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Tool use is considered an indicator of cognitive sophistication and has been observed primarily in primates and some bird species. We knew that some ant species can use tools, particularly to collect liquid food; however, These new data allow us to be surprised by the remarkable use of tools displayed by black fire ants..

The black fire ants, Solenopsis richteri, are native to South America, but are now an invasive species in the southern United States after being introduced.

To survive

These findings suggest that ants and other social insects may have considerable cognitive abilities for unique foraging strategies. In particular, andThis species of ants uses sand to extract liquid food from containers when they are at risk of drowning..

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Human beings were not the first farmer in history

In it laboratory experiment, when provided with small containers of sugar water, black fire ants were able to float and feed on the surface, but when the researchers reduced the surface tension, the ants began depositing grains of sand inside the container as they came out of it. .

As explained Aiming Zhou, associate professor at Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China, and lead author of the research:

In Xataka Science

There is a species of ant that emits as much nitrous oxide as a water purifier.

We discovered that the ants used sand to build a structure that could extract sugar water from the container and then collect it. This exceptional tool-making ability not only reduced the ants' risk of drowning, but also provided a larger space for them to collect sugar water.

These structures were never observed when ants were feeding in containers of pure sugar water, indicating an adaptable approach to the use of this new tool.

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To avoid drowning, this species of ants is capable of using tools

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Xataka Science

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Sergio Parra

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Although we are increasingly more efficient, we do not stop reproducing and in the world there are more and more people polluting, so emissions can hardly be stopped if we simply bet everything on consuming less: either we stop having children, or we develop new technologies. . There's not much more.

Proof of this is the pet food industry. There are so many people with pets, there is so much demand for dry food for them, that their carbon footprint is already equivalent to that of entire countries, as detailed a new analysis carried out by researchers from the University of Edinburgh: the first to assess the global environmental impact of pet food production.

280 types of foods

Around 49 million hectares of agricultural land, about twice the size of the United Kingdom, are used annually to make dry cat and dog food, which represents 95% of pet food sales.

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Even stray dogs can innately interpret complex human gestures.

The team analyzed data on the main ingredients in more than 280 types of dry pet foods available in the United States and Europe, regions that account for two-thirds of global sales.

The researchers combined the findings with data on the environmental impacts of producing the ingredients.

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It is not so simple that one human year is equivalent to seven dogs according to this study

Annual greenhouse gas emissions were 106 million tons of carbon dioxide. A country producing the same levels would be the sixtieth largest emitter in the world. The industry's total environmental impact will be greater as the new study only looked at dry pet food production

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The carbon footprint of pet food production already exceeds countries like Mozambique and the Philippines

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Xataka Science

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Sergio Parra

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He largest catalog of 3D astronomical images of stars, galaxies and quasars has been created by a group of astronomers from the University of Hawaii at the Manoa Institute for Astronomy (IfA).

The team used data from the Panoramic Telescope and the UH Rapid Response System or Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) to decipher which of the 3 billion objects are stars, galaxies or quasars using new computational tools.

New computational tools

Previously, the largest map of the universe was created by Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which covers only a third of the sky. To achieve this, astronomers took publicly available spectroscopic measurements that provide definitive object classifications and distances, and They sent them to an artificial intelligence algorithm.

This artificial intelligence or machine learning approach with a “feedback neural network” achieved an overall classification accuracy of 98.1% for galaxies, 97.8% for stars, and 96.6% for quasars. The galaxy's distance estimates are accurate to nearly 3%.

It is approximately 300 GB in size and scientific users can query the catalog via the MAST CasJobs SQL interface or download the entire collection as a readable table. According to the main author of the study, Robert Beck, former cosmology postdoctoral fellow at IfA:

Using a state-of-the-art optimization algorithm, we leverage the spectroscopic training set of nearly 4 million light sources to teach the neural network to predict source types and galaxy distances, while at the same time correcting for extinction of light by dust in the Milky Way.

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It occupies 300 GB and is a 3D galaxy catalog that covers three quarters of the sky

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Xataka Science

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Sergio Parra

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As suggested A study Conducted by scientists at Emory University in the United States, they have investigated the relationship between hours of sleep and children's growth, among other factors, demonstrating that "growth spurts" that occur suddenly are directly related to an increase in the hours the child sleeps, as occurs in periods of illness or fever.

Specifically, the babies' 43 % experienced a small "growth spurt" during times when there was an "extra" or unusual nap, and one in five also grew in each period in which they slept an hour more than usual.

Punctuated growth

While it is true that growth hormone is released at maximum levels during sleep, it is also released in a punctuated manner, and in smaller quantities at intervals of 3 to 5 hours throughout the day.

Thus, the popular perception that children grow during the night is true, as a group of scientists also confirmed in a study done with lambs published in Journal of Pediatric Orthopedics. Experts at the University of Wisconsin Veterinary School in Madison placed a series of sensors on the leg bones of lambs to determine their growth and found that 90% occurred while the animals were sleeping or at rest.

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This is how our bones communicate with the brain

The debate over the study of bone growth prompts us to ask when brain growth might primarily occur and how discontinuous it may be. This study delves into the growth of skills and body parts and how the way of measuring it has shown us a still photo, a series of snapshots, but not the gradual process.

Thus, not only do children grow taller in a punctuated manner, but so do their brains and other parts of their bodies.

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Bone growth is concentrated during the time the child is lying down

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Sergio Parra

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The fastest possible speed of sound has been found in a recent study published in Science Advances carried out by the universities of Camrbidge, Queen Mary of London and the Institute of High Pressure Physics, in Russia.

This limit is 36 km/h, approximately twice as fast as the speed of sound in diamond, the hardest known material in the world.

A limit like the speed of light

Sound waves can travel through different media and They move at different speeds depending on what they go through: They move through solids much faster than they would through liquids or gases. But until now it was not known whether sound waves also have an upper speed limit when traveling through solids or liquids, just as the speed of light does.

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1,018 km/h have been reached in magnetic levitation: new world record

According to the study, the speed of sound depends on two dimensionless fundamental constants: the fine structure constant and the proton-electron mass ratio.

The scientists tested their theoretical prediction on a wide range of materials and addressed a specific prediction of their theory that the speed of sound should decrease with the mass of the atom. This prediction implies that sound is fastest in solid atomic hydrogen. The researchers performed state-of-the-art quantum mechanical calculations to test this prediction.

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The wonder of a simple clip: crystals at the speed of sound

As explained Chris Pickard, professor of materials science at the University of Cambridge:

Sound waves in solids are already very important in many scientific fields. For example, seismologists use sound waves initiated by earthquakes deep within the Earth to understand the nature of seismic events and the properties of the Earth's composition. They are also of interest to materials scientists because sound waves are related to important elastic properties, including the ability to resist stress.

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The maximum limit of the speed of sound is discovered: 36 kilometers per second

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Sergio Parra

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A few lines after starting The importance of the fork, one notices that Bee Wilson She is an extraordinary storyteller. So it doesn't matter that your book basically talks about gastronomy for it to be interesting from a scientific point of view.

When finished The importance of the fork, I confirmed that initial conviction in solid cement, and closed the book thinking that I loved Bee Wilson. And I don't care what he writes: I know that I will always read everything that lights up his head, from now on.

A great storyteller

And it is to affirm that The importance of the fork is about gastronomy or about the history of the objects that our kitchen houses is a tremendously short fall. As short as an armstrong. Because Wilson addresses these topics, naturally, but he also addresses anthropology, sociology, psychology, history, science and many other disciplines that are mixed in a blender in a way that would have excited another Wilson, in this case Edward, author of Consilience: the unity of knowledge.

The Importance of the Fork. Stories, Inventions and Gadgets in the Kitchen (Noema)

Today on Amazon for €23.65

So, entering the kitchen with Bee Wilson will not only allow us to learn how to make a good risotto (in a scientifically proven way), the reason why we continue using wooden ladles instead of ladles made of other more modern materials. , or what It is physically impossible to find suitable material for cooking. (any virtue will pay a tribute in the form of a defect on the other hand), but you will also learn from everything.

Bottom line: whether you know how to fry an egg or not, The importance of the fork It is an essential work. Because we all eat, and because the fork is more important than it seems.

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Books that inspire us: 'The Importance of the Fork' by Bee Wilson

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Sergio Parra

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Regarding education and raising children, there are two extreme views of human nature. A tragic one that resigns itself to its defects, that considers that children are already born with a quota of genetic success determined mainly by the success of their parents, and another utopian that denies its existence, considering that we are all born as amorphous masses of clay that can be improved by the environment.

For those who consider that the balance is in the middle or, at least, leans favorably towards the parenting side, this book will be very useful. Because The big questions from children and the simple answers from great experts, compiled by Gemma Elwin Harris, contains all kinds of teachings that will make many cultured, critical and curious adult children; and of many adult individuals with a greater predisposition to ask themselves the big questions.

Childhood curiosity

It is said that there are no stupid questions, only idiotic answers, and this book demonstrates both facets of the sentence. The seemingly simple questions are actually pertinent questions that all of us could ask ourselves one day; and the answers have been written by a collection of scientists, philosophers, scholars and dreamers who are among the finest in the intellectual world.

So, questions like Why evil exist?Why do men have beards and women not? Who is God? Why is the sun so hot? Why don't animals talk like us? Why do we cook food? or what can you do if you are on a boat without food and water? These are some of the questions that people such as Richard Dawkins, Noam Chomsky, David Attenborough, Marcus du Sautoy, Alain de Botton, David Crystal, Simon Singh, AC Grayling, Lawrence Krauss, Julian Baggini, John Gribbin try to answer in one or two pages. , Gary Marcus, Clay Shirky, Robin Dunbar... and so on dozens and dozens of authors who have already been reviewed here on more than one occasion.

The questions were collected by the compiler after tracking ten primary schools. Thousands of children between four and twelve years old sent their questions. The best ones were published here. An ideal way to introduce children to the big little questions, or the little big questions. And, also, a form of introduction to the thinking of all the selected authors.

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Books that inspire us: 'Children's big questions and the simple answers from great experts', by Gemma Harris

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Sergio Parra

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The squinting movements in cats bear some parallels to the genuine smile of humans (the Duchenne smile), so a stronger bond could be established between cats and humans If humans squinted. What is known as "slow blinking."

That's at least what it suggests a new study published in Nature Scientific Reports by Tasmin Humphrey and Karen McComb, animal behavior scientists at the University of Sussex.

Slow flashing

To arrive at this curious explanation, two experiments were carried out.

He first experiment included a total of 21 cats from 14 different homes. Fourteen different owners participated in it. Ten of the cats were males and 11 of the cats were females, with an estimated age of between 0.45 and 16 years. The experiments were carried out in each cat's home.

This first experiment revealed that cats are more likely to blink slowly at their owners after their owners have blinked slowly at them, compared to when they do not interact at all.

He second experiment included a total of 24 additional cats. Twelve cats were male and 12 cats were female, with an estimated age between 1 and 17 years. The cats included in the final analyzes were from eight different homes.

In this experiment, the researcher, who was unfamiliar with the cat, blinked slowly at the cat or adopted a neutral face without direct eye contact. It was thus proven that cats were more likely to move closer to the experimenter's outstretched hand after blinking slowly at the cat, compared to when they had adopted a neutral tone of expression.

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The Duchenne smile, probably the most sincere smile

According to Explain McComb:

This study is the first to experimentally investigate the role of slow blinking in cat-human communication. And it's something you can try yourself with your own cat at home or with cats you meet on the street. It is a great way to improve the bond you have with cats. Try squinting at them like you would with a relaxed smile, followed by closing your eyes for a couple of seconds. You will see that they respond in the same way and you can start a kind of conversation.

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If you squint, your cat will like you better: no joke

was originally published in

Xataka Science

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Sergio Parra

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