Floral Signs Go Electric: Bumblebees Find and Distinguish Electric Signals from Flowers

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by Bedlam

 

It's interesting that bumblebees may sense electric fields from plants. That documentary, on the other hand, is pure trash.

You were one of the ones on the thread I saw posted.....
you're a scientist, correct?

Forgetting the parts of the doc that condemn cell towers and phones, etc. ..... and just taking into account the fact that EMFs affect bees, birds, butterflies, etc.........
still trash? Why so dismissive?

You can't count the errors in that thing. I'm dismissive because it's drivel.

You're likely not going to catch them, for the same reason you aren't seeing that your article discusses electric fields, not radio signals - they're not the same.

Actually they are

Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum longer than infrared light. Radio waves have frequencies from 300 GHz to as low as 3 kHz, and corresponding wavelengths ranging from 1 millimeter to 100 kilometers. Like all other electromagnetic waves, they travel at the speed of light. Naturally occurring radio waves are made by lightning, or by astronomical objects. Artificially generated radio waves are used for fixed and mobile radio communication, broadcasting, radar and other navigation systems, communications satellites, computer networks and innumerable other applications.

en.wikipedia.org...

Wonder if this is why certain bugs get attracted to lights and whatnot, perhaps mistaking it for the signal they look for from safe plants at night time.

reply to post by TiM3LoRd


No, they're not. Electromagnetic radiation doesn't have static electric fields at all. Your cite doesn't show that, either.

reply to post by Bedlam

Can you please advise us as to whether or not you think the EMF - whatever it is 'scientifically' - is disrupting the balance of nature required for the health of the system of birds, bees, and plants?

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by rickymouse
reply to post by Bedlam

 

If it was shape, then a smell from the same bottle of cologne would smell the same to us no matter when it was smelled. This is not the case. It can smell good one day and then in a week it can smell terrible so we don't wear it. Our personal chemistry controls our vibration level in the body. Changing our vibration or energy level would mean that our recognition of the smell would change. You are changing the point of perspective or center point. It is a matter of how the smell is transformed to energy.

See, this is what I knew you were going to say. However, QM resonances such as your fellow of the resonant smells are actual physics, whereas 'changing the vibration level' is New Age woo. That, of course, is why theosophy adopted physics terms, so that they could try to seem 'sciency' and not 'occult'.

When you read 'vibration' in that article, it's got to do with bond angles and nuclear mass, not 'vibrations' as in good or bad. The two terms seem the same, but are not related.

en.wikipedia.org... To use the word vibration as these "new age woo" use it is not actually wrong. There are many scientists researching this stuff worldwide but it is hard for people that are locked into their present knowledge to say they believed something they were taught that wasn't true. The use of a lot of different Ad Hominum techniques is then utilized to protect their ego.

Answer me this. Why does arsenic smell like garlic when the molecular shape of it is not even close to similar?

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by KilgoreTrout

 

Other insects see flowers in terms of ultra violet light, so they are still able to be pollinated...but in terms of sexual selection, this may spell even further disaster for bees, with flowers 'choosing' instead to switch off the EMF function in preference for ultra violet based attraction as a more reliable source of procreation.

How do you know this??

I am not entirely sure what you are asking that I know, so if I am not clear or go off in a tangent, do let me know and we can start again...okay?

A butterfly, moth, hoverfly...the list goes on...is attracted to a flower, or anything for that matter, based upon an ultraviolet light emission. This emission is generally relational to the flowers fertility, as in, it has a 'life span' of attractiveness to those creatures. Just as bee travels from flower to flower, and thereby transfers the pollen from one flower to another facilitating fertilisation, so do those other insects. Some flowers are highly specialist in terms of the pollinators that they attract, others less so, many simply produce great clouds of pollen which are carried by the wind...either way, it is much to do with them evolving adaptations based upon their environment, but a lot of plants also possess the ability to revert to self-fertilisation should that need arise, and a certain percentage of their seeds will be self-fertile to account for that possibility. Similarly, I should imagine that the same goes for plants that have adapted to attract bees via EMF, that they also produce a certain amount of seeds which will also possess the ultra-violet or again, self-fertilisation abilities. Otherwise, if they haven't, they will themselves be too specialised and will not be able to reproduce during times when that symbience is unavailable.

The simply fact of life on this planet is, that there are and have been times when life has had to become dormant for considerable periods of time. Nuclear winter being one of those for example. Many plants still retain the ability to survive such periods, some insects also, very few mammals. Diversity contracts during these periods, and plants, as one of the oldest lifeforms, are adapted to that, and given their relatively short life span, can and will adapt much more quickly than the bees can to any given change. So, if there is a consistent shortage of bees, then the plants will adapt, and this could have an affect on the bees also, though I do not think that this is the primary factor in the demise of bees.

What I think is also significant is that many of the food crops have been selectively bred for centuries, and even without including GM crops, many of those crops are reliant on humans for their propagation. We therefore have over-ridden sexual selection in plants which has factored out not just bees but any number of organisms vital to the 'natural' food chain. But, in terms of the EMF factor, farming, predominantly the use of the plough has eradicated the means by which metals and minerals are transported through the soil...and that is the destruction of the forests and by association the mycorrhiza which is fundamental to the transportation of nutrients.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout

I am not entirely sure what you are asking that I know, so if I am not clear or go off in a tangent, do let me know and we can start again...okay?

Sure, we can start again.....
on re-reading, it seems this statement is based on what your friend saw on a program?
Did they offer any sources?

Interesting.... thanks...!!!

Originally posted by wildtimes
Sure, we can start again.....
on re-reading, it seems this statement is based on what your friend saw on a program?
Did they offer any sources?

Sorry I naturally assumed that your query related to the portion of text that you quoted in your original response.

Anyway, 10 seconds communing with Google yielded the following...

The Organic Consumers Association cites several other studies with similar findings: A Kushi Institute analysis of nutrient data from 1975 to 1997 found that average calcium levels in 12 fresh vegetables dropped 27 percent; iron levels 37 percent; vitamin A levels 21 percent, and vitamin C levels 30 percent. A similar study of British nutrient data from 1930 to 1980, published in the British Food Journal,found that in 20 vegetables the average calcium content had declined 19 percent; iron 22 percent; and potassium 14 percent. Yet another study concluded that one would have to eat eight oranges today to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one.

www.scientificamerican.com...

A couple of studies, one in England and one in the U.S., attempted to compare nutrient data collected in the and 50s and 60s with more recent nutrient analyses. Both studies found differences. For example, the British study found that the calcium content of modern vegetables was about one-fifth lower than what was measured in the 1960s and average copper content declined almost 80%. The U.S. study, which was more carefully controlled, found that amounts for a few nutrients like vitamin C, iron, and riboflavin declined somewhat, several were the same, and a few actually increased.

nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com...

No need to bother my friend

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


Here is an interesting paper which supports my idea that the problem of nutrient intake of plants may not be a simple matter of depleted nutrients in soil...

The relatively stable relationships among the three macronutrient cations argues that either all three are being depleted proportionally from soils or, alternatively, none of them is depleted in soils and that alternative explanations must be sought for changes in composition when observed. The widespread use of soil testing and fertilizers as part of the strategy for the increasing yields of modern agriculture also argues strongly against the notion of widespread soil depletion of mineral nutrients.

www.soils.wisc.edu...

The role of mycorrhiza fungus in transferring nutrients for those unfamiliar with the process...

Mycorrhizas form a mutualistic relationship with the roots of most plant species. While only a small proportion of all species has been examined, 95% of those plant families are predominantly mycorrhizal.[3] They are named after their presence in the plant's rhizosphere (root system).
Sugar-water/mineral exchange

This mutualistic association provides the fungus with relatively constant and direct access to carbohydrates, such as glucose and sucrose.[4] The carbohydrates are translocated from their source (usually leaves) to root tissue and on to the plant's fungal partners. In return, the plant gains the benefits of the mycelium's higher absorptive capacity for water and mineral nutrients due to the comparatively large surface area of mycelium: root ratio, thus improving the plant's mineral absorption capabilities.[5]

Plant roots alone may be incapable of taking up phosphate ions that are demineralized in soils with a basic pH. The mycelium of the mycorrhizal fungus can, however, access these phosphorus sources, and make them available to the plants they colonize.[6] Nature, according to C.Michael Hogan, has adapted to this critical role of phosphate, by allowing many plants to recycle phosphate, without using soil as an intermediary. For example, in some dystrophic forests large amounts of phosphate are taken up by mycorrhizal hyphae acting directly on leaf litter, bypassing the need for soil uptake.[7] Inga alley cropping, proposed as an alternative to slash and burn rainforest destruction,[8] relies upon Mycorrhiza within the Inga Tree root system to prevent the rain from washing phosphorus out of the soil.[9]

Suillus tomentosus, a fungus, produces specialized structures, known as tuberculate ectomycorrhizae, with its plant host lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia). These structures have in turn been shown to host nitrogen fixing bacteria which contribute a significant amount of nitrogen and allow the pines to colonize nutrient-poor sites.[10]

en.wikipedia.org...

Another very interesting study, this time on the Biological Effects of Power Frequency Electric and Magnetic Fields...

www.princeton.edu...

Reminded me of last year, at the perimeter wall of the building that I care for, there was a constant swarm of bees (Dark Honeybees to be precise) for no apparent reason. Daily, hundreds of them clustered in that one spot and sadly getting crushed under foot on the busy pavement. Having read the above study, I now wonder whether the reason was that one of these...

farm5.staticflickr.com...

...is located on that very corner.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


Thanks for this and your following posts. I'm going to do some more looking into it, and very much appreciate your contributions to this thread..
Sorry I've been lax in responding.

This is the sort of collaborative research and discovery that really makes ATS rock.

Poor bees!!

Stupid us!!