Lifeboat Foundation

Second, ants need to climb or hold onto the vehicle after locating it. The metallic paint on the vehicle surface is slippery and may potentially select for species with good climbing/gripping abilities. The climbing and moving performance of ants is determined by the morphological characteristics of leg segments (Beutel et al., 2020). Arboreal ants have hooked pretarsal claws, well-developed adhesive pads and fine tarsal hairs, allowing them to walk on smooth vertical substrates. Ground-dwelling ants, on the contrary, are less capable of moving on smooth surfaces such as vehicle paint because of their straight pretarsal claws and the lack of adhesive pads and tarsal hairs (Orivel et al., 2001).

Third, the temperature on the surface and in the interior of the vehicle can increase dramatically when exposed to sunlight, especially in the summer, indicating the thermal tolerance of hitchhiking species may play an important role in determining their colonisation success (Nixon et al., 2019). Arboreal ants are generally more heat-and drought-tolerant than ground-dwelling ants are (Hood & Tschinkel, 1990 ; Leahy et al., 2022), which could potentially translate into a higher probability of successful establishment at the destination due to better survival chance with high temperatures on or in the vehicle.

It is likely that ant hitchhiking events would be much more common than what has been reported through our Facebook group. We suspect that whether vehicle owners are aware of the Facebook group and/or vehicle owners are willing to report their observations to our Facebook group would play a critical role in the number of incidents we received for this citizen science project. Nonetheless, we were able to record at least 52 hitchhiking cases with complete information over a 7-year period. Despite a relatively small dataset, the estimated sampling completeness was appropriate (Figure S3). To our knowledge, this is the first report profiling active ant hitchhiking on vehicles via citizen science efforts, highlighting the importance of establishing a predictive framework for forecasting future hitchhikers based on behavioural, morphological, physiological and ecological traits of ant species. Such a framework will help facilitate the development of effective management strategies for mitigating ant invasions via active hitchhiking on vehicles.

Wei Zhang, Qing Liang, Xiujuan Li, Lai-Peng Ma, Xinyang Li, Zhenzhen Zhao, Rui Zhang, Hongtao Cao, Zizhun Wang, Wenwen Li, Yanni Wang, Meiqi Liu, Nailin Yue, Hongyan Liu, Zhenyu Hu, Li Liu, Qiang Zhou, Fangfei Li, Weitao Zheng, Wencai Ren, Meng Zou, Discovery of natural few-layer graphene on the Moon, National Science Review, 2024;„ https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwae211.

Memory is maintained by the continual interaction between two proteins: a postsynaptic scaffold and a persistently active kinase.

We use multi-year observations of cross-track winds (u) from the CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP) and the Gravity Field and Steady State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) to calculate third-order structure functions in the thermosphere as a function of horizontal separation (s). They are computed using the mean (〈δu3〉) and the median (〈δ⁢u3〉med) left(langle \delta {u^3\rangle }_text{med}\right)$ and implemented over non-polar satellite paths in both hemispheres. On height averages, 〈δu3〉 is shown to scale with s2 for s ≃ 80–1,000 km, in agreement with equivalent estimates in the lower atmosphere from aircraft observations. Conversely, 〈δ⁢u3〉med langle \delta u^{3\rangle }_text{med}$ follows an s3 power law for almost the whole s range, consistent with the two-dimensional turbulence scaling law for a direct enstrophy cascade.

Earth gets second sun In 1.3 million years, Earth will have a kind of second sun because the star Gliese 710 will approach 1.1 light years from Earth and we would see it the same size as Jupiter. The bad thing is that this cosmic alteration can cause an episode on our planet like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Auf dem Wüstenplanet „Tatooine “aus der „Star Wars ”-Filmreihe geht die Sonne zweimal auf. Etwas ähnliches steht in 13 Millionen Jahren auch unserem Planeten bevor: Dann bekommt die Erde eine zusätzliche Sonne – wenn auch nur vorübergehend.

An international consortium has developed a new global standard for the compression and transmission of haptic information, said to be a boost for telesurgery and remote driving.

A comparative study of cerebral amyloid angiopathy–related inflammation and biopsy-positive primary angiitis of the CNS:

Background and Objectives.

Sikorsky has received two Improved Turbine Engine Program engines and will begin integrating them into UH-60 Black Hawks in the coming months.

Researchers at CERN have significantly increased the precision of the measured value of the top-quark mass, a key input for making standard-model calculations.