A Moonlight Sonata for the Dung Beetles: Navigate in Wonder Under the Full Moon

|| February 24: 2019: Lund University News || ά. Of all nocturnal animals, only, the dung beetles can hold their course, using polarised moonlight. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now shown that the beetles can use polarised light when its signal strength is weak, which, may, allow them to find their bearings when artificial light from cities swamp natural moonlight.

Moonlight becomes polarised when it strikes particles in the upper atmosphere on its journey to Earth. In this Study, the researchers show that the strength of this polarised light-signal changes depending on the moon’s phase. Polarised light from a quarter moon is only one-third as strong as at full moon and just one-fifth as strong for a crescent moon. While poor resolution prevents dung beetles from discriminating fine details, such as, trees, tents and cars, they are remarkably sensitive, perceiving the polarised light in the blue moonlit sky, that appears dark to human eyes.

“Our investigation reveals that these beetles would be sufficiently sensitive to orient themselves underneath a light-polluted city sky during full moon. But they would be lost during a quarter or crescent moon.” says Mr James Foster, Researcher at the Department of Biology at Lund University. “This is the very first evidence that the polarisation of skylight changes over the lunar cycle.”

Together with colleagues in Lund, Germany, South Africa and the USA the researchers tested just how dung beetles cope with this weak signal at night when using polarisation as their compass to roll a dung ball in a straight line across the African savannah. On clear nights, they perceive this polarised light in a blue sky like the one we see on a sunny day but, thousands of times darker.

In experiments the researchers showed that the beetles are extremely sensitive to polarised light. The dung beetles can cope with the weakest signals detected by diurnal insects, even,  when the polarised light is just one-thousandth as bright. “They navigate just as well at night as bees do by day; bees, also, use polarised light.”, says Professor Marie Dacke, at the Department of Biology at Lund University.

The different phases of the moon, full moon, quarter moon or crescent moon, thus, affect how strongly-polarised the sky appears. Light pollution is, also, a factor. Artificial light, such as, street lighting in and around cities reduces the polarisation of the moonlit sky. Even so, the beetles would be sensitive enough to hold their course, using this weaker polarisation during full moon.

Besides polarised light, dung beetles use colour and brightness patterns in the night sky to get their bearings. The research team previously gained attention in connection with their discovery that dung beetles use the Milky Way as a compass reference, helping them to roll dung balls in a straight line in the dark. However, more recent experiments have shown that on moonlit nights polarisation is their most important compass reference.:::ω.

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Optoelctronics at the University of Southampton and What It Has Done for the World and World Humanity

|| December 14: 2018: University of Southampton News || ά. The University of Southampton’s pioneering contribution to optical fibre technology, that now enables the internet to span the world, has been named as one of the UK’s 100 best breakthroughs for its significant impact on people’s everyday lives. While publishing this news The Humanion would like to point out this very fact that the very term optoelectronics had not existed, not terribly long ago and now not only it has come to exist but become a reality, bringing out new realities to exist in reality. This is how the human condition advances or, this how visionaries bring forth ideas, that shift paradigm, that lift the human condition to higher realms, where things were deemed impossible once, now they do exist or, rather, they become possible. One can not do quantum physics sticking their head in classical mechanics; they, must, first, rise beyond it to see the other paradigm. One, must, first, refuse to ‘ant around’ the valley of the Himalaya and risk and rise towards the summit of this mountain to see what is out there!

What is saddening to see is in today’s world is the fact that there are a lot of universities, that are abandoning their purpose and seeking to just copy whatever the market and its manipulations put on their plate without questioning or raising an eye-brow. Whoever is giving some money, they are taking them without any question asked and they are wasting precious human resources in things, that are utter rubbish and worst possible waste while they are seeking to validate and offer prestige to these market profiteers. It is time Universities wake up and stop doing that because soon this very tendency will be their death-knell. However, here is our point. This is how the human condition advances or is taken forward. And, visionaries do this: take us forward.

But the difference between visionaries and the rest is the former is a kind of their own while the later is an entity, that follows the lot thrown at them. In this field of Optoelectronics is the proof, that faint-hearted, copy-catting or sheep-shaping will not do: it requires vision and the courage to support and believe in that vision so that one invests in it one’s entire being to foster it, develop it, nurture it and take it forward while there are endless number of cynics and know it all, who are screaming at that one, mad one, that this was not going to work: but they all are, always and forever, wrong, it always works; it shall always work. The ingenuity of Southampton Professor Sir David Payne and the University’s world-leading Optoelctronics Research Centre:ORC, together, honoured to join the UK’s Best Breakthroughs list of the last century. And, rightly, so.

The list of breakthroughs demonstrates how UK universities are at the forefront of some of the world’s most important discoveries, innovations and social initiatives, transforming lives in the UK and around the world. Professor Sir David Payne, the Director of the ORC, said, “It is a fantastic achievement for the ORC and the University of Southampton to be featured in the UK’s Best Breakthrough list. The list provides an excellent opportunity for the public to better understand the true impact of our research. We’re extremely proud of our work and the difference it continues to make to people and communities in Southampton, the UK and around the globe.”

Fifty years ago, the ORC received global recognition for inventing one of the world’s first ultra-low loss optical fibres before pioneering the fibre amplifier, that enabled the internet to span the world. This inspired innovation was recognised by the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education last year.

Today, ORC optical fibre inventions navigate airliners, cut steel and are found on the moon, Mars and International Space Station. And, now, through the development of hollow-core fibres, the next generation of optical fibres, the ORC is bringing data transmission rates within touching distance of the speed of light.

Professor Dame Janet Beer, President of Universities UK, said, “Universities really do transform lives. The technology we use every day, the medicines, that save lives, the teachers, who inspire, all come from UK universities and the important work being done by academics. The UK’s Best Breakthroughs list is a testament to the difference that universities make to people’s lives and we want everyone to join us in celebrating the work they do.”:::ω. 

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