hypothesis is that the ants are creating their environment in just the right way to allow them to move up and down rapidly with a minimal amount of neural control," said Dan Goldman, an associate professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and one of the paper's co-authors. "The environment allows the ants to make missteps and not suffer for them. These ants can teach us some remarkably effective tricks for maneuvering in subterranean environments."

The research was scheduled to be reported May 20 in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Physics of Living Systems program.

In a series of studies carried out by graduate research assistant Nick Gravish, groups of fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) were placed into tubes of soil and allowed to dig tunnels for 20 hours. To simulate a range of environmental conditions, Gravish and postdoctoral fellow Daria Monaenkova varied the size of the soil particles from 50 microns on up to 600 microns, and also altered the moisture content from 1 to 20 percent.

While the particle size and moisture content did produce changes in the volume of tunnels produced and the depth that the ants dug, the diameters of the tunnels remained constant -- and comparable to the length of the creatures' own bodies: about 3.5 millimeters.

"Independent of whether the soil particles were as large as the animals' heads or whether they were fine powder, or whether the soil was damp or contained very little moisture, the tunnel size was always the same within a tight range," said Goldman. "The size of the tunnels appears to be a design principle used by the ants, something that they were controlling for."

Gravish believes such a scaling effect allows the ants to make best use of their antennae, limbs and body to rapidly ascend and descend in the tunnels by interacting with the walls and limiting the range of possible missteps.

"In these subterranean environments where their leg motions are certainly hindered, we see that the speeds at which these ants can run are the same," he said. "The tunnel size seems to have little, if any, effect on locomotion as defined by speed."

The researchers used X-ray computed tomography to study tunnels the ants built in the test chambers, gathering 168 observations. They also used video tracking equipment to collect data on ants moving through tunnels made between two clear plates -- much like "ant farms" sold for children -- and through a maze of glass tubes of differing diameters.

The maze was mounted on an air piston which could periodically be fired, dropping the maze with a force of as much as 27 times that of gravity. The sudden movement caused about half of the ants in the tubes to lose their footing and begin to fall. That led to one of the study's most surprising findings: the creatures used their antennae to help grab onto the tube walls as they fell.

"A lot of us who have studied social insects for a long time have never seen antennae used in that way," said Michael Goodisman, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Biology and one of the paper's other co-authors. "It's incredible that they catch themselves with their antennae. This is an adaptive behavior that we never would have expected."

By analyzing ants falling in the glass tubes, the researchers determined that the tube diameter played a key role in whether the animals could arrest their fall.

In future studies, the researchers plan to explore how the ants excavate their tunnel networks, which involves moving massive amounts of soil. That soil is the source of the large mounds for which fire ants are known.

While the research focused on understanding the principles behind how ants move in confined spaces, the results could have implications for future teams of small robots.

"The problems that the ants face are the same kinds of problems that a digging robot working in a confined space would potentially face -- the need for rapid movement, stability and safety -- all with limited sensing and brain power," said Goodisman. "If we want to build machines that dig, we can build in controls like these ants have."

Why use fire ants for studying underground locomotion?

"These animals dig virtually non-stop, and they are good, repeatable study subjects," Goodisman explained. "And they are very convenient for us to study. We can go outside the laboratory door and collect them virtually anywhere."

The research described here has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant POLS 095765, and by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/BjNHwI4uVzg/130520163222.htm

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Collision closes New York area train route as NTSB investigates

A commuter rail collision Friday injured more than 60 people and left behind a scene of damage that has caused a prominent railroad line near New York City to be partially closed.

Amtrak service between New York and New Haven, Conn., is also closed while the incident is investigated and damage repaired.

At about 6:10 p.m. Friday a Metro-North train heading east from New York City derailed outside Bridgeport, Conn., and was hit by a westbound train on an adjacent track. Some 700 passengers were on board the trains, the Associated Press reported.

The cause was unclear. Some local officials said it did not appear to be terrorism, and a team from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived Saturday to investigate issues ranging from crew performance to the condition of the track.

The New York area?s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) said its commuter rail service between South Norwalk and New Haven is suspended until further notice, while regular service will operate between Stamford and Grand Central Terminal.

Commuters could be affected all week as the investigation proceeds.

The MTA said damage on the two affected tracks is ?extensive,? and that the two other tracks on this segment of the railway are out of service for a project replacing overhead wires.

?The [damaged] train cars cannot be removed until the on-scene investigation is complete, and they will need to be removed by crane,? the MTA said.

According to news reports, more than 60 people went to hospitals with injuries related to the collision.

Commuter rail accidents are relatively rare. One federal study, looking at the decade between 1996 and 2005, found a declining rate of accidents (with 33 accidents or incidents per million total commuter-train miles in 2005).

Injuries generally totaled fewer than 2,000 per year, and fatalities fewer than 100 per year, during that 10-year period.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/collision-closes-york-area-train-route-ntsb-investigates-200825752.html

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Computer penetration: Create your tomorrow now, Intel charges ...

By Prince Osuagwu

Intel Corporation last week charged the University of Lagos, UNILAG students to learn how to create their tomorrow, today by adopting the usage of computer technology in every aspect of their academic and social activities.

The chip technology manufacturer, challenged the students as it took its youth market based campaign, ?Create Your Tomorrow? project to the institution at the weekend.

The campaign seeks to help the target market especially the new generation of tech-savvy students currently in, and entering institutions of learning to unlock their innate potentials through the use of technology.

The Create Your Tomorrow Campaign also seeks to push information technology as a tool that can be used as an asset, rather than as an obstacle to achieving its intended purpose.

Intel believes that when the usage of PC Technology is deepened among students, it would result into tremendous enhancement of quality of life and living in the society. The company?s Country Manager, Mr Olubunmi Ekundare, said his company designed the campaign to reinforce commitment as sponsors of tomorrow.

He also contended that the initiative would mark Intel out as having exposed the potentials of technology in Nigeria and in Africa as a whole

For him,? today?s students possess unprecedented levels of skill with information technology; they think about and use technology very differently from students of the past era. They love teamwork, experiential activities and the use of technology.? He said.

Ekundare added that ?for us at Intel, championing the cause of technology in Nigeria, Africa and the world is at the heart of our business and this has informed our engagements from inception till date. Intel, more than being interested in propagating the gospel of technology, is interested in the quality it brings to life if properly employed. The campaign will therefore focus on the use of the several unknown benefits that technology provides.?

Activities to mark the Create Your Future campaign included? one-day forum on the campus of the University of Lagos as well as entertaining interactive sessions with Nigerian pop-star, Banky W.

Intel also sponsored three-day internationally certified Technology and Entrepreneurship Training and participants awarded international certification upon successful completion.

The campaign also offered discounts on PC purchases from Intel-powered PC retailers, free HP printers with every HP PC purchase, shopping vouchers, educational and empowerment initiatives, as well as raffle draws.

Comments are moderated. Please keep them clean and brief.

Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/05/computer-penetration-create-your-tomorrow-now-intel-charges-unilag-students/

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Electric Daisy Carnival Kicks Off With Amped-Up Set From Steve Angello

New York's annual EDM fest gets off to an electrifying start as 40,000 fans pack Citi Field.
By Sarah Harper

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1707611/electric-daisy-festival-2013-steve-angello.jhtml

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Why Is This 112-Year-Old Church Floating in the Air?

Art installation? Trick photography? Nope, just a little restoration project going on at Utah's Provo Temple, which was badly damaged in a fire in 2010. Thankfully, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is salvaging the 112-year-old building with a little architectural levitation.

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