The Hives of Others Bees Wage War across Species
Jane Goodall discovered 40 years ago that chimpanzees wage war.
Until then, she thought they were rather nicer than humans.
But her shocking observation of animal warfare was not the first.
It was the second.
By then scientists had known for at least 80 years that we were not the only species to kill others of our own kind.
Some insects do it, too.
The Australian stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria is notorious for inciting war, usually to usurp the hive of another.
usurp: 奪う、横領する
hive: ミツバチの巣箱、忙しい人がいっぱいいる所、活気にあふれた場所、巣箱のミツバチの群れ
Instead of wasting time building their own hives, they just steal one and redecorate.
redecorate: (…を)改装する
The fights between stingless bee colonies are epic in scale, according to John Paul Cunningham of Queensland University of Technology in Australia, with swarms from the attacking and defending hives colliding midair and fighting bees falling to the ground locked in a death grip from which neither combatant survives.
in scale: 釣り合いが取れて、同じ程度｛ていど｝［度合い］で
midair: 空中
While studying such skirmishes, Cunningham and his colleagues were surprised to find that the stingless bees were being attacked not only by other colonies of their own species but also by colonies of a different species entirely, Tetragonula hockingsi.
skirmish: 小競り合い、小論争
This insight marks the first known description of interspecies warfare in bees-the only other instance of this type of conflict observed throughout the animal kingdom occurs among some ant species.
The stingless bees' aggression against others was so remarkable that the researchers monitored approximately 260 colonies of T. carbonaria in Queensland over five years to make sure they were not wrong.
Because the bees are hard to distinguish by sight, Cunningham's team identified instances of usurpation of one species by the other by assessing the structure of the hives each year when they were opened for honey extraction.
usurpation: 権利侵害、横領
The hives of T. carbonaria are made up of well-organized cells built in a spiral pattern.
Those of T. hockingsi contain cells that look haphazardly arranged.
haphazardly: 手当たり次第、手当たり次第に、やみくもに
If a hive known to hold T. carbonaria had the structure of a T. hockingsi hive the following year, then that was the site of a successful seizure of territory.
The researchers recorded evidence of 46 such interspecies usurpations, with victors coming from either species in equal proportion.
The findings were detailed last December in the American Naturalist.
Cunningham also observed the daily activities of a T. carbonaria hive over a single winter, witnessing three major battles and collecting the dead for later genetic analyses.
By the end of the winter, the hive had been successfully commandeered by T. hockingsi, with the invaders dragging out all remaining occupants, including larvae, and installing a new queen.
commandeer: (兵役に)徴用する、(軍用・公用などに)徴発する、勝手に使う
larvae: larvaの複数形。幼虫
What induces thousands of bees to go into battle and risk death ?
One clue comes from the genetic analysis of the dead conducted by University of Queensland researcher James Hereward.
He found that the new queen was most likely the daughter of the attacking hive's own queen-brought to her new home to continue the ruling species' lineage.
When the reproductive capacity of the royal class is at stake, the potential benefits to either colony may outweigh the risks of massive casualties.
outweigh: よりまさる、より重い
The trigger for a war is uncertain, Cunningham says, especially because beekeepers can have many hives of both species living harmoniously in close proximity.
As Christoph Gr\xfcter of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, who was not involved in the work, points out, this study highlights how much is still unknown about insect warfare and how it evolved.
The entire colony of the attacked species is wiped out, and a substantial number of attackers die as well, he explains.
It's very unusual to have these kinds of costs among both attackers and defenders.
Long live the queen.
Food Deserts Leave Many Americans High and Dry
Source: Food Environment Atlas, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research ServiceEven within the borders of one of the world's top agricultural countries, healthy food can be hard to come by.
come by: …を手に入れる、(偶然)を受ける、…のそばを通り過ぎる、…を偶然思いつく
Many Americans reside in food deserts-communities where retailers offering fresh food are scarce but fast-food restaurants and convenience stores selling prepared foods can abound.
The top two maps at the right show the proximity of full-line grocers to two groups for whom healthy food is often difficult to procure: low-income households and those without access to a vehicle.
Scientists are still exploring the links between food deserts and health by investigating how the nonavailability of fresh food may spur obesity, diabetes and other diet-related conditions.
spur: 拍車、刺激、激励、拍車状のもの、(山などの横に突出した)尾根、支脈、(鶏などの)けづめ、(シャモのけづめにつける)鉄けづめ、(登山靴の)くぎ、アイゼン
obesity: 肥満
One 2006 study found an association between the presence of supermarkets and lower obesity rates.
presence: 存在、あること、現存、出席、参列、駐留(軍)、(警察官の)配備、配置、面前、人前
Convenience stores, on the other hand, were associated with higher rates.
associate with: 相手にする、混ざる、交ざる、交わる、近寄せる、近付ける、提携する、連携する、連合する、交わる
You always have to be careful about suggesting cause and effect, says Mari Gallagher, whose Chicago consulting firm carries out case studies of local food environments.
The relation between food and health is complex, and personal choice clearly plays a role.
But we do think that the environment, in a lot of different ways, matters, Gallagher says.
You can't choose healthy food if you don't have access to it.
This article was published in print as High and Dry in the Food Desert.
search cnt: 5
Teen Develops Less Invasive Means to Detect Breast Cancer
PROFILENAMESBrittany WengerTITLEHighschool seniorLOCATIONLakewood Ranch, Fla.
How did you feel when you heard you had won not only your age category but also the grand prize at the July 23 awards ceremony ?
grand prize: 大賞
I was just so excited.
It was a surreal experience walking up there.
surreal: シュールな
I don't even know how I got up there.
Tell me about your project.
I taught the computer how to diagnose breast cancer so it could determine whether a breast mass is malignant or benign.
I did this because currently the least invasive form of biopsy, known as a fine-needle aspirate, is actually the least conclusive.
invasive: 侵入する、侵略的な、侵害の
biopsy: 生検、生体組織検査、バイオプシー
fine-needle: 微小針; 微細針
aspirate: 気(息)音、音、気息音字、帯気音
So a lot of doctors can't use it.
I created an artificial neural network, which is a type of program that learns based on its experiences and mistakes, so it classifies problems that are far too complex for humans to classify.
Then I fed information into the neural network from a database of fine-needle aspirates.
fine-needle aspirate: Null
Currently the network is 99.1 percent sensitive to malignancies, and I ran 7.6 million trials and proved that, as I get more data, the success rate increases and the inconclusivity rate decreases, so I think with more data it will prove to be hospital ready.
What inspired your project ?
In the seventh grade I grew fascinated by artificial intelligence, which I came across while working on a school project.
come across: …を横切る、に浮かぶ、…に(ふと)出くわす、…を見つける
I went home that night, and I bought a computer programming book and, with no experience, decided that was what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
Computer science is one area where men still outnumber women.
Why do you think that's the case ?
I think sometimes there's a stereotype around computer science, that it's just video game development, and more boys are hard-core game developers than girls.
hard-core: 徹底した、筋金入りの、極端に露骨な、そのものずばりの、治癒不可能に見える、慢性的な
But you have to realize it's our Web sites, our Google tools, it's our Facebook, and I think that you could reach girls more if you could appeal to what they're using computer science for.
But also I think we've come a long way.
More girls are getting interested in science, and I know it used to be that girls weren't encouraged, but I've never felt like I couldn't go into science, like I was being discriminated against because I was a girl.
discriminate: 区別する、識別する、分け隔てをする、差別待遇する、(…を)えこひいきする
Have you decided what career path you'd like to pursue ?
I want to be on the frontier of cancer research, finding the cures that are going to save lives and doing things with computer science that can be the technologies of the future.
I also want to be a pediatric oncologist, so I hope to intertwine my passions for research, computer science and patient care in the future.
pediatric: 小児科(学)の
oncologist: 腫瘍学者
intertwine: (…を)からみ合わせる、編み合わせる、織り込む、(…を)(…と)からみ合わせる
What are the next steps for your project ?
It will take a long time, but I hope to scale it up and bring it into hospitals.
scale up: スケールアップ、スケールアップする
I put my neural network into the cloud because the cloud is this amazing, elastic entity that allows for a million hospitals to access it tomorrow if they want and to provide feedback.
elastic entity: Null
I'm so happy to have won the Google Science Fair because it will give me a new platform, and people will take me more seriously.
COMMENT AT ScientificAmerican.
com/oct2012
search cnt: 15
Stars That Go Out with a Bang
When a star becomes a white dwarf-an old, extremely dense star that would have once had a mass similar to our own sun's-the eventful part of its life is over.
dwarf: (特に、頭が大きく手足が短い)小びと、(おとぎ話に出てくる)醜い小びと、特別に小さい動物、矮性(わいせい)植物、盆栽(ぼんさい)
It releases what heat and light it has left over billions of years, slowly cooling until it no longer shines.
leave over: 残す、余す、繰り延べる、延期する
Some white dwarfs, however, are not content with this ending.
white dwarf: 白色矮星(わいせい)
If a white dwarf exists in a two-star system with a companion, it can avert its fate and go out with a bang, not a whimper.
content with: 満足して、満足する、甘んじる
avert: そむける、そらす、避ける、防ぐ
go out with: 付き合う、付合う、つき合う、[通例 go outing 形で] 〔異性と〕出歩く、つき合う
It does so by causing a particular type of stellar explosion called a type Ia supernova.
whimper: クンクン鳴く、すすり泣きする、しくしく泣く、鼻声になる、ぶつぶつ不平を言う
stellar: 星の、星から成る、(形が)星のような、星形の、主要な、傑出した、花形の
A type Ia supernova starts when the white dwarf drags material from its companion onto itself.
It grows and grows until it cannot get any bigger.
At this point, it implodes, then rebounds and explodes in a supernova bright enough to outshine whole galaxies.
implode: 内側に破裂する、内破する
outshine: よりよく光る、より光が強い、より優秀である、(…に)まさる
The companion star from which the white dwarf steals matter is instrumental in this dramatic event.
instrumental: (…の)手段になって、助けになって、器械の、楽器(用)の
Its identity, however, has long been a mystery.
Theoretical models say the companion star can be anything from a red giant to a main sequence star like the sun to another white dwarf.
Astronomers have been able to narrow the range of possible companions for a type Ia supernova spotted late last year.
spot: (特定の)場所、地点、(感情・気持ちなどの)点、所、個所、(周囲と違った色の小さな)ぶち、斑点(はんてん)、まだら、ほくろ、発疹(はつしん)
A telescope belonging to the Palomar Transient Factory ( PTF ) survey in Pasadena, Calif.
, spotted a bright spot at one minute before 9 P.M. on August 24. The new supernova, known as supernova 2011fe, won Palomar astronomers the rec\xadord for the earliest ever detection of a type Ia supernova: just 11 hours after its initial explosion.
Last December researchers published two papers in Nature analyzing observations of supernova 2011fe.
One paper, with lead author Peter Nugent of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and PTF, found that the companion star was probably a main sequence star.
main sequence star: 主系列星
The other work, spearheaded by Weidong Li of the University of California, Berkeley, rules out a red giant.
spearhead: 槍(やり)の穂先、先鋒(せんぽう)、先頭、一番槍(を務める人)
Li used observations from the Keck II telescope in Hawaii to pinpoint the location of the supernova, then analyzed Hubble Space Telescope images from before the supernova explosion to look for clues about the pair of stars from which it was born.
rule out: (規定などによって)(…を)除外する、排する、無視する、(…を)不可能にする
Supernova 2011fe is the nearest type Ia supernova to be discovered in many years and, because instrumentation has moved on considerably in that time, will be the most studied supernova in history.
move on: どんどん進む、転職する、移る、過ぎていく
These two papers are just the beginning.
\xa0This article was published in print as Stars That Go Out with a Bang.
search cnt: 16
Truth in Digital Advertising
The list of gadgets that have been replaced by the smartphone is stunningly long-and growing.
Camera, camcorder, music player, GPS unit, scanner, voice recorder, radio, Game Boy.
camcorder: カムコーダー
Who buys those anymore, now that a single phone can get the job done ?
But small electronics aren't the only entities being displaced in the mobile revolution.
entity: 実在、存在、実在物、実体、本体、自主独立体
Media channels, including newspapers, magazines and television shows, are also suffering.
Even Web surfing on our regular computers is taking a hit, as we do more and more of our Internetting on phones and tablets.
So who cares if people watch less regular TV, read fewer printed publications and spend less time on the full-sized Web ?
I'll tell you who: advertisers.
With all the traditional channels shrinking, how are advertisers supposed to reach customers ?
Banner ads on our devices are ugly and intrusive.
intrusive: 侵入的な、でしゃばりの、じゃまをする、篏入(かんにゆう)的な
There are other ways to advertise to an on-the-go digital audience.
on-the-go: 絶えず活動して、働きづめで、旅行中に
You can display a full-screen ad while a Web page or app is loading.
You can send texts ( with permission, of course ) . And as the mobile era matures, we'll see more product placement in games, free apps ( brought to you by sponsors ) and ads that respond to your current location.
So far, though, advertisers and brands aren't doing much in these realms; they're wary of the technical challenges, haven't studied the effectiveness and don't want to infuriate potential customers.
So far: ここまで
wary: 用心深い、慎重な、油断のない、(…に)注意深くて、油断なく
infuriate: 激怒させる
To overcome these various digital hurdles, the ad industry has been serving up a sneaky solution: make ads look less like ads-and more like the articles, videos and posts around them.
serve up: 食卓に出す
An ad that matches the typeface, design and layout of the real articles feels less like a tacky intrusion.
This trend, called native advertising, has taken over the Internet; even the Web sites of journalistic bastions such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are incorporating it.
Social-media companies have signed on as well.
On Facebook and Twitter, every 10th item or so is an ad; only the subtle subtitle Sponsored, appearing in light gray type, tells you which posts are ads.
Overall, native ads have been a huge success.
On NYTimes.
com, readers spend as much time on the ads as on the articles.
But what about journalistic independence ?
What about separation of church and state ( ads and editorial ) ?
Won't dressing up ads to look like reported articles mislead people ?
Sometimes, yes.
An Interactive Advertising Bureau study found that only 41 percent of general-news readers could tell such ads apart from real news stories.
And it's getting worse.
Advertisers worry that the Sponsored label dissuades readers from clicking, so Web sites from NYTimes.
dissuade: (…を)思いとどまらせる、思い切らせる
com to BuzzFeed.
com are making the labels smaller and less noticeable.
Sometimes the labels disappear entirely.
At a recent panel about the difficulty of advertising in the new, small-screen world, I heard an ad executive tell an impressive story.
She had gotten a musical performance-paid for by her soft drink client-seamlessly inserted into a TV awards show, without any moment of blackness before or after.
It looked just like part of the real broadcast !
she recounted happily.
recounted: recountの過去形、または過去分詞。(…を)再び数える、 数え直す
But how, then, could viewers tell the ad apart from independently produced material ?
A fellow panelist rolled his eyes.
roll eyes: Null
Oh, good grief.
People are savvy.
They know ! he responded.
Look, it's great that native advertising works-publications and programs and free social networks have to stay solvent somehow.
solvent: 支払い能力がある、溶解力がある
But if advertisers truly believe in their material, they should have no problem labeling it as advertising.
( Sponsored post is already a little vague; From around the Web and More news you may like are downright deceptive.
) For now native ads will remain all the rage-with no laws governing them and no labeling standard.
But that could change; the Federal Trade Commission has begun considering regulation.
In other words, if the new generation of digital advertisers don't clean up their act, someone else may clean it up for them.
search cnt: 12
Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs
Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universeby Lisa RandallHarperCollins, 2015 ( ( $29.99 ) ) Exotic entities such as dark matter-the invisible material thought to make up about 27 percent of the universe-do not seem to have any direct impact on our lives here on Earth.
Astounding: 仰天させるような、どえらい
But physicist Randall pokes a hole in that notion by proposing that a rogue disk of weird dark matter might have been responsible for aiming the comet that scientists suspect hit Earth and killed our planet's dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
poke a hole: Null
rogue: 悪党、ごろつき、悪漢、腕白者、いたずらっ子、ちゃめ
To examine the plausibility of that scenario, Randall's book traverses many scientific fields, including chemistry, planetary science and cosmology.
plausibility: もっともらしさ、まことしやか、口先のうまいこと
traverse: 横切る、横切っている、(…を)横切っていく、横断旅行する、縦走する、(…を)通過する、詳しく考察する、詳説する、反対する、反駁(はんばく)する
Guided by her theory about the dinosaurs' demise, the author explores the often unappreciated connections between the tiniest particles right under our noses and the vastest structures that rule the universe.
( Randall serves on the magazine's board of advisers.
) MORE TO EXPLOREFor an interview with author lisa randall, go to ScientificAmerican.
com/nov2015/recommended-->
search cnt: 5
What Makes Humans Special
HALLMARK TRAITS of the human body did not all arise anew in our species.
anew: 改めて、新たに
Instead they emerged piecemeal in our forebears over millions of years.
piecemeal: ひとつずつ、少しずつ、漸次に
Many of these traits seem to have helped support two defining trends in our evolution: upright locomotion and tool use.
forebears: forebearの複数形。先祖
More on this topic:Our Secret Evolutionary Weapon: MonogamyWhy Humans and Other Primates CooperateWhat Makes Humans Different Than Any Other Species
