Sam Kneller's Blog, page 54

Protein Transcription and Translation – A Reliable Copy

Protein Transcription and Translation … No, we’re not Writing a Book, we’re revealing the ultra-simple yet highly sophisticated way Proteins are built.

Life is copying complex DNA and proteins, creating perfection … a baby.

Protein Transcription—A Reliable Copy

The display below shows our DNA double helix separating into its twin nucleotide strands. One of the DNA strands acts as a template as its nucleotides pair with the precise sequence of RNA nucleotides or ribonucleotides, supplied by the cell nucleus factory with Just In Time (JIT) delivery to produce the aligned base pairs of adenine, uracil, cytosine, and guanine.

(chapter 7.6-7)

Just in time (JIT) delivery of millions of amino acids to copy complexity and create a baby, a…
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DNA splitting down the middle, into two strands, one of which will serve as the template for production of a ‘piece of RNA’.

JIT delivery is not the only incredible phenomenon that is taking place. Notice that Uracil (U) has replaced Thiamine (T), and there’s a further paring down during the transcription as introns—extra sections on the RNA strand that are unused in the coding of the protein—are removed and the remaining coding segments, called exons, are spliced together.

Severing and splicing of introns and exons exactly during DNA transcription is copying…
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Chunks of RNA, called introns, are cut out and the remaining exons are spliced together… so that only what is needed for transcription is used.

Finally, what we’ll call GO and STOP nucleotides, specific sequences located at the beginning and end of the RNA sequence, decide the layout of the template strand.

GO and STOP tell the RNA enzymes that the DNA information has been transferred or transcribed—think of transcribing the notes of a conversation for a book—into the RNA, so that the RNA primary transcript is released and is now known as mRNA or messenger RNA.

Galacti shakes his head. “Wow, all that just to start the protein assembly.”

“Yes, and there are plenty of other JIT deliveries to come.” This messenger RNA now contains its own genetic information but is unstable in terms of storing it long-term, so it must transmit the genetic DNA material to proteins in the second step.

Translation—From Information to Construction

The mRNA, a long, slender carrier of the instructions, leaves the cell nucleus and enters the cytoplasm, the gel-like substance inside the cell where all its organelles are found.

Galacti points to other molecules that have just arrived: tRNA (transfer RNA) with their cloverleaf design and specific triplet bases, which were also transcribed from the DNA following singular pathways. We watch as each one “loads” an amino acid.

tRNA, known as transfer RNA, fabricated in the cell, gather amino acids, delivered just in time, to produce proteins.

“Do you know where the amino acids come from?” asks Galacti.

“Various sources. They can come from our food digested (metabolized) into amino acids that join the pool of amino acids in our blood stream, or these amino acids can be built from scratch, from simpler molecules, by other processes.”

The amino acids are transported by specialized protein from the nucleus or via the blood and enter through the cell’s membrane, but they’re here JIT to be bonded to their one and only—out of twenty—corresponding tRNA for this lifelong supply chain of protein synthesis.

Delivering the exact amino acid Just In Time to build a chain of protein is another uncanny…
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The 2013 Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to three scientists for bringing to light the mechanism for JIT delivery at the right address of molecules traveling into, out of, and within a cell, like the crowded, tangled streets of a major city during rush hour.

Scientists have discovered that simultaneous to this delivery, a tiny granular engine called a ribosome binds to the mRNA and reads the recipe for the protein: a sequence of hundreds or thousands of amino acids.

The ‘factory’ chain line production as a ribosome moves along a strand of mRNA to bring all the amino acids together for a particular protein.

As the ribosome moves along the mRNA, it’s alerted to each three-nucleotide sequence—called a codon—and binds the corresponding tRNA anticodon with its triplet code into its correct position. The tRNA breaks the bond with the amino acid, releasing it to join with the previous amino acid.

Subsequently, it vacates its position as the next tRNA arrives to release its amino acid and so on, building the protein chain with peptide bonds. Both the tRNA and the ribosomes have inherent proofreading mechanisms to keep errors to a minimum.

Once the end codon is read, protein synthesis ends, and voilà. We see before us, labeled by Galacti, a digestive enzyme, which is released for the next step.

We think about how smooth the process seems and how twenty different amino acids, depending on their number and sequence, can combine to create an estimated two million different kinds of protein in our body in this way, based on the original instructions in DNA.

Your body's copying complexity capabilities are creating billions of proteins to sustain all…
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Just as the Human Genome Project mapped the entire composition of DNA, another major biology breakthrough is the Human Proteome Project, which aims to complete knowledge of the human proteome or map at the tissue level of all the proteins to reveal, as they put it, “which proteins are present in each tissue, where in the cell each of those proteins is located, and which other proteins each is interacting with.”

Realize that one million proteins are encoded by about 20,300 genes and that scientists do not know, as of now, which cells in a specified tissue are producing which protein. The Proteome Project research will be a huge step forward to understand the working mechanisms for both health and sickness. But we must return to the story of DNA.

This post is an excerpt from chapter 7.6-7 of Inventory of the Universe.

Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

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Here’s a gif image showing the translation process–the building of individual amino acids into complex chains of protein. This process within all the myriad other processes is a wonder in itself.

Protein Translation – never stop assembly of amino acids into millions of types of proteins.

Below are a couple of videos showing the transcription and translation processes. As you watch these, try to step back and get the big picture. All this activity is going on in the confined space of billions of cells, about the width of one strand of hair on your head!… every instant of the day throughout your life

This next video is more illustrative and adds to your understanding of ‘copying complexity, creating perfection.’

Dig Deeper into The Explanation

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Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inentory of vthe Universe at Amazon

Purchase the Kindle version – Barnes@Nobles (Paperback and Nook)

Google Play – Kobo – iBooks app on Apple devices. 

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Nucleotides and DNA – Millions of Parts Assembled Perfectly

Only four Nucleotides but billions of their combinations make your DNA the individual you are. Every human being has these identical nucleotides – yet we’re all so different.

A car has about 30,000 parts. You have over 6,000,000 parts in just ONE strand of DNA!

Galacti leads us to lab displays that beckon us to study them. We move to a presentation that, at first, seems to be some sort of secret code: hundreds of combinations involving only four letters—T, A, G, and C.

(chapter 7.4-5)

Our DNA is composed of billions of base pairs of only four different nucleotides A, C, G, and T. It is the sequence of of these 4 elements that makes each of us individuals.

As we watch an adjoining display, a familiar ladderlike spiral structure appears: the DNA molecule, the code for our lives, passed on to us by our parents.

While we all have heard of DNA in science books, in detective shows, through the Human Genome Project, and in the doctor’s office, we may not have had the opportunity to study it up close and appreciate its structure.

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a double helix of

nucleotides, each containing the crucial elements carbon and nitrogen. Remember the base pair letters A, T, C, and G that we referred to?

Weak hydrogen bonds (like hyphens) combine these letters in

specific combinations: guanine (G) with cytosine (C) and thymine (T) with adenine (A). G and A, we learn, are the purine molecules from the previous section now moving on to their next sequence.

Double-helix DNA showing how each nucleotide is attached to the outside backbone while also being able to disasociate in the middle for reproduction purposes.

We observe the elegance of a double helix of a DNA molecule

winding in front of our eyes, and for our edification the letters A, T, C, and G are highlighted.

The length of the DNA chain or human genome is over three billion base pairs, each half attached to a sugar phosphate backbone.

Think about the sheer coordination of atoms with weak bonds in the middle and solid bonds on the spiraling rim that creates one of the molecules of life.

Think about the sheer coordination of over six billion nucleotides that form just one strand of…
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As a result of the coordination, DNA achieves its two purposes: to store the genetic library of information and to produce, from that library, life elements called amino acids.

Amino Acids

In a computer simulation, we see combinations of nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and numerous other atoms that make up our body. When bonded together, these molecules form about five hundred chains called amino acids, of which only twenty are the building blocks of proteins.

Why only that many? Why those specific ones? As a starting point, we have heard that certain amino acids contribute to emotional well-being and also cause that sleepiness we feel after we eat a festive meal.

A well-known example is tryptophan, an ‘essential’ amino acid we obtain through our diet because the body doesn’t synthesize it. Another example is glutamic acid, this is nonessential—the body does synthesize this amino acid— which acts as a neurotransmitter and is important in learning and memory.

However, we haven’t given much thought to amino acids and the important role they play in human life. We watch as N, H, C, and O join forces via complex pathways to create cysteine, serine, histidine, tyrosine, glycine,

and the hundreds of amino acids that our body needs for specific functions.

Remember that the glycine molecule helped form adenine and guanine. We now find it being developed by the very same item it is part of; thus, we see a fully functioning cycle.

How can the glycine molecule, needed to synthesize #DNA, be developed by the very same molecule…
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Another way of expressing this virtual circle is to remember that these amino acids combine, creating mosaics of different proteins for which the information or translation keys to their sequences are found in the nucleotide base pairs that form the genes, the chromosomes, and ultimately the DNA strands. As suggested in previous sections, the proteins are the means by

which their very own amino acids are formed, so you can’t have one without the other.

#Proteins are the means by which their very own amino acids are formed, so you can’t have one…
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To make matters more convoluted, DNA is only the recipe book; by itself it can’t produce amino acids or proteins. To continue the analogy, simply opening a cookbook won’t produce a finished cake, just as the specifications for an automobile, on their own, won’t assemble thirty thousand parts into a car.

There has to be a way to interpret “1/4 cup nuts, chopped” or the precise instructions for wiring spark plugs. Similarly, something has to interpret which amino acid is being coded. To make a full circle of amino acid production, protein synthesis, and ultimate DNA reproduction, there are three steps: transcription, translation, and protein folding.

This post is an excerpt from chapter 7.4-5 of Inventory of the Universe.

Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

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Below is a clear video with a nice basic explanation of how nucleotides are formed and lead to strands of DNA. Very instructive, a must watch to see how the human body is built on the ‘simple’ but gets very complex.

Dig Deeper into The Explanation

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Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inentory of vthe Universe at Amazon

Purchase the Kindle version – Barnes@Nobles (Paperback and Nook)

Google Play – Kobo – iBooks app on Apple devices.

  

Was “Nucleotides and DNA – Millions of Parts Assembled Perfectly” worthwhile for you?

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Life is Complex Simplicity – Perfectly Interlaced

Life Is Complex Simplicity. That multitude upon multitude of  ‘simple’ equations adds up to extreme complexity. Even science doesn’t understand it.

Curves and lines … it looks simple. Put it all together … it is extremely complex. Life is complex simplicity.

The virtual circle, which arcs from basic elements to DNA and back again, involves just the five key atom elements we spoke of—C, O, H, N, and P—and an estimated fifty-five others; moreover, the secret is in the way those elements are put together!

(chapter 7.2-3)

It’s not easy to unravel the factory processes—note the emphasis on that last word—that take place simultaneously and successively to bring what we’ll call “just in time” (JIT) results.

To an uninitiated person, attempts to explain the concepts quickly get into complex terminology and explanations.

Here’s an example: The simple definition of what a gene is has become very multifaceted over the last ten years. Just go to Genome TV on the Internet and listen to the specialists describe its physiognomy. It’s no longer a simplistic section of a chromosome that explains why you have the color eyes, hair, and skin that you do; it’s much more.

We’ve come to realize that the so-called 98.5 percent of junk DNA actually has editing, splicing, and even cognitive features, in the sense that they code genes to form certain functions as they’re needed.

We recognize that DNA has a top-down approach to transmitting information that orchestrates the notes of the biological chef d’oeuvre in distinctive unique directions. This is where chronobiology is witnessed at its supreme. What do I mean by that? Think of DNA as having internal clocks, each set to the life cycle equivalent of what time it is in Paris, Rome, New York, Hong Kong, or Tokyo.

These timers help juggle the millions of elements in a DNA chain, with instantaneous and meticulous exactitude, to produce various types of RNA that in turn combine the amino acids into the lengthy folded proteins that are propelled to the four corners of your body to keep life running.

“So what I hear you saying is that the processes of life are also like a giant kitchen with lots of timers to keep everything on schedule,” Galacti says.

“Yes, Galacti, that’s our overview.”

In a really simplified linear representation of life processes, this is how it might look:

basic elements > nucleotides > amino acids > proteins > genes >

chromosomes > DNA > RNA > prokaryote cells > bacteria >

eukaryotes cells > stem cells > specific cells > flora > organs >

fauna > humans

But in reality it is anything but that simple; it can’t be presented in a linear fashion. Our disturbing question comes up time and again: which came first? For instance, proteins produce amino acids while already having amino acids as part of their own structure.

In a flowchart or organizational chart, which do you put first? Generally you’ll find amino acids first because they’re less complex than proteins, but that’s only a small part of the story.

“Sam,” Galacti interjects, “you’re presenting life processes in a linear fashion, but we have to understand that they’re all simultaneously interlaced. I might add that if we remove any part of a life-giving process or the process itself, the chain breaks down.”

Elements to Molecules

Let’s start by building a basic molecule, a group of atoms, called a purine, which is the basis of both adenine and guanine, two of the four bases in DNA.

“Sam, you’re losing your readers on this one,” interrupts Galacti.

“I know, and in one sense that’s why I’m doing it. This is fundamental biological chemistry, and the point I’m trying to make here is that, even beginning with the simplest of atoms, life is hypercomplex. If readers want to study this subject further, why not? My intention here is not to give a chemistry lesson but to show just a few steps to acquire the very first molecules necessary for the life process.”

“Okay, I guess you know what you’re doing. Go on.”

A purine molecule, one of the basic components of DNA, composed of carbon and nitrogen, that has been formed by various complex pathways.

Above is an image of a purine, a ring composed of nitrogen (N) and carbon (C). These two building blocks of this molecule join together from five separate sources: aspartic acid, formate, glutamine, glycine, and HCO3 (bicarbonate).

There are various processes by which, firstly, each of these sources obtains its atoms and then, secondly, contributes them to the purine. This is known as biosynthesis, and each of the multiple processes is called a pathway.

For instance, several pathways can lead to the formation of the glycine molecule (C2H5NO2), which, as we see in the diagram above, in turn contributes N and C-C to the purine molecule. Molecules can obtain these atoms by synthesis—building from scratch (which involves other various

processes)—or by metabolism, breaking down an existing molecule (yet other processes).

This building up and breaking down, this exchange of atoms between molecules is going on nonstop and millions of times per second, even as you read these words. That’s life, as we say.

My point in using this example is not the chemistry, which even scientists have enough trouble unraveling. Instead, it is the complexity to produce just one of the billions of molecules in our bodies each and every day of our lives.

“Most people don’t think about purines, but they’re everywhere in the human body,” Galacti says.

This post is an excerpt from chapter 7.2-3 of Inventory of the Universe.

Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

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Below is a video about complexity and simplicity.

Dig Deeper into The Explanation

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Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inentory of vthe Universe at Amazon

Purchase the Kindle version – Barnes@Nobles (Paperback and Nook)

Google Play – Kobo – iBooks app on Apple devices.

  

Was “Life is Complex Simplicity – Perfectly Interlaced” worthwhile for you?

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Imagine Human Life … the Human element on Earth

Human Life? So much more than genes or chemicals in a cell. What is it … really?

Human Life? So much more than genes or chemicals in a cell. What is it … really?

Imagine the human element.

“Sam, I understand you had fun—I think that’s the word—writing this chapter.”

“Well, Galacti, to tell you the truth, yes, this chapter, even more so than the Space chapter, was a difficult one to write. As you know, we’re doing the Inventory of the pieces of the universe, and I’m trying to make it as understandable and readable as possible. When it comes to explaining the composition and processes for the construction of life, it’s downright complicated.”

(chapter 7.1)

Explaining the composition and processes for the construction of #humanlife, it’s downright…
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“How so?”

“I thought I’d just lay it out starting with the five basic elements and take it step by step, but it just isn’t that straightforward. Simply trying to understand terminology like nucleotides, codons, introns, exons, mRNA—I could name scores of such terms—is an exercise in itself. I have a new respect for scientists and technicians involved in this field.

At one point I felt like organizing a challenge to find someone who could diagram the process of life—someone who could draw, in multiple sequential illustrations, how physical life functions. “In fact, if one of our readers would like to pick up the gauntlet, I’d be delighted to entertain infographics for TheExplanation.com, the idea being to simplify the

complexity of the life processes insofar as it’s possible.

I felt like organizing a #contest to find someone who could diagram the processes of life
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Right now, I’ll have to make do with prose. Here we go. “Each one of the 100 trillion cells in our bodies contains twenty-six chromosomes that encompass about 21,000 genes.

Each gene contains between 10,000 and 150,000 base pairs that serve as the building blocks of our DNA and total over three billion pairs of nucleotides, each of which in turn is comprised of various combinations of two out of only four bases in the entire structure—not to mention the sugar phosphate to which they’re attached—in a very organized sequence known as the human genome. Each of these four bases (A, T, C, and G) is composed of up to five basic elements (C, O, N, H, or P).

“On top of those numbers, there are four hundred distinct types of cells (lungs, mucous, eyelids, etc.) for a total of some 100 trillion cells (one followed by fourteen zeros), of which 20 to 70 billion die and are renewed each day. These are general figures because they differ for children and the elderly, considering the aging process.

“Hundreds, thousands, and millions of timely processes are  taking place night and day. This is the ultimate in chronobiology: the notion of very complex biological procedures and the clock being in the right place at just the right split second. It’s so much more than simply mixing a few chemical elements together. Timing, the instantaneous coordination of umpteen intricate systems, is a decisive ingredient we cannot omit.”

With #humanlife millions of timely processes are taking place night and day. This is the…
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Galacti, rather pensive, utters, “Those figures are staggering. I’ve seen toy skeletons that youngsters can manipulate to see how the body is held together, but let’s imagine a 3-D puzzle of the elements and massive quantities of the parts of life.

Imagine a fourth dimension where you are able to see each of these miniature factories in motion with their production lines delivering molecules and combining them into DNA, cells, and organs. How fascinating.”

“Well, Galacti, I’m hoping that our readers will take a little time to think about just that. You now understand that this is the raison d’être.

The mainspring of this first book of The Explanation is to see the amazing puzzles within puzzles, the organization within organization, the coordination within coordination, the harmonization within harmonization, and the synchronization within synchronization that this startling number of puzzle pieces must contain in order to function with peace and prosperity and compose the final precision picture, in this case a single human being.

“To speak in terms such as function and to refer to sheer numbers is inadequate to describe the processes that are performing like a battalion of flying trapeze artists in total sync in our bodies, in human life, in flora, in fauna, and, indeed, in the universe. The full gamut that I’m doing my best to help us picture and imagine is breathtaking and awe-inspiring.”

In #humanlife millions of processes are being performed like a battalion of flying trapeze…
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Consider the fundamental question posed by The Explanation series: “How would you bring peace and prosperity to Earth?” When we think of that, we tend to think in terms of human relationships and physical wealth.

But this question encompasses much more than what initially meets the eye. As hinted, this chapter is about life and especially human life, which we could sum up with the general terms body and mind or soul. I believe that’s the area where all humanity really wants peace and prosperity. We want healthy bodies and healthy minds.

In fact, how can you have total worldwide peace and prosperity if you don’t have it first on an individual level? This is far beyond political and economic peace and prosperity and is what we long for most of all, especially when a body or mind process goes awry.

How can we have total worldwide peace and prosperity if we don’t have it first on an individual…
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“But how can they go awry?” Galacti wonders. Great question.

Inventory, this first book, this narrative of our universe, takes us beyond numbers so that we stop and consider who we really are from the point of view of a human being—one of seven billion animated humans in one inanimate universe.

This post is an excerpt from chapter 7.1 of Inventory of the Universe.

Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

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Below are a couple of videos about human life. This first one is a voyage inside the living body, the incredible journey of life from birth through infancy, childhood, puberty, adulthood and maturity to old age from a new perspective: deep inside our bodies.

The journey of a human life, from the outside in. As you watch this think about the millions of ‘parts’ that have to work together … perfectly. Think about chronobiology.

In this video, just music to accompany conception to embryo to foetus. A twelve-minute ode to human life.

Dig Deeper into The Explanation

Join the mailing list for updates and future events. No obligations, total privacy, unsubscribe if you want.

Your gift is a link to download a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

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Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game (free) that nourishes your neurons and is taking the world by storm. Play a round with family and friends. View the above videos and use the tags at the end of this blog for dozens of ideas to play Take Inventory – The Game.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online.

Purchase Inentory of vthe Universe at Amazon

Purchase the Kindle version – Barnes@Nobles (Paperback and Nook)

Google Play – Kobo – iBooks app on Apple devices.

  

Was “Imagine Human Life … the Human element on Earth” worthwhile for you?

If so, please help me out:

– Add your comments below, join in the conversation.

– Click now and like The Explanation with Sam Kneller on Facebook

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Much appreciated

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The Animal Kingdom will Never Cease to Amaze Mankind

The Animal Kingdom with its beautiful biodiversity should cause mankind to sit up and think … It is fascinating.

The Animal Kingdom with its beautiful biodiversity should cause mankind to sit up and think … It is fascinating.

Weatherproofers

The animal kingdom has it covered, whether it’s scorching hot

or ice-cold each animal is weatherproof.

Emperor penguins, which most everyone is familiar with

from films, and smaller Adelie penguins, which stand 70 centimeters

(27.5 inches) in height and just come up to my knee,

swim in the waters surrounding their icy environment.

(from chapter 6.8-9)

Part of the ice gives way to black sand, but for the most part,

the environment is typical of the Antarctic. We are cold beyond belief,

but the Adelie penguins that move from the water to the ice

with ease (they are expert swimmers) seem unbothered. They

waddle with their jaunty, all-black tuxedo tails spread out

behind them.

“Why don’t they fly?” someone asks. “They have wings.”

“They’re short compared to the rest of their body,”

someone else observes.

In the animal kingdom, each animal is specialized. While

pondering what penguins can’t do, we observe their strengths

closely. After all, we are the ones shivering in freezing

temperatures while the penguins huddle together for warmth.

“Don’t their feet and legs get cold?” one of our questioners

asks as we all huddle together, taking our cue from the

penguins.

If we were to x-ray the penguins’ legs right now, you

would see that unlike the muscles in your arms, legs, and feet,

the muscles that connect to their legs and flippers are located

inside a layer of belly fat. This protects them from temperatures

as cold as minus 1.9 degrees Celsius, or 28.5 degrees

Fahrenheit, which is the freezing point of the seawater that the

penguins swim in.

The flippers and legs don’t freeze because their tendons are like

puppet strings controlled elsewhere by their muscles located in

regions at normal body temperatures which keep operating

despite the most extreme temperatures.

In addition, if you were to observe the penguins’ circulatory

systems, you’d see that the blood flowing to the flippers and

legs cooling the blood off is reheated as it flows away from

these extremities back through the rest of the body keeping

the penguins warm.

The penguins can adjust the blood flow to the most vulnerable

parts of their body and keep them just above freezing. That’s

all they need to continue their activities of fishing, sitting

on eggs, and diving out of the water onto the ice. Adaptability is a

trademark of the animal kingdom.

#Penguins can adjust the blood flow to their feet and body parts as needed and will never…
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Imagine: penguins can actually control the blood flow to

their feet. This impresses everyone. We watch as the penguins

in the huddle get a bit too warm and fluff their feathers out.

The penguins can control their body temperature with movements

of their feathers, which also repel water.

The Freezer year round

We leave the penguins behind and enter another glass

enclosure, which is partitioned into several miniworlds. A

black scarab beetle perches in a dry crevice in a dead tree

covered with ice. Its eyes have a thin film of frost, but the

black scarab never gets cold in its eyes or anywhere else.

In addition, the ice never drains the moisture from the beetle’s

body. In other insects, ice can kill body cells, but the black

scarab is immune. How is this possible?

This little beetle, a full member of the animal kingdom, from

Alaska carries within its cells an enormous nonprotein antifreeze molecule that blocks the ice crystals. They can neither grow nor penetrate the beetle’s defenses because that molecule holds the ice back.

Imagine, the Alaskan #scarab #beetle can survive temperatures of -104 degrees Fahrenheit…
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You might be shivering if you were sitting in that tree, but this

beetle is fine. In some cases, it can survive temperatures

of -76 degrees Celsius, or -104 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heat Wave year round

Next door to the Alaskan beetle is a piece of the Sahara

Desert. Through an opening, we can feel the Sahara summer

heat reaching temperatures of fifty degrees Celsius, or 122

degrees Fahrenheit.

Another unique representative of the animal kingdom, in the

genus of ant called Cataglyphis withstands the heat and

sunlight that bakes the remains of a black desert beetle.

The Saharan silver ant, as it’s also known, has different

ways of avoiding the deadly effects of heat.

The ant moves carefully away from sunbeams toward the

entrance hole to its nest. Several more ants follow.

They have heat radar; they automatically know where

to go to avoid the heat.

The ants move quickly, raising their long front legs and sprinting

on their other four legs. Someone remarks that the legs are

more extensive than, for example, the weaver ants’ legs.

Look at the distance between the ants’ bodies and the

scorching sands.

The legs keep them from contact with the sand, and when

they are running, those back legs somehow help them achieve

greater speed. It’s an intriguing trick. They use this gait on

their daily forays to scavenge, a dead mouse, for example,

or the remains of that Saharan beetle.

On these food-finding trips, these ants release a “heat

shock” protein just before leaving the nest. You drink bottles

of water, grab an umbrella, or put on cooling sunscreen

before leaving the house, but you usually have to check the

weather.

Saharan silver ant is equipped with #heat #radar to avoid the sun, a special gait and 'heat…
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These ants know what the temperature will be and they protect

themselves for the short time they’re exposed to extreme heat.

No wonder they’re called one of the most heatresistant animals.

Frankly, we’re not even surprised to learn the incredible capacities

that characterize the animal kingdom … there are so many of them.

A visit to the African Namib Desert south of the Equator

reveals the tiny, flying saucer-shaped trench beetle digging

small trenches in the desert floor. Fog winds from the Atlantic

deposit precious water in the trenches which is recuperated

from the sand. Other trench beetles adopt a heads-down

posture facing the wind with the fog condensing into droplets

on their disc-shaped, off-white carapaces.

These droplets then run down to the beetle’s mouth, allowing it

to drink water and cooling it during summer temperatures of forty

degrees Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Those are called catchments,

and they are a feat of human-like engineering.

Again, “nature originates, man copies.” Scientists are

studying the Alaskan beetle’s protein antifreeze and the wood

frog of North America, which can store urea and glucose

(sugar) in its cells in preparation for winter and in order to

prevent its tissues from shrinking during sub-zero temperatures.

These species preserve themselves without thinking

about it, in response to stimuli and triggers from the environment.

How do they do this? At the same time, man needs

to design and develop ways of freezing biomaterial, including

cells and tissues, for scientific study and medical applications.

This is a project undertaken by no less an institution than the

San Diego Zoo, which reflects our zoo’s respect and admiration

for the animal kingdom.

We are remaining here for a while in order to explore and

learn, because the questions of animals’ capabilities still linger

in our minds. Lions hunt, butterflies migrate, bears hibernate,

geese fly in an unmistakable V formation, and cheetahs run.

Cheetahs are built for speed, and have inspired prosthetic leg

designs for runners who have had legs amputated.

We watch the chimpanzees, the rats, or the warthogs in

their exhibits and we imagine the un-animaginable: in the end,

do these animals match man in intelligence even as they surpass

him in the abilities to resist cold, build cities, and fly in ways that

inspire poetry?

Why do animals surpass man in the abilities to resist cold, build cities, and fly in ways that…
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Galacti’s Interlude

The central question of The Explanation series is: “How would

you bring peace and prosperity to Earth?”

Galacti is musing.

“In that case,” he says, “with regard to the Inventory of

space, atmosphere, water, land, flora, and fauna (the chapters

we’ve just covered), the fact is that this question is redundant.

It really is a nonissue.”

 

The bottom line is that if we simply left all of these

elements alone to run themselves, so to speak, there is an

unfathomable process called the balance of nature that would systematize peace and prosperity.

 

Over many years and in the case of natural catastrophes this

equilibrium does have its ups and downs; nonetheless, the result

has been the incredible biodiversity we witness around our Earth.

 

It has essentially established a natural harmony between the material, earthy elements and the living plants and the animal kingdom. Water creatures in rivers and seas thrive, having a multitude of resources at their disposal.

 

Fowl and insects interact with the earth and flora to give us the

fertility and beauty of the lush landscapes and forests that we can

still see in pristine regions of our planet. It would be like a wild,

unattended garden: exotic, but in a sort of colorful disarray.

 

In part, it would be like walking through a majestic, magnificent jungle, like the Amazon in all its splendor. If you were going to live there as a human, you’d want to do some planning and adjust the environment for human comfort.

And that’s where man comes on the scene. That’s where

our central question takes on all of its significance, because

humans are especially devoted to bringing peace and

prosperity to Earth.

Man can enhance or degrade the balance of nature. He can use or abuse Earth.
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Man can enhance or degrade the balance of nature; he can even improve that landscape and jungle in the same way that he can create an exquisite Japanese or English garden. He can use or abuse Earth.

There’s much to be said about this in Audit of the Universe, book two of

The Explanation.

For now, however, we continue to take Inventory of the Universe

as we broach the subject of this unique creature—a human being

known as man.

The Explanation Blog Bonus

Below are a couple of videos that reveal the impact of the animal kingdom on us mortals. The first one has 25 animal kingdom facts that you might find hard to believe

Now it’s time for a little fun and laughs. Loosen up with some funny moments in the animal kingdom!

Play a round of  Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game based on this episode of Inventory of the Universe. Both viewing the above videos and using the tags at the end of this blog will give you dozens of ideas for The Game … it’s up to you to adapt it to the age level you’re having fun with.

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See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online .

Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Game (free) that nourishes your neurons  and is taking the world by storm. Use the tags at the end of this post as ideas to prepare your next challenging and instructive game.

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Animal Intelligence as Tool Makers and Home Builders

Animal Intelligence – How is it they show human-like capabilities such as Tool Making and Home Building?

Animal Intelligence – How is it they show human-like capabilities such as Tool Making and Home Building?

A display of animal intelligence: A murder of crows (that’s the

actual name for the flock) is hard at work in the aviary while a

group of Rhesus monkeys is occupied in the primate house.

As our visitors watch and observe both crows and monkeys,

we compare notes and discover that the birds and primates

are engaged in the same activity: tool making.

(chapter 6.6-7)

Tool Making

Minibuckets of food lie at the bottom of narrow-mouthed

glass jars and long slender tubes in the crows’ nest. As a

demonstration of animal intelligence one of the crows picks

up a twig and tries to fish the food out.

That doesn’t work. Another crow picks up a shiny piece of metal or

wire and bends one end to create a fishhook. The crow imitates

what a captive crow has done at the University of Oxford:

using the hook tool to retrieve food from the jar. Success.

The crow feasts and the younger crows follow its example, thereby

learning the behavior. Another elder crow uses a complex tool

made from twigs and grass to poke a tree stump and fish out

squirming beetle larvae. As before, the younger crows learn

from the example.

Our visitors report this to their colleagues, who are watching

capuchin monkeys use stones to dig for food. Hitting the ground

half a dozen times with the stones, the monkeys scoop away the

soil and uncover mealworms and tubers, which they eat.

Chimpanzees–in another display of animal intelligence  place

hard-shelled palm nuts on larger stones that are straight and level.

Turning equal-sized or slightly smaller stones into hammers,

the chimpanzees crack the shell so that they can dig out the  nut’s

flesh and kernel. Our visitors in the monkey house observe

the chimpanzees striking the nuts with just the right amount

of force: hard enough to crack the nut without crushing it.

The chimps have learned the right sequence: on the bottom,

a large stone serves as an anvil. A nut is placed on the stone,

and finally a stone functions as a hammer. Also, chimpanzees

have developed different types of foraging tools. 

To procure a meal, for example, the chimps use their teeth to

trim twigs and dig inside termite mounds for larvae.

We could go into detail describing these processes, which

are fascinating in themselves, but as we compare notes we

find that the overall theme is the same: animals and birds are

capable of making tools to solve problems.

Although we might have read about experiments in which

scientists test animal intelligence, we’re now seeing the reality

for ourselves. It’s an entirely different experience. We are

impressed by the animals’ know-how and what seems to be

their resourcefulness.

However, the question arises: why do animals, whom

we assume just blindly forage in the wild and locate food by

instinct, demonstrate human-like problem-solving when they

seek their dinner?

Why do animals, foraging for food, demonstrate human-like problem-solving abilities when they…
Click To Tweet

As the chimpanzees poke the termite mounds, Galacti

suggests that, if our primate house group is interested in the

termites, we might want to move on to the home builders’

section.

Home Builders

Home. Humans live in haciendas, condominiums, yurts,

apartments, cottages, and all kinds of dwellings requiring

careful construction. Most of us have seen an animal home of

some type—a birds’ nest, a spiderweb, or perhaps a fox’s den.

We have even stumbled across animal intelligence via anthills

and wasps’ nests, and we have been bitten or stung if we disturbed

the insects! Yet the humble anthill is more than just a hole in the

ground, and in its own way, the wasps’ nest or beehive displays

as much detail and design as a Renaissance fresco.

The wasps’ nest or beehive displays as much detail and design as a Renaissance fresco
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Inside this animal intelligence display, we view a cross-section of a beehive

under construction. The honeybees secrete their wax as

building material in order to craft the perfect hexagons for

each cell. Each hexagon is symmetrical and identical to the

surrounding ones.

Female worker bees construct the cells in the honeycomb with

nothing more than wax. The “rooms” in this bee home are varied:

pollen storage cells, worker cells, drone cells, and the peanut-shaped cells for the queen bee, which are the only cells that are not hexagonal.

The worker bees consume eight times their body weight in honey in

order to create the cells and the overall honeycomb. Each honeycomb

is constructed according to precise geometric angles.

They are so precise, in fact, that even mathematicians miscalculated

them. Bees are not capable of doing math or using a

slide rule or protractor in order to measure. How, then, can the

bees design with the efficiency of Frank Lloyd Wright?

Leafcutter ants have their own engineering achievements.

Their exhibit might look like simple tunnels running through

the soil—tunnels stuffed with sickly-looking fungus—but

there is more to this huge nest mound with its chimney or

vent-like openings.

The ants have moved forty tons of soil to construct these chambers

full of fungus as well as the subterranean highways that connect

the main chambers with nurseries, trash pits, and side roads.

The ants move through the fungus easily and feed on it as they make

their way through this city, an ant metropolis of twelve million. The

enormity of the population stuns us. Over twenty rooms are home

to a complex society of worker ants, a queen, waste workers, harvesters, and so on. All these ants feed on the fungus filling the

tunnels.

Even the fungus can serve to educate us. The ants’ unusual

décor has a natural origin: the eucalyptus leaves that the ants

systematically cut and strip from the eucalyptus trees planted

above the subterranean ant city. The ants carry the leaves of

an entire eucalyptus tree back to the nest and chew them into

salad-size pieces, on which white fungus grows.

This fungus is the ants’ food source, their own homegrown crop,

if you will. In fact, the entire design of the city facilitates the fungus

farm: the vents prevent carbon dioxide buildup and help to circulate

fresh air, while the waste workers manage the colony’s food

disposal in the waste pits located on the outskirts of the nests

or in towering heaps aboveground.

How the ants can engineer such a sophisticated fungus-filled nest

boggles the mind. Ants are not the only animals that have this ability.

Animal intelligence is all around us.

In fact, African termites can build dirt mounds equal to 180

stories tall—almost as tall as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Those

megastructures contain another superior ventilation system:

tunnels that conduct hot air to the surface while winds blow

cool air and oxygen into the upper mound and down to the

underground nest.

African termites can build dirt mounds equal to 180 stories tall—almost as tall as the Burj…
Click To Tweet

The termites have constructed a mound  made of breathable

material (a mix of dung, saliva and dirt) with multiple openings,

which cools the termites dwelling in the underground nest. We wonder

just how well we could live underground in these “termite condos,”

or whether we could even construct them without scale drawings

or architectural plans!

In fact, architects have created green, eco-friendly buildings

in Zimbabwe and Australia using the simple but elegant

climate control system of termite mounds. Contemplating the

inspiration drawn from the gecko, the birds, and the dogfish

shark, we realize that animal capabilities inspire man. This

includes the ability to adapt to extreme weather.

The Explanation Blog Bonus

The videos below show crows fishing, Ravens recuperating food, Cockatoo, Octopus making protective dress and a dog that drives. Animals using tools and objects, how clever are animals?

Ants are underground architects, engineers and builders all wrapped in one. Check out this video to see uncanny animal intelligence and skills.

 Ant cityPlay a round of  Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game based on this episode of Inventory of the Universe. Both viewing the above videos and using the tags at the end of this blog will give you dozens of ideas for The Game … it’s up to you to adapt it to the age level you’re having fun with.

Dig Deeper into The Explanation

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This post is an excerpt from chapter 6.6-7 of Inventory of the Universe. Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online .

Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Game (free) that nourishes your neurons  and is taking the world by storm. Use the tags at the end of this post as ideas to prepare your next challenging and instructive game.

Purchase the paperback edition at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

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Join the mailing list for updates and future events. No obligations, total privacy, unsubscribe if you want.

You’ll receive a link to download a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Play a round of  Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game based on this episode of Inventory of the Universe. Both viewing the above videos and using the tags at the end of this blog will give you dozens of ideas for The Game … it’s up to you to adapt it to the age level you’re having fun with.

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This post is an excerpt from chapter 6.6-7 of Inventory of the Universe. Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online .

Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Game (free) that nourishes your neurons  and is taking the world by storm. Use the tags at the end of this post as ideas to prepare your next challenging and instructive game.

Purchase the paperback edition at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version – Barnes@Nobles (Paperback and Nook) – Google Play – Kobo – iBooks app on Apple devices.

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You’ll receive a link to download a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

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If so, please help me out:

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The post Animal Intelligence as Tool Makers and Home Builders appeared first on The Explanation with Sam Kneller.

The Innate Capabilities of Animals leave Human Swimmers in their Wake

The innate capabilities of sailfish (109 km/h) let them swim circles around Michael Phelps (7 km/h) at any Olympic Games.

The innate capabilities of sailfish (109 km/h) let them swim circles around Michael Phelps (7 km/h) at any Olympic Games.

Innate capabilities in animals have us humans drooling.

It is the same experience that we have when we watch cheetahs

racing or dolphins swimming over sixty kilometers per hour

(thirty-seven miles per hour), sharks swimming seventy

kilometers per hour (forty-four miles per hour) and sailfish

reaching speeds of 109 kilometers per hour (sixty-eight miles

per hour).

(chapter 6.5)

Swimming

Michael Phelps’s world record Olympic medal performance

in the 200-meter butterfly (timed at one minute

and forty-two seconds) calculates out to seven kilometers per

hour (over 4 miles per hour). Animals can naturally swim

circles around Michael Phelps.

Some of our group has strayed into the aquarium, where

they are watching the spiny dogfish shark. Its enameled scales

have inspired the Speedo Fastskin II swimsuit and reduced

the strain of swimming as well as the drag on swimmers’

bodies.

At the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, both the neckto-

ankle and standard swimsuits with sharkskin-mimicking

bumps and ridges technology helped athletes win fortyseven

medals. Sharks seem formulated to swim quickly, so

you cannot outswim one.

Biologists at the British Museum crafted a suit to help humans

have an advantage that sharks possess naturally! It’s an innate capability.

Another observant scientist noticed that shells and algae tended to

not attach themselves to the skin, hence the development of

ship hulls that reproduce sharkskin patterns.

Engineers working on the Airbus 380 are also testing a coating

that imitates the sharkskin’s tiny riblets in order to streamline

aerodynamics.

Mechanical inventions in development such as the

Japanese Shinkansen bullet train can create problems like

bothersome noise that occurs when the otherwise-quiet train,

traveling at 320 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour),

emerges from tunnels.

Japanese designers designing the elongated, tapering noses of

the current Shinkansen trains took a cue from the kingfisher, whose

long, narrow beak has innate capabilities in reducing splashes

when the bird dives for fish. Bird flight also played a role in modeling

the wings and landing gear of the Airbus 380.

The plane wings imitate the upward  curl of the feathers on a steppe

eagle’s wingtips, which balance the length of the eagle’s wings so that

the eagle’s turning circle is not too large. In addition, the landing gear

borrows from the fine feathers on a long-eared owl’s legs, which

contribute to the owl’s silent nighttime flight.

While viewing examples of biomimicry, or technology

imitating nature, inside a special display within our current

wing of the exhibit, I’m reminded that insects, with their

innate capabilities, seem to surpass us in certain types of

movement such as flying, swimming, and running.

I’m inspired to visit the climbing animals.

Climbing

The gecko is a most versatile creature. Inside a “lizard

house,” we watch geckos climb the glass walls. With their innate

capabilities they move up, back, forward, and sideways on a sheer

surface in a way that we would never be able to do with our hands and feet.

Thousands of hairlike extensions on the geckos’ feet create

traction on the glass wall. Hundreds of spatula-like structures

called setae are actually responsible for creating the gecko’s

grip because the weak forces help the hairs bond with the

glass surface.

The gecko toes curl as they climb, and the hairs do all the

work of keeping them from falling. We watch these

geckos scurry and move with agility and quickness.

The geckos’ feet have inspired scientists at MIT to design

a robotic gecko called StickyBot (there are other versions

developed by different universities as well). A version of

StickyBot is inside the gecko house, climbing the glass.

Scientists drew inspiration from nature to create an assemblage

of circuitry with feet modeled after the geckos. The robotic

gecko’s feet are made of adhesive pads like those in Astroturf

™. They feature silicone hairs, which create the same force

that makes the gecko stick to the walls.

The robotic gecko looks quite different from its smaller counterpart,

but make no mistake—it moves with the same precision as the

living gecko. The feet curl and spread on glass as well as on a variety

of objects placed in the gecko house: white boards, granite,

and an assortment of other smooth surfaces.

Animals have innate capabilities that echo and often even surpass

what humans are capable of. Man has figured out how to use

those talents by drawing on observations of animals to create

new technology. Perhaps the message here could be “nature

originates, man copies.”

Animals have innate capabilities that often surpass what humans are capable of. Nature…
Click To Tweet

By observing the gecko, man learns to design robots that can

potentially repair underwater pipelines, wash windows, and access

hard-to-reach places. We’re struck both by the animals’ innate

capabilities and by man’s inventiveness in borrowing this technology.

We’re struck both by the animals’ innate capabilities and by man’s inventiveness in borrowing…
Click To Tweet

“Can animals, even with their innate capabilites, eventually

learn from their surroundings as well?” one of our audience

members asks. “Can they invent solutions to solve problems?”

For a possible answer, we follow the arrows to the tool

makers’ section.

The Explanation Blog Bonus

Here are a couple of videos revealing the innate capabilities of sharks and geckos. The first one goes behind shark skin to show how it develops speed and also how it repels anything, including bacteria, from sticking to it. We have two extremes: shark skin to which nothing sticks and gecko toes that stick to shiny glass. Nature sure throws us some curve balls.

Below is a video about gecko toes, technology and Stickybot climbing smooth surfaces. At 3:50 of this video Robert Full asks a nagging question. He points out that various species of geckos have different toes with different patterns, lengths and thicknesses of hairs and they don’t understand ‘why.’

Play a round of  Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game based on this episode of Inventory of the Universe. Both viewing the above videos and using the tags at the end of this blog will give you dozens of ideas for The Game … it’s up to you to adapt it to the age level you’re having fun with.

Dig Deeper into The Explanation

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Email address:

This post is an excerpt from chapter 6.5 of Inventory of the Universe. Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online .

Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Game (free) that nourishes your neurons  and is taking the world by storm. Use the tags at the end of this post as ideas to prepare your next challenging and instructive game.

Purchase the paperback edition at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

Barnes@Nobles (Paperback and Nook) – Google Play – Kobo – iBooks app on Apple devices.

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Animal Navigation Defies the Human Brain

Animal navigation, with long-distance precision, by creatures wih miniscule brains defies both the human brain and imagination.
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Animal Navigation, long-distance precision by various species of birds. Around and around the Earth they go.

Animal Navigation senses wind to reach its destination without

fail. Inside the fruit fly haven, dozens of red-eyed flies embark on their

paths, testing the wind with the miniature “sensor instruments” at the

tip of their antennae.

(chapter 6.4)

If we were to peer inside the fruit flies’ brains, we would see signals

indicating the wind is blowing in a particular direction (southwest for

example) traveling from the miniature antennae’s anemometers.

Animal navigation within the fruit flies allows them to use this information

to make and alter their flight plans. A fly’s brain is not complex,

but the fruit fly still possesses this “anemometer” in order to

fly and survive.

Other animals have directional senses as well. In one enclosure,

a mother rat tends to her newborn babies, but the pink

hairless creatures don’t need much parenting. Eyes open, they

scurry southwest to a pile of grains and some cheese chunks

Galacti has left behind.

Even though they can’t possibly explore their environment as

newborns, they come into the world with built-in animal navigation,

a “GPS,” that is, they  have the same directional signals as an

adult rat. The adult and newborn rats gobble up the food in no time.

These rodents have other intriguing abilities. They see

poorly, yet we notice the adult rats’ whiskers twitching and

dancing. Galacti plunges the enclosure into darkness, but we

can still see thanks to a faint light that tracks the rats’ movements.

When the adult rats in the enclosure venture around for

food, Galacti releases the scent of a new food into the east side

of the enclosure. The adult rats orient themselves, whiskers

alert, and scamper toward the scent. Minivibrations of the

rats’ whiskers alert them to the direction of the food, even in

darkness.

If the rats are born with a GPS, the whiskers are miniature radar

homing in with perfect accuracy on anything edible. Rats are not

the only creatures possessing this ability; the star-nosed mole

can create a detailed map of its area using the twenty tentacles

snaking from its nose.

We’ve never paused to think about rats, moles, and their

capabilities. Many of us in the group prefer to avoid rats

whenever possible! However, we’re humbled to think that

a creature with a reputation for carrying disease has mental

capacities beyond ours.

Baby rats have survival skills and mental abilities beyond those

of newborn humans, who have larger brains! How can this be?

Specifically, baby rats can navigate and have the ability to sense

direction even in the dark.

Baby rats have survival skills and #mental #abilities beyond those of newborn humans, who have…
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Animal navigation is also a skill displayed by the monarch butterfly,

a seemingly delicate and fanciful creature. Much has

been written about the migration of the monarch butterfly. As

we step into a “butterfly house,” we have to take care to shut

the door so that we don’t release the dozens of monarch butterflies

fluttering around the trees, flowers, and airspace.

They are feeding on milkweed, their favorite food, and general

nectar plants. Sunlight streams into the habitat and dozens of

butterflies take flight in a cloud, escaping through an opening

in the ceiling. A camera inside the house allows us to see the

butterflies traveling southward, filling the skies. This is the

first step of their annual two-way migration.

Each October, before the weather becomes too cold for

survival in the northern United States and Canada, the butterflies

travel thousands of kilometers to Mexico, California,

or Florida—the longest migration of animal navigation

on record. On the camera, we see an accelerated, simulated version

of the butterflies’ flight south to their wintering grounds, which includes

their famous nesting site in the oyamel fir trees in Angangueo, Mexico.

The butterflies fly up to twelve miles per hour by

floating on the wind and using their strong wings to make this

long commute. Multiple generations make this journey. Since

the Monarch butterfly’s life span is only two months, no butterfly

makes the entire round trip. Female monarchs deposit

eggs en route, and the last generation to make the trip does

not reproduce until it reaches the Mexican oyamel fir trees.

In essence, the monarchs can delay reproduction until conditions

are ideal and they are safely in their “vacation spot.” This new

generation continues the homeward leg of the migration with

no input from their parents.

The migration is essential for the butterflies’ continued

lifecycle as they travel from the dormant flowers in the North

and pollinate flowers en route, at the same time feeding on

milkweed and receiving essential nectar for the winter.

This migratory pollination ensures the survival of both the flowers

and the butterflies. In the spring, the butterflies return north,

unerringly coming back to their point of origin.

How does the butterfly do this? We humans need a map,

radar, signs, and directions for long journeys even though

we eventually learn a preferred route. For the butterflies, the

sunlight is the key. It triggers the butterfly migration in a real

sense.

As scientists have discovered, the butterflies’ bodies regulate

production of an internal hormone called Arabidopsis

cryptochrome 2, or “CRY2,” which allows them to gauge

how much daylight they need to make their long migration.

It also helps them sense the Earth’s magnetic fields.

Thanks to a mechanism in the butterflies’ antennae, daylight

resets their internal compass and helps them remember their location

by sensing the direction of the magnetic fields. The butterflies

use the magnetic fields to navigate to their nesting sites.

Thanks to the circadian clock in the butterflies’ antennae, a

mechanism of chronobiology that guides the butterflies’ sense

of time and activates because of the CRY2 protein, generation

after generation navigates successfully to the ‘winter home,’

while the second, third, and fourth generations return north.

As we think about the butterflies’ navigation, we can

also understand the benefits of it. Flowers are pollinated,

species survive, and new evidence even suggests that migration

helps the butterfly avoid infection by a specific singlecelled

parasite.

The butterflies’ routine seems so precise and carefully

planned. It’s as if the butterflies have their own kind of intelligence

that allows them to plot the best route to their wintering

grounds in the same way that you or I would when

traveling from Edmonton to Tahiti for the winter, or from

Norway to the warm Greek Isles.

The butterflies have their own kind of #intelligence that allows them to plot the best route to…
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However, the butterflies seem far more delicate and vulnerable

than an airplane, for example, and have only their own resources.

This mass migration has fascinated scientists for that very reason.

It intrigues us now. It is a demonstration of remarkable

animal navigation linked to chronobiology.

Even the way the butterflies glide on the wind deserves

observation. We feel a sense of envy watching their fluttering

movements. It inspires the same meditation as watching the

hummingbirds in an adjacent sanctuary fly backward, hover,

and feed off flowers dancing in the wind.

Only high-speed video can capture their flight and show the

hummingbird’s shoulders moving in a figure eight to create those

graceful movements. Why should hummingbirds be the only bird

that can hover on the wind? Is it because they have no place

to perch on the flowers? Why are they predisposed to this

behavior? We know that we could not replicate their feats or

their efficiency.

The Explanation Blog Bonus

Below is a video about animal navigation. There’s a lengthy intro which (it discusses human navigation, or lack of it due to smartphones…) you can skip it by going to 19 minutes. This video can be a bit technical but it will give you insight into just how ‘technical’ sun, steller, light polarization and geomagnetic navigation can be. And how animals, without any instruction or example from their progenitors can cover thousands of miles over unknown territory using a combination of these ‘compass’ methods.

Earth is one big magnet and animal navigation uses these magnetic fields for long-distance precision. This 3 minute video below tells you about magnetoreception, the ability to detect and navigate by magnetic fields. Also learn about Cryptochrome known as CRY2, a light-sensitive magnetic sensor.

Play a round of  Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game based on this episode of Inventory of the Universe. Both viewing the above videos and using the tags at the end of this blog will give you dozens of ideas for The Game … it’s up to you to adapt it to the age level you’re having fun with.

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This post is an excerpt from chapter 6.4 of Inventory of the Universe. Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online .

Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Game (free) that nourishes your neurons  and is taking the world by storm. Use the tags at the end of this post as ideas to prepare your next challenging and instructive game.

Purchase the paperback edition at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

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Animal Societies – Exceptional Community Organizers

Animal Societies – Ants, Apes Fish and even Bacteria Organize their own Communities to obtain Favors and Benefits.

Animal Societies – Ants, Apes Fish, Horses and even Bacteria Organize their own Communities to obtain Favors and Benefits.

Inside one of the glass enclosures, hundreds of ants swarm

along a superhighway network of leaves and tree branches

that connect soccer-ball-sized nests. We read the placard

on the enclosure: Weaver Ant, Southeast Asia and Australia.

(chapter 6.3)

As we watch the ants, we notice that they link with each

other using their red-brown antennae, their mouths, and their

legs. Ant interaction in animal societies is an elaborate dance

of using antennae to grasp each other’s antennae or touching

each other with mouths or legs.

They are “friending” each other. They stay in sync through

these gestures and signals, and they create their own social

organization. As they communicate, these animal societies

plan tasks such as sewing leaves together to make nests. To create

the nests, the ants form a chain in order to grasp leaves.

While these workers hold together the nest, other workers arrive

carrying pale white larvae. Since the larvae secrete silk, they are of

use here. The worker ants tap the larvae on the head, which

prompts the larvae to ooze gobs of silk out of their jaws.

In essence, the workers use the larvae as glue guns to seal the

leaves together. Other ants are forming “air bridges” between

trees so that their nestmates can cross. We watch animal societies

construct projects like “urban planning,” and even ritual dances

that warn of an approaching enemy beetle, which also becomes food

once the weaver ants organize a hunting party.

Bacteria

Bacteria are also organizers, and they form a World Wide

Web. That surprises our group. How can organisms living

inside us and dwelling on common household surfaces (as

well as everything we touch) organize without brains? Singlecelled

organisms don’t seem comparable to networked computers.

We’re taken from the weaver ant display to an exhibit

called The Bacteria Network.

How can singlecelled, no brain #bacteria organize themselves into networking worldwide webs?
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Giant “microscope glasses” that look a bit like 3-D glasses

allow us to see what would normally be invisible to the naked

eye: a billion and more bacteria, specifically the infamous E.

coli bacteria, moving along and reproducing by dividing.

Just one of these unicellular organisms can divide every twenty

minutes and produce five hundred billion billion bacteria. Each

one of the bacteria can “converse” with the other bacteria and

its related species, that is, the bacteria can communicate using

chemicals.

To illustrate this point, our microscope/3-D glasses

detect colored trails representing chemicals being exchanged

among the bacteria. The E. coli bundle together in a phenomenon

known as “swarming,” and the chemical exchanges come

at a furious rate. Moreover, we can see all kinds of activities

corresponding to the exchange of the chemicals.

For example, a bacteria pair exchanges genetic material, and we

detect the same activity in several such pairs. The bacterial

communication seems orchestrated, organized, and planned as

they form biofilms, which are bacteria cities, or perhaps communes.

We normally don’t like to think about bacteria, and

we avoid them at all costs by using antibacterial wipes and

gels stationed in hotels and our local supermarkets.

Certain bacteria called lactobacillus have positive functions,

such as helping to create the smoothness of the yogurt one of our

travelers is eating as a snack. There’s also cyanobacteria, which

exist in every crevice on the planet. They help nurture life

by contributing to the process of photosynthesis.

When we think about all the disease bacteria carry, exchange, and

spread through these processes we’re watching, however, we wonder

why a potentially deadly creature has the ability to “network,”

share information, and even assist in our DNA exchanges, as

well as giving rise to the geologic landscape!

While we’re thinking about this question, consider this:

cyanobacteria are an excellent example of chronobiology,

which we discussed in the last chapter. Since bacteria are

unicellular and have a short life span, scientists dismissed the

possibility of a circadian rhythm.

However, cyanobacteria do operate according to an “internal clock”

and certain strains reproduce by dividing every twenty-four hours,

while others do it every five to six hours! Even bacteria have this

sense of time, even more accelerated because of the need to

reproduce by division. As we think about the chronobiology, which is

almost elegant in such a simple organism, we watch as the cyanobacteria

exchange chemical signals with each other.

They even receive genetic material from the E. coli! Similar

processes are taking place inside our own bodies with the bacteria

that make up a mind-boggling 90 percent of our cells.

Should we call bacteria and other animal societies intelligent? Perhaps.

Why do they seem to have awareness and an ability to organize in the most

efficient sense at the cellular level?

Should we call #bacteria and other animal #societies #intelligent? They have the ability to…
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We’re fascinated, and yet we’re compelled to move as far

away from the bacteria exhibit as possible and on to the Navigators

section.

The Explanation Blog Bonus

Ants, apes, monkeys and even fish organize their communities for their own benefits and even those of others.

Below are a couple of videos

Four animal societies led by females.

Animals usually don’t live on their own. They live together for a few reasons. One of the major reason is to keep each other safe. This is an Animal Society. A society is a group of organisms that live and work together in harmony… more or less. Here are a few different animal societies.

Play a round of  Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game based on this episode of Inventory of the Universe. Both viewing the above videos and using the tags at the end of this blog will give you dozens of ideas for The Game … it’s up to you to adapt it to the age level you’re having fun with.

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This post is an excerpt from chapter 6.3 of Inventory of the Universe. Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online .

Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Game (free) that nourishes your neurons  and is taking the world by storm. Use the tags at the end of this post as ideas to prepare your next challenging and instructive game.

Purchase the paperback edition at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

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You’ll receive a link to download a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

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Animal Abilities – Animal Communication – It’s unimaginable

Animal Abilities including Animal Communication allow communities of thousands and millions of animals to Live Harmoniously … without Leadership.

Animal Abilities. A Cheetah can outrun Usain Bolt anytime. Animals run off with all the Olympic medals.

Animals are not human beings but animal abilities astound us nonetheless.

Imagine the un-animaginable.

We are traveling from the harvest on a kind of people

mover that resembles a train at a zoo. Artfully rendered

animals are painted on the side: first a chimpanzee, now a

lemur—now let’s try a shark to expand our zoo’s Inventory—

then a butterfly, a dogfish, a coatimundi, an elephant, a

squirrel, and a penguin.

(chapter 6.1-2)

Hummingbirds zip past us, and weaver ants from Asia

hitch rides on the side of the train. Jackrabbits hop along

beside the tracks.

As we examine the animal portraits and the living creatures

surrounding us, the loudspeaker announces that we have

just arrived at the main World Zoo Station. After the train

comes to a complete stop, we disembark en masse and file into

an exhibit hall.

We are now inside a vast space that is open to the sky.

Galacti, dressed as a zookeeper in protective clothing,

announces that the roof is retractable. We are left to our own

devices to wander and browse the exhibits. Our zookeeper is

available to answer any questions, but it’s up to us to explore and

make discoveries about the animals and animal abilities we’ll meet.

These animals represent a slice of the thirty million species of vertebrates

(such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and ray-finned

fish) and invertebrates (such as insects, mollusks, spiders, and

earthworms), many of which are unique to specific geographic

areas and found nowhere else on the planet. Hummingbirds

exist only in the Americas, while lemurs live exclusively in

Madagascar. You won’t find a lemur population in Canada or

France.

Many animals are unique to specific geographic areas: Hummengbirds > Americas, Lemurs >…
Click To Tweet

Galacti wanders around, citing other interesting facts about

animal abilities.

“Cat whiskers can detect movements two thousand times

smaller than the width of a human hair,” he says. We already

know that cat senses are acute. Galacti has more examples,

which he regales us with at odd moments.

For example, warthogs display a kind of intelligence (or instinct,

if you will). They enter their burrows in reverse so that they can

charge predators that might be lurking nearby. The ingenuity

of such an odd-looking creature makes us wonder: what else

do animal abilities allow them to do?

Signs direct our attention. They read: “Communicators,”

“Organizers,” “Navigators,” “Climbers/Swimmers,” “Toolmakers,”

and “Home Builders.”

Our zoo signs all have human attributes: Communicators, Organizers, Navigators, Toolmakers,…
Click To Tweet

Animal abilities … is this for real? The idea teases our

imagination. We remember stories of pet dogs sensing danger

and rescuing drowning children, or of bloodhounds tracking

down criminals against amazing odds. At one time or another,

we have also admired the way that geese fly to their winter

nesting grounds in a perfect V formation. These signs display

all human attributes and functions, however.

Animal Communication

Our first stop will teach us about how animals communicate.

This is one of their many unimaginable animal abilities.

We may have our own ideas about this from reading

about Koko the gorilla, a master student of sign language, or

remembering that bees somehow communicate the location

of nectar.

We are the only species that uses spoken language, and

yet animals do communicate. Think of a dog’s wagging

tail, the way it signifies friendliness, excitement, and other

moods depending on its position or on how fast the dog wags

it.

We are directed to the elephant enclosure to view dozens

of elephants. While we admire the largest living land creature

(elephants can reach a height of four meters and weigh as

much as 8000 kilograms, the equivalent of about 100 N.

American men), we hear the elephants trumpet loudly across

the enclosure. Surprisingly, we hear other elephants answer

the call from the surrounding jungle outside.

We read in the digital library of the universe that the frequency of

elephant acoustics can vary from a rumble at twenty-seven hertz

(the lowest note on a grand piano) to a roar at 470 hertz (twice

the frequency of an adult human female’s voice). Elephant

acoustics have a much larger vibration range than ours, as the

elephants in the enclosure are about to demonstrate.

At the same time that the elephants are communicating with their

counterparts in the wild, one male bellows in a low rumble

(below twenty hertz) that our human ears can only detect in

this specialized animal sanctuary. A female elephant on the

opposite side of the enclosure responds, approaching the male

for breeding purposes. Other elephants locate their family

members in the enormous herd. These are two examples of

the little-known world of elephant communication.

Inside another enclosure, we see something eye-catching:

a ground squirrel eating nuts and seeds while a rattlesnake

lurks in wait inches away. The desert landscape seems fraught

with danger for the squirrel, and yet it seems unconcerned. If

the squirrel is sweating, we can’t see it, since its sweat glands

are in its feet.

However, when the snake slithers closer, preparing

to pounce, the ground squirrel swipes its tail from side to

side with rapid movements. The rattler hesitates and coils in a

defensive posture as the squirrel puffs up its tail and continues

the tail dance.

In effect, the rattlesnake leaves the squirrel to enjoy its

meal in peace. Several squirrel babies (or kits) emerge

from a nearby shelter. Thanks to the adult squirrel’s warning

to stay away, the rattlesnake also avoids the babies.

Unusual. Our interest is piqued. By all rights, the rattlesnake

should have eaten the squirrel and its kits. What just

happened? The simple and yet unfathomable answer is that

the squirrel communicated a warning with the movements of

its tail, a practice called “tail-flagging.”

By examining the rattlesnake’s eyes in a monitor display, we see

that it uses infrared vision to seek its prey. Through goggles

provided by Galacti, we also view the blood flow increasing in the

squirrel’s tail, generating a surge in heat. This increased heat confuses

and warns the rattler. In addition, fluffing up the tail and increasing

its body heat makes the squirrel appear larger when viewed

via infrared vision.

We’re learning that different species use their own inventive methods

to communicate with predators. Our elephant symphony and

squirrel-versus-snake confrontation are two striking ways

animals communicate.

We could cite others: dogs marking territories with scents, bird

plumage displays, wolf pack interactions, and the ways in

which animals select their mates. Animal abilities allow them to

communicate, but how do they “know” to do this? Is it in the genes,

as with the bees’ pollen dance? Are animals capable of planning as we

know it? Can they build societies?

The Explanation Blog Bonus

Below are a couple of videos about animal abilities and animal communication

You won’t believe what unimaginable abilities some animals possess. This thought provoking video reveals seven amazing phenomena from the animal kingdom.

Man has all sorts of sophisticated technology for communication. Animals like ants, bacteria, snakes, marine animals… are equipped with their very own communication methods to transfer all necessary information from one or a group of animals (the sender or senders) to one or more other animals (the receiver or receivers). Learn about some amazing methods of animal communication in this video below.

Play a round of  Take Inventory – The Interconnectivity Game based on this episode of Inventory of the Universe. Both viewing the above videos and using the tags at the end of this blog will give you dozens of ideas for The Game … it’s up to you to adapt it to the age level you’re having fun with.

Dig Deeper into The Explanation

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TheExplanation.com

Email address:

This post is an excerpt from chapter 6.1-2 of Inventory of the Universe. Since you read all the way to here… you liked it. Please use the Social Network links to share The Explanation with your friends.

See the index of the book Inventory of the Universe to find a specific chapter and read it online .

Learn how to play Take Inventory – The Game (free) that nourishes your neurons  and is taking the world by storm. Use the tags at the end of this post as ideas to prepare your next challenging and instructive game.

Purchase the paperback edition at Amazon – Purchase the Kindle version

Barnes@Nobles (Paperback and Nook) – Google Play – Kobo – iBooks app on Apple devices.

Join the mailing list for updates and future events. No obligations, total privacy, unsubscribe if you want.

You’ll receive a link to download a free pdf of The Explanation and a free pdf of Answering the Big Questions in Life

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