Observational Conditioning in Flower Choice Copying by Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris): Influence of Observer Distance and Demonstrator Movement

A. Avargues-Weber was funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from Fyssen fondation: http://www.fondationfyssen.fr/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Monitoring Flower Visitation Networks and Interactions between Pairs of Bumble Bees in a Large Outdoor Flight Cage

This research was supported by a combined grant from the Wellcome Trust, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (BB/F52765X/1). While writing, ML was supported by the IDEX of the Federal University of Toulouse (Starting and Emergence grants), the Fyssen foundation and the CNRS. NER was supported as the Rebanks Family Chair in Pollinator Conservation by The W. Garfield Weston Foundation. LC was supported by ERC Advanced Grant SpaceRadarPollinator and by a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award

Temperature Dependence of Solar Light Assisted CO2 Reduction on Ni Based Photocatalyst

Methanation of CO2 by H-2 can be in the future an important reaction to store the surplus of renewable electricity during production peaks. The catalytic thermal CO2 methanation (the Sabatier reaction) can be carried out at temperatures above 250 degrees C using Ni supported on silica-alumina (Ni/SiO2-Al2O3). Recently it has been observed that this exothermic reaction can be promoted by solar light irradiation of Ni/SiO2-Al2O3 at initial near ambient temperatures. In the present work we provide a study of the influence of the initial temperature on the photoassisted Ni/SiO2-Al2O3 methanation of CO2, under conditions in which the dark reaction is not observed. An increase of the photoassisted methanation rate with the initial temperature in the range from ambient to 150 degrees C has been observed. The reaction kinetics for lower initial temperatures exhibited an induction period not observed for reactions performed at higher temperatures. The results are discussed in terms of the operation of plasmon photo activation in which the energy of photons is thermalised in a confined space of the active nanoparticles leading to locally high temperatures and the simultaneous photogeneration of electrons and positive holes.Albero Sancho, J.; García Gómez, H.; Corma Canós, A. (2016). Temperature Dependence of Solar Light Assisted CO2 Reduction on Ni Based Photocatalyst. Topics in Catalysis. 59(8-9):787-791. doi:10.1007/s11244-016-0550-xS787791598-9Hammarstrom L, Hammes-Schiffer S (2009) Artificial photosynthesis and solar fuels. Acc Chem Res 42:1859–1860Schlögl R (2015) The revolution continues: energiewende 2.0. Angew Chem Int Ed 54:4436–4439Herron JA, Kim J, Upadhye AA, Huber GW, Maravelias CT (2015) A general framework for the assessment of solar fuel technologies. Energy Environ Sci 8:126–157Hoekman SK, Broch A, Robbins C, Purcell R (2010) CO2 recycling by reaction with renewably-generated hydrogen. Int J Greenh Gas Control 4:44–50Hoch LB, Wood TE, O’Brien PG, Liao K, Reyes LM, Mims CA, Ozin GA (2014) The rational design of a single-component photocatalyst for gas-phase CO2 reduction using both UV and visible light. Adv Sci 1:1400010–1400013Sastre F, Puga AV, Liu L, Corma A, Garcia H (2014) Complete photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to methane by H2 under solar light irradiation. J Am Chem Soc 136:6798–6801Melsheimer J, Guo W, Ziegler D, Wesemann M, Schlögl R (1991) Methanation of carbon dioxide over Ru/titania at room temperature: explorations for a photoassisted catalytic reaction. Catal Lett 11:157–168O’Brien PG, Sandhel A, Wood TE, Jelle AA, Hoch LB, Perovic DD, Mims CA, Ozin GA (2014) Photomethanation of gaseous CO2 over Ru/silicon nanowire catalysts with visible and near-infrared photons. Adv Sci 1:1400001–1400007Ghuman KK, Wood TE, Hoch LB, Mims CA, Ozin GA, Singh CV (2015) Illuminating CO2 reduction on frustrated Lewis pair surfaces: investigating the role of surface hydroxides and oxygen vacancies on nanocrystalline In2O3−x(OH)y. Phys Chem Chem Phys 17:14623–14635Wei W, Jinlong G (2011) Methanation of carbon dioxide: an overview. Front Chem Sci Eng 5:2–10Scaiano JC, Stamplecoskie K (2013) Can surface plasmon fields provide a new way to photosensitize organic photoreactions? Custom applications. J Phys Chem Lett 4:1177–1187Fasciani C, Alejo CJB, Grenier M, Netto-Ferreira JC, Scaiano JC (2011) High-temperature organic reactions at room temperature using plasmon excitation: decomposition of dicumyl peroxide. Org Lett 13:204–207Leadbeater NE (2010) Microwave heating as a tool for sustainable chemistry. CRC Press, Boca Rato

Floral sonication is an innate behaviour in bumblebees that can be fine-tuned with experience in manipulating flowers

Bumblebees demonstrate an extensive capacity for learning complex motor skills to maximise exploitation of floral rewards. This ability is well studied in nectar collection but its role in pollen foraging is less well understood. Floral sonication is used by bees to extract pollen from some plant species with anthers which must be vibrated (buzzed) to release pollen. Pollen removal is determined by sonication characteristics including frequency and amplitude, and thus the ability to optimise sonication should allow bees to maximise the pollen collection. We investigated the ability of the buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) to modify the frequency and amplitude of their buzzes with increasing experience manipulating flowers of the buzz-pollinated plantSolanum rostratum. We analysed flight and feeding vibrations generated by naïve workers across feeding bouts. Feeding buzzes were of a higher frequency and a lower amplitude than flight buzzes. Both flight and feeding buzzes had reduced amplitudes with increasing number of foraging trips. However, the frequency of their feeding buzzes was reduced significantly more than their flight buzzes as bumblebee workers gained experience manipulating flowers. These results suggest that bumblebees are able to modify the characteristics of their buzzes with experience manipulating buzz-pollinated flowers. We discuss our findings in the context of bumblebee learning, and the current understanding of the optimal sonication characteristics for releasing pollen in buzz-pollinated species. Our results present a tantalising insight into the potential role of learning in floral sonication, paving the way for future research in this area

Developing inclusive pedagogies in HE through an understanding of the learner-consumer : promiscuity, hybridisation, and innovation

Abstract: This article contributes to debates about how to respond to the changing profile of Higher Education (HE) students, and the marketisation of HE, by challenging prevailing views about student engagement, in order to develop learner-centric and inclusive pedagogies which are relevant to the twenty-first century. The concepts of ‘participatory culture’ and ‘co-creativity’ are often associated with the digital world in which the current generation of students have grown up. But it is a mistake to assume that some learning styles are inherently more participatory than others: participation is not an effect of the medium or form, (analog vs digital), or the space (actual vs virtual), or the mode of interaction a (face-to-face vs networked) through which the learner participates – it is an effect of the practices involved. Students engage with a complex network of both digital and analog texts and spaces, and it is this postdigital hybrid setting within which student engagement takes place. Marketisation provides an opportunity to actively demonstrate our commitments to student-centredness and inclusive practice, by transcending the binary opposition between ‘Student as Partner’ and ‘Student as Consumer’ and recognizing that students are learner-consumers, and allowing students’ diversity to drive innovation, rather than continuing to disempower students by bolstering practices which privilege some learning styles above others, informed by the assumption that innovation is technology-led

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference