Two 16-year-olds are now in custody in Spokane, Washington, in the beating death of an 88-year-old World War Two Veteran. One teen is being held on two million dollars bail. The second is due in court on Tuesday. (Aug. 27)
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Two 16-year-olds are now in custody in Spokane, Washington, in the beating death of an 88-year-old World War Two Veteran. One teen is being held on two million dollars bail. The second is due in court on Tuesday. (Aug. 27)
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Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux are reportedly planning a low-key wedding on the actor’s birthday this weekend.
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Floral electric fields could join color and fragrance as cues to pollinators
By Susan Milius
Web edition: February 21, 2013
ELECTRIC SIDE
On the right-hand halves of flowers, a dusting of electrically charged particles (color in adjacent rectangle) reveals natural patterns. Bees can sense at least simple patterns in floral electrical charges, new research says.
Credit: D. Clarke et al./Science 2013
Slight electric fields that form around flowers may lure pollinators much as floral colors and fragrances do.
In lab setups, bumblebees learned to distinguish fake flowers by their electrical fields, says sensory biologist Daniel Robert at the University of Bristol in England. Combining an electrical charge with a color helped the bees learn faster, Robert and his colleagues report online February 21 in Science.
Plants, a bit like lightning rods, tend to conduct electrical charges to the ground, Robert says. And bees pick up a positive charge from the atmosphere’s invisible rain of charged particles.
“Anything flying through the air, whether it’s a baseball, 767 jumbo jet, or a bee, acquires a strong positive electrostatic charge due to interaction with air molecules,” says Stephen Buchmann of the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Robert and his colleagues checked whether bees could choose flowers based solely on the electric fields the plants produce. Purple metal disks (encased in plastic so as not to shock bees) stood in for flowers. Half of them, wired for 30 volts, held sips of sugar water. The unwired ones offered a bitter quinine solution that bees don’t like.
MODEL FLOWER
A computer model predicts the electric potential of a typical flower blooming 30 centimeters above the ground (left: dark blue, 0 volts; dark red, 35 volts) and its electric field (right; dark blue, 0 volts per meter; dark red 2,000 volts per meter).
Credit: D. Clarke et al./Science 2013
Bombus terrestris bumblebees learned to chose sweet, wired disks more than 80 percent of the time. When researchers unplugged the wired disks, the bees bumbled, scoring sugar only by chance.
“The big question is how bees do this,” says Lars Chittka of Queen Mary University of London. Bees bristle with hairs, and he speculates that a charged insect nearing an oppositely charged flower feels the hairs bend.
Electric charges of bees and flowers do interact, Robert confirmed after studying bees visiting real petunias. When a bee landed, and sometimes even before, flower stems registered an electrical surge that didn’t fade until after the bee had buzzed onward.
This surge in electric potential might tip off another passing bee that the flower had just lost nectar to a different visitor, a change that scent or color would not reveal. Roberts says, channeling a petunia: “I’m still pretty and smell nice, but my potential tells you to come back later.”
Variations within a flower’s electric field may even hold clues to where bees should probe for nectar, Robert speculates. Researchers found striking electrical patterns when they wafted positively charged colored aerosol particles over blooms.
“I am blown away,” said Anne Leonard of the University of Nevada, Reno. “I imagine that we’ll all be desperate to spray our flowers down with the aerosol they describe.”
Bumblebees can distinguish at least between simple electrical patterns, Robert says. They learned to fly to disks with a negatively charged bulls-eye ringed with a positive charge instead of to disks producing a uniform field.
Charge patterns can also reinforce other flower advertisements, the researchers found. Bees challenged to learn to distinguish two slightly different shades of green learned faster when researchers paired each shade with a distinctive electric charge.
In the real world, bees face a marketing barrage of combined scents, colors and other cues from flowers. “One open question in behavior is when are such cues used, and when are they ignored,” says Robert Raguso of Cornell University. Pollinators need to find their next meal before they run out of fuel, and if a cue such as humidity or electrical charge can let them make snap judgments to save resources, he predicts bees would pay attention.
Suggested Reading
A.S. Leonard and D.R. Papaj. ‘X’ marks the spot: The possible benefits of nectar guides to bees and plants. Functional Ecology. Vol. 25, 2011, p. 1293. doi: 10.1242/jeb.047407.
M. von Arx et al. Floral humidity as a reliable sensory cue for profitability assessment by nectar-foraging hawkmoths. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. 109, June 12, 2012, p. 9471. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1121624109 [Go to]
R. Ehrenberg. Jiminy Cricket! Pollinator caught in the act. Science News Online. Posted Jan.18, 2010. [Go to]
S. Milius. Big study—Selective pollinators are declining. Science News. Vol. 170, July 22, 2006, p. 51. [Go to]
Bringing a gift to a friend that is confined in a hospital is a good gesture. But then, you also have to make sure that the kind of gift that you give him would really make him happy. This is actually the challenge here; identifying what could be the best gift to buy for a friend who is bedridden could be a difficult thing to do.
Flowers are always a great choice. As the gift giver, it is always a good idea to bring along some flowers, and these can be paired with another gift. Flowers actually have an impact on the mood of the patients; these would actually make one happier just by the looks of these. You can go directly to a local florist or if you are too far to visit, simply order them from your favorite online florist.
Hospitals are not the usual fun places and can be boring, so that you need to find exactly what the patient wants. Balloons can be great, especially if the patient is still a child and can still be ideal for young adults. This will make the patient think that he or she is still a child and needs to be taken cared of very carefully. This gesture can make the patient smile. These can be ordered online from an internet florist, as well.
The patient\’s favorite food or drinks are also great and ideal as gifts to bring. Usually many foods are not banned inside hospitals, and you can bring these things as you like. However, you need to find out also if the patient is allowed to eat. It may not be right if the patient is not allowed to eat solid foods and you bring his or her favorite steak. Simply ask the nursing staff what is allowed by calling the hospital.
Of course, another option would be to give a music player and some music. The gift giver should try to learn what the kind of music is that the patient loves and bring it on over. You also might consider bringing over a portable DVD device and some fun movies to watch.
Robes can also be ideal as gift. A new bathrobe together with nice slippers can make your patient smile and appreciate the gesture. Walking around the hospital room can be a good aid to the recovery process, and a new bathrobe with the slippers can give the patient this nice feeling.
Ji Hitzeman likes writing and loves flowers. For more information about a Dana Point flowers shop, or to discover Dana Point wedding flowers, please go to the GoFlorist website now.
As your anniversary approaches, it is wise to begin thinking about gifts a week or so in advance, especially if you hope to do something grand or something that requires some advance planning. There are plenty of great anniversary gift ideas that don\’t require a ton of work or planning, but will still show your love and appreciation.
Sending flowers is not only thoughtful; it is as easy as going online and checking out the offerings from an internet flower shop. Even if you are a wife buying for a husband, flowers can be a fun and festive option.
You can simply choose an arrangement that features your loved one\’s favorite colors or flowers or even choose an elegant bouquet of red roses. Another fun idea is to find out what flower represents the month in which you were married. For instance, if you married in January, carnations and snowdrops are traditional choices. In April, daisies and sweet peas are the flower of the month.
A special dinner is always a great idea, and while you can always make a reservation at your spouse\’s favorite restaurant, you can also consider another type of culinary treat. You can pack a big picnic and head to a local park or to the beach for a romantic outdoor dinner or even create a beautiful gourmet meal at home surrounded by soft candlelight. Turn on some romantic music and maybe send the kids to Grandma\’s for the night.
Each year of your wedded life includes a special traditional type of gift. Your first anniversary is typically set for a paper gift, so you could give a book or a journal. Your tenth anniversary is tin or aluminum, which might seem tricky, but you can select wall art or picture frames or even jewelry made of these metals. Check online for a list of each anniversary year and its corresponding gift ideas.
Keep in mind that there are several different anniversary gift lists. There is a traditional list and a more modern version. They are quite different, and that can provide you with a few more gift buying options. If you go by the traditional list, the fifth anniversary gift is wood. The modern list has silverware as the fifth-year gift. Either way, just select a present that best suits your spouse.
Ji Hitzeman likes blogging and loves flowers. For more details about a Huntington Beach Florist, or to discover a Huntington Beach Flowers shop, please visit the GoFlorist site now.
