2,685 research outputs found
Queen control of a key life-history event in a eusocial insect
In eusocial insects, inclusive fitness theory predicts potential queen–worker conflict over the timing of events in colony life history. Whether queens or workers control the timing of these events is poorly understood. In the bumble-bee Bombus terrestris, queens exhibit a ‘switch point’ in which they switch from laying diploid eggs yielding females (workers and new queens) to laying haploid eggs yielding males. By rearing foundress queens whose worker offspring were removed as pupae and sexing their eggs using microsatellite genotyping, we found that queens kept in the complete absence of adult workers still exhibit a switch point. Moreover, the timing of their switch points relative to the start of egg-laying did not differ significantly from that of queens allowed to produce normal colonies. The finding that bumble-bee queens can express the switch point in the absence of workers experimentally demonstrates queen control of a key life-history event in eusocial insects. In addition, we found no evidence that workers affect the timing of the switch point either directly or indirectly via providing cues to queens, suggesting that workers do not fully express their interests in queen–worker conflicts over colony life history
Dune formation on the present Mars
We apply a model for sand dunes to calculate formation of dunes on Mars under
the present Martian atmospheric conditions. We find that different dune shapes
as those imaged by Mars Global Surveyor could have been formed by the action of
sand-moving winds occuring on today's Mars. Our calculations show, however,
that Martian dunes could be only formed due to the higher efficiency of Martian
winds in carrying grains into saltation. The model equations are solved to
study saltation transport under different atmospheric conditions valid for
Mars. We obtain an estimate for the wind speed and migration velocity of
barchan dunes at different places on Mars. From comparison with the shape of
bimodal sand dunes, we find an estimate for the timescale of the changes in
Martian wind regimes.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure
Abundant cyanopolyynes as a probe of infall in the Serpens South cluster-forming region
We have detected bright HC7N J = 21-20 emission toward multiple locations in
the Serpens South cluster-forming region using the K-Band Focal Plane Array at
the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. HC7N is seen primarily toward cold
filamentary structures that have yet to form stars, largely avoiding the dense
gas associated with small protostellar groups and the main central cluster of
Serpens South. Where detected, the HC7N abundances are similar to those found
in other nearby star forming regions. Toward some HC7N `clumps', we find
consistent variations in the line centroids relative to NH3 (1,1) emission, as
well as systematic increases in the HC7N non-thermal line widths, which we
argue reveal infall motions onto dense filaments within Serpens South with
minimum mass accretion rates of M ~ 2-5 M_sun Myr^-1. The relative abundance of
NH3 to HC7N suggests that the HC7N is tracing gas that has been at densities n
~ 10^4 cm^-3, for timescales t < 1-2 x 10^5 yr. Since HC7N emission peaks are
rarely co-located with those of either NH3 or continuum, it is likely that
Serpens South is not particularly remarkable in its abundance of HC7N, but
instead the serendipitous mapping of HC7N simultaneously with NH3 has allowed
us to detect HC7N at low abundances in regions where it otherwise may not have
been looked for. This result extends the known star-forming regions containing
significant HC7N emission from typically quiescent regions, like the Taurus
molecular cloud, to more complex, active environments.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, accepted to MNRAS. Version with full resolution
figures available at http://www.dunlap.utoronto.ca/~friesen/Friesen_HC7N.pd
Influence of hand position on the near-effect in 3D attention
Voluntary reorienting of attention in real depth situations is characterized by an attentional bias to locations near the viewer once attention is deployed to a spatially cued object in depth. Previously this effect (initially referred to as the ‘near-effect’) was attributed to access of a 3D viewer-centred spatial representation for guiding attention in 3D space. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the near-bias could have been associated with the position of the response-hand, always near the viewer in previous studies investigating endogenous attentional shifts in real depth. In Experiment 1, the response-hand was placed at either the near or far target depth in a depth cueing task. Placing the response-hand at the far target depth abolished the near-effect, but failed to bias spatial attention to the far location. Experiment 2 showed that the response-hand effect was not modulated by the presence of an additional passive hand, whereas Experiment 3 confirmed that attentional prioritization of the passive hand was not masked by the influence of the responding hand on spatial attention in Experiment 2. The pattern of results is most consistent with the idea that response preparation can modulate spatial attention within a 3D viewer-centred spatial representation
The Mariner 5 flight path and its determination from tracking data
Mariner 5 flight path and its determination from tracking dat
Capturing Hiproofs in HOL Light
Hierarchical proof trees (hiproofs for short) add structure to ordinary proof
trees, by allowing portions of trees to be hierarchically nested. The
additional structure can be used to abstract away from details, or to label
particular portions to explain their purpose. In this paper we present two
complementary methods for capturing hiproofs in HOL Light, along with a tool to
produce web-based visualisations. The first method uses tactic recording, by
modifying tactics to record their arguments and construct a hierarchical tree;
this allows a tactic proof script to be modified. The second method uses proof
recording, which extends the HOL Light kernel to record hierachical proof trees
alongside theorems. This method is less invasive, but requires care to manage
the size of the recorded objects. We have implemented both methods, resulting
in two systems: Tactician and HipCam
On the Identification of High Mass Star Forming Regions using IRAS: Contamination by Low-Mass Protostars
We present the results of a survey of a small sample (14) of low-mass
protostars (L_IR < 10^3 Lsun) for 6.7 GHz methanol maser emission performed
using the ATNF Parkes radio telescope. No new masers were discovered. We find
that the lower luminosity limit for maser emission is near 10^3 Lsun, by
comparison of the sources in our sample with previously detected methanol maser
sources. We examine the IRAS properties of our sample and compare them with
sources previously observed for methanol maser emission, almost all of which
satisfy the Wood & Churchwell criterion for selecting candidate UCHII regions.
We find that about half of our sample satisfy this criterion, and in addition
almost all of this subgroup have integrated fluxes between 25 and 60 microns
that are similar to sources with detectable methanol maser emission. By
identifying a number of low-mass protostars in this work and from the
literature that satisfy the Wood & Churchwell criterion for candidate UCHII
regions, we show conclusively for the first time that the fainter flux end of
their sample is contaminated by lower-mass non-ionizing sources, confirming the
suggestion by van der Walt and Ramesh & Sridharan.Comment: 8 pages with 2 figures. Accepted by Ap
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