At a ceremony honoring nurses at the White House on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump contradicted a New Orleans nurse who said the availability of personal protective equipment has been 'sporadic.'

Thousands of Oktoberfest visitors attend the traditional parade of people in Bavarian costumes that marks the second day of the rowdy party. Sharon Reich reports.

Mercury is much denser than the other rocky planets in the solar system, and that may be because a collision vaporised its surface and the debris was blown away by the sun

Title: Take the Ouch Out of Bee Stings
Category: Health News
Created: 4/29/2018 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/30/2018 12:00:00 AM

Title: E. Coli Outbreak Tied to Ground Beef Climbs to 177 Cases
Category: Health News
Created: 4/29/2019 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/30/2019 12:00:00 AM

After a week seeing cancer patients with COVID-19 as the inpatient consult attending, Don Dizon finds himself more emotionally exhausted than he's ever been before.

Vanessa Corby-Harris, Megan E. Deeter, Lucy Snyder, Charlotte Meador, Ashley C. Welchert, Amelia Hoffman, and Bethany T. Obernesser

Recent widespread honey bee (Apis mellifera) colony loss is attributed to a variety of stressors, including parasites, pathogens, pesticides and poor nutrition. In principle, we can reduce stress-induced declines in colony health by either removing the stressor or increasing the bees' tolerance to the stressor. This latter option requires a better understanding than we currently have of how honey bees respond to stress. Here, we investigated how octopamine, a stress-induced hormone that mediates invertebrate physiology and behavior, influences the health of young nurse-aged bees. Specifically, we asked whether octopamine induces abdominal lipid and hypopharyngeal gland (HG) degradation, two physiological traits of stressed nurse bees. Nurse-aged workers were treated topically with octopamine and their abdominal lipid content, HG size and HG autophagic gene expression were measured. Hemolymph lipid titer was measured to determine whether tissue degradation was associated with the release of nutrients from these tissues into the hemolymph. The HGs of octopamine-treated bees were smaller than control bees and had higher levels of HG autophagy gene expression. Octopamine-treated bees also had higher levels of hemolymph lipid compared with control bees. Abdominal lipids did not change in response to octopamine. Our findings support the hypothesis that the HGs are a rich source of stored energy that can be mobilized during periods of stress.

Andre J. Riveros, Anne S. Leonard, Wulfila Gronenberg, and Daniel R. Papaj

Similar to animal communication displays, flowers emit complex signals that attract pollinators. Signal complexity could lead to higher cognitive load, impairing performance, or might benefit pollinators by facilitating learning, memory and decision-making. Here, we evaluate learning and memory in foragers of the bumble bee Bombus impatiens trained to simple (unimodal) vs. complex signals (bimodal) under restrained conditions. Use of a proboscis extension response protocol enabled us to control the timing and duration of stimuli presented during absolute and differential learning tasks. Overall, we observed broad variation in the performance under the two conditions, with bees trained to compound bimodal signals learning and remembering as well as, better, or more poorly than bees trained to unimodal signals. Interestingly, the outcome of training was affected by the specific colour-odour combination. Among unimodal stimuli, the performance with odour stimuli was higher than with colour stimuli, suggesting that olfactory signals played a more significant role in the compound bimodal condition. This was supported by the fact that after 24 h, most bimodal-treatment bees responded to odour but not visual stimuli. We did not observe differences in latency of response, suggesting that signal composition affected decision accuracy, not speed. We conclude that restrained bumble bee workers exhibit broad variation of responses to bimodal stimuli and that components of the bimodal signal may not be used equivalently. The analysis of bee performance under restrained conditions enables accurately control the multimodal stimuli provided to individuals and to study the interaction of individual components within a compound.

Kelsey L. Jones, Rahmatollah Rajabzadeh, Guncha Ishangulyyeva, Nadir Erbilgin, and Maya L. Evenden

Flight polyphenisms naturally occur as discrete or continuous traits in insects. Discrete flight polyphenisms include winged and wingless morphs, whereas continuous flight polyphenisms can take the form of short- or long-distance fliers. The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) exhibits polyphenic variation in flight distance but the consequences of this flight variation on life history strategies of beetles is unknown. This study assessed the effect of flight on two particular aspects of beetle biology: (1) an energetic trade-off between flight distance and host colonisation capacity; and (2) the relationship between flight distance and pheromone production. A 23-h flight treatment was applied to a subset of beetles using computer. After flight treatment, both flown and unflown (control) beetles were given the opportunity to colonise bolts of host trees, and beetles that entered hosts were aerated to collect pheromone. A trade-off occurred between initiation of host colonisation and percent body weight lost during flight, which indicates energy-use during flight affects host acceptance in female mountain pine beetles. Furthermore, production of the aggregation pheromone trans-verbenol by female beetles was influenced by both percent weight lost during flight and flight distance. Male production of exo-brevicomin was affected by beetle condition following flight but not by the energy used during flight. These novel results give new insight into the polyphenic flight behaviour of mountain pine beetles. Flight variation is adaptive by acting to maintain population levels through safe and risky host colonisation strategies. These findings suggest mechanisms that facilitate the extremities of the continuous flight polyphenism spectrum. These opposing mechanisms appear to maintain the high variation in flight exhibited by this species.

David J. Pritchard and Mario Vallejo-Marin

Vibrations play an important role in insect behaviour. In bees, vibrations are used in a variety of contexts including communication, as a warning signal to deter predators and during pollen foraging. However, little is known about how the biomechanical properties of bee vibrations vary across multiple behaviours within a species. In this study, we compared the properties of vibrations produced by Bombus terrestris audax (Hymenoptera: Apidae) workers in three contexts: during flight, during defensive buzzing, and in floral vibrations produced during pollen foraging on two buzz-pollinated plants (Solanum, Solanaceae). Using laser vibrometry, we were able to obtain contactless measures of both the frequency and amplitude of the thoracic vibrations of bees across the three behaviours. Despite all three types of vibrations being produced by the same power flight muscles, we found clear differences in the mechanical properties of the vibrations produced in different contexts. Both floral and defensive buzzes had higher frequency and amplitude velocity, acceleration, and displacement than the vibrations produced during flight. Floral vibrations had the highest frequency, amplitude velocity and acceleration of all the behaviours studied. Vibration amplitude, and in particular acceleration, of floral vibrations has been suggested as the key property for removing pollen from buzz-pollinated anthers. By increasing frequency and amplitude velocity and acceleration of their vibrations during vibratory pollen collection, foraging bees may be able to maximise pollen removal from flowers, although their foraging decisions are likely to be influenced by the presumably high cost of producing floral vibrations.

The super-sensitive smelling ability of American grasshoppers has been used to create biological bomb sniffers, which could prove useful for security purposes

Lab-grown ‘meat’ often uses gelatin produced in slaughterhouses to give artificial beef a meat-like texture – but substituting soya protein can achieve that without killing animals

Mercury is mostly iron, which may be because a series of close encounters with a young Venus billions of years ago stripped away its rocky outer layers

Stars like our sun formed in a dense cluster with thousands of others, during which time they may have swapped planets

Mercury is much denser than the other rocky planets in the solar system, and that may be because a collision vaporised its surface and the debris was blown away by the sun

For the first time, NASA's Astrobee robot has demonstrated autonomous free flight in space

We’re back for another week of wacky antics and thrilling adventures! Wait, we just talk about RPG news don’t we? But we have thrilling news!...

Coronavirus has brought fashion to a halt. To mark Earth Day, we asked sustainable fashion designers, writers and advocates what changes they would like to see

Over the past few years, sustainable fashion has been inching towards the mainstream. Now, given the pandemic crisis, discussion of how to create a more ethical and less environmentally damaging model for an industry that is responsible for 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions every year is more relevant than ever.

With much of the usual churn on pause because of coronavirus and many of the cracks of the industry coming to the fore – not least in Bangladesh, where garment workers are facing destitution as big-name brands cancel their orders – some people in the industry are taking this hiatus as an opportunity to reassess fashion’s direction of travel.

Hollywood loves a good comeback, and post-coronavirus will be no exception, writes costume designer Kristin M Burke

Many events have killed the film industry: the 1918 influenza epidemic, the second world war, the invention of television, the invention of VCRs, the invention of the internet, 9-11, strike after strike after strike. And yet, like a phoenix, it rises, every time stronger than before. The appetite for its product is insatiable especially in times of political trouble and uncertainty about the future. People want to escape. They want to be entertained.

The way we make movies most certainly must change. In the best of circumstances, we are a crew of 75 people jammed into a room with very little ventilation, holding our breath until we hear “CUT”. We are in close contact with one another all day long. We never really thought about it before. All of that is about to change. Film sets usually function as big families, and moving forward, that family unit will take on a stronger, protective meaning. This is how we self-regulate in the post-pandemic era.

The Hollywood Reporter says numerous attendees returned from the late-January festival with coronavirus symptoms

A new report suggests that January’s Sundance film festival, the annual gathering of cinephiles in Park City, Utah, may have been a key early hub for coronavirus in the US. The article, in the Hollywood Reporter, cites numerous attendees who experienced Covid-19-like symptoms either during or immediately after the festival. None were believed to have been tested for the disease.

Sundance this year attracted about 120,000 people to the small mountain resort, to watch films and party in confined spaces. The snowy conditions that make Park City perfect for skiing mean that socialising indoors is common, as are some flu-like symptoms as a result of the low temperature and high altitude.

A protein-coding gene called GB45239 is responsible for thelytokous parthenogenesis — the ability to produce daughters asexually — in the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis), a subspecies of honeybee found in the two southern provinces of South Africa, according to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology. The female worker caste of the [...]

The 87-year-old record producer - who worked extensively with Michael at the height of his pop career - was originally awarded

The 'Lose You To Love Me' hitmaker had been busy in the studio before lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic and is desperate to keep

The bee species has been under the looming threat of...

The post Bee-Killing Murder Hornets Have Somehow Landed In America For The First Time appeared first on Man's World India.

MIKE GRAHAM furiously lashed out at journalist and author Christopher Snowdon live on-air after the author claimed the country has "never been less free" than it is today under the nationwide lockdown.

As you read this, remember FSIS’s Mission Statement: The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is the public health agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture responsible for ensuring that the nation’s commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged. And, remember that none of our food... Continue Reading

Asian giant hornet, which became more active in the state in April, is the world’s largest and can kill humans with multiple stings

• Alarm over deaths of bees from rapidly spreading viral disease
  

Researchers and citizens in Washington state are on a careful hunt for invasive “murder hornets”, after the insect made its first appearance in the US.

The Asian giant hornet is the world’s largest and can kill humans. But it is most dangerous for the European honeybee, which is defenseless in the face of the hornet’s spiky mandibles, long stinger and potent venom.

So-called gynandromorphs are rare, but they can teach us a lot about development and evolution

A new method for reliably identifying the presence of beer or other malted foodstuffs in archaeological finds is described in a new study.

Here’s what notifications for iOS and Android COVID-19 tracing will look like.

Follow our LIVE updates about the coronavirus outbreak here Coronavirus: The symptoms

Hospital consultant and ward housekeeper are among latest NHS victims in London Follow our live coronavirus updates here Coronavirus: the symptoms

Follow our live coronavirus updates HERE Coronavirus: the symptoms

Live coronavirus updates here

Downing Street has fiercely rebuffed newspaper reports that Boris Johnson failed to act in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.

A London brewery is donating the income from two new beers brewed in honour of frontline healthcare workers to NHS charities.

The number of people infected during the first wave of coronavirus in mainland China may have been four times the official figures, according to a new study.

The Duchess of Cornwall says she is missing seeing and hugging her grandchildren during the coronavirus lockdown.

The latest countries and areas affected by coronavirus Coronavirus: The symptoms

Two "lucky" men with beer on tap said they can't complain after going into coronavirus lockdown in a London pub.

Staff at an east London hospital have mounted bees onto a mural to represent every patient who has beaten coronavirus.

Scheme to offload expiring supplies raises hundreds of pounds for NHS workers battling the coronavirus pandemic

If someone tests positive for coronavirus more than once, it does not necessarily mean they have been reinfected, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

A French hospital which has retested old samples from pneumonia patients discovered that it treated a man who had Covid-19 as early as December 27.

Some weeks ago my main worries were around my GCSEs. Now I hear every day about deaths from Covid-19

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

It is the sixth week of lockdown, and for many people things are getting progressively more intense. Most families are physically distancing at home. People are only leaving the house for their weekly shop – and spending a lot of that time waiting in the queue – or to exercise once a day.

In my family things are a bit different. Our driveway is usually empty during the day as my parents, who are doctors, go in to work. It is difficult to imagine how only some weeks ago my main worries were around my GCSEs. Now every day, I hear about deaths from coronavirus. I cannot help but feel a surge of fear for my parents as I watch these updates with my brother. I’m painfully aware of the many healthcare workers who have lost their lives.

Advanced hacker group seeded market with at least 8 apps likely since 2016.