Everything Tagged "Biology"

(In reverse chronological order)

Awesome animals: Psithyrus

Seriously, how sweet is this subgenus?

Before finding and invading a host colony, a Psithyrus female (there is no caste system in these species) will feed directly from flowers. Once she has infiltrated a host colony, the Psithyrus female will kill or subdue the queen of that colony and forcibly (using pheromones and/or physical attacks) “enslave” the workers of that colony to feed her and her developing young. When the young emerge, they leave the colony to mate, and the females seek out other nests to attack.

The more I learn about bees, the more I think there’s an amazing real-time strategy game waiting to be made.

Fun with Lights

Here's a fun thing I just discovered.

If you bounce the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth (kind of like rolling an R) while forcing air out, it vibrates your skull a little bit. Try it. Go faster. Make that t-t-t-t-t-t faster and faster until it starts sounding like a buzz. Now, look at an LED alarm clock.

Far Out! My guess is, those lights that make up the numbers on your alarm clock are flicking on and off all the time! As your 'ttttt' vibration approaches the frequency of the clock, you start seeing the lights turn on in different parts of your visual field. Your brain doesn't know what's going on, and stitches it into a cohesive image of the little bars sliding up and down. The rest of the world is lit up 100% of the time, so it just looks a little blurry.