Diesel exhaust fumes alter the flowery smells that guide bees when they forage, potentially sending them off course and putting the food-growing industry at risk, a recent study said.
Honeybees rely heavily on their sense of smell to locate flowers from which they harvest life-giving nectar — transferring pollen grains from one bloom to another in the process.
The new research shows that diesel exhaust fumes from cars, tractors or power generators can chemically alter the smell of flowers and render them undetectable to bees. This, in turn, threatens the insects’ crucial role as key pollinators of human food crops.
Photo: Reuters
照片:路透
“Somewhere in the region of 70 percent of world crops require pollination services, and ... about 35 percent of our current food production is reliant on pollination,” said study co-author Tracey Newman of the University of Southampton. Pollination services have an estimated economic value of 153 billion euros (US$207.3 billion) a year.
If the foraging bees are unable to find nectar, the entire hive will suffer from a lack of food — as will the plants that depend on pollination to reproduce.
Bees account for some 80 percent of pollination by insects, but their numbers have slumped in Europe and the US in the past 15-odd years due to a worrying phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder.
(Liberty Times)
一項最近研究指出,柴油廢氣會改變蜜蜂覓食時所依循的花香味,可能使牠們偏離常軌,進而導致糧食種植業面臨危機。
蜜蜂大量仰賴其嗅覺來找尋花朵並採集花蜜,在此過程中也把花粉從這朵花帶到另一朵花上。
新研究顯示,來自汽車、牽引機或發電機的柴油廢氣可以改變花朵香味的化學成分,讓蜜蜂無法聞到花香。如此一來,蜜蜂在人類糧食作物生長過程中扮演花粉傳授媒介的重要角色就可能受到威脅。
研究作者之一,南安普頓大學教授紐曼表示:「全球約有七成作物需要授粉服務,而……大約百分之三十五的現有食物生產都必須仰賴授粉。」授粉服務每年的經濟價值估計達一千五百三十億歐元(兩千零七十四億美元)。
假如採集蜂無法找到花蜜,整個蜂巢都會因缺乏食物而受到影響─仰賴蜜蜂傳粉來繁殖的植物也同遭連累。
在所有傳粉昆蟲中,蜜蜂佔了約八成,但過去十五年來,歐洲和美國的蜜蜂數量卻受到一種被稱為「蜂群崩潰症候群」、令人憂心的現象影響而遽減。
(自由時報/翻譯:俞智敏)
Taiwanese cuisine boasts a rich culture of thick soups, with various options available at street vendors or high-end restaurants. In English, this style of dish is typically called “thick soup.” Western cuisine typically uses flour, cream, or mashed vegetables to create a creamy consistency, while in Taiwan, thick soups are made by simply incorporating food starch into the soup and creating a smooth and silky texture. Tutuo fish in thick soup is such a soup with fried tutuo fish chunks, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and wood ears. 台灣羹品飲食文化豐富,無論是巷口小店或是高檔餐廳,都有提供羹料理。羹在英文稱作「濃湯」,西式濃湯是以麵粉、鮮奶油、蔬菜泥等達到濃稠的口感,台灣的羹湯用太白粉即能做出濃稠絲滑的湯頭。土魠魚羹就是在勾芡的羹湯中加入炸土魠魚塊、香菇、竹筍、木耳等食材的料理。 boast (v.) 擁有(令人驕傲的事物) consistency (n.) 濃稠度 chunk (n.) 厚塊,大塊 wood ear (n. ph.) 木耳 The star of this
Huge stretches of coral reef around the world are turning a ghostly white this year amid record warm ocean temperatures. On April 15, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the world’s fourth mass global bleaching event is underway — with serious consequences for marine life and for the people and economies that rely on reefs. WHAT ARE CORALS? Corals are invertebrates that live in colonies. Their calcium carbonate secretions form hard and protective scaffolding that serves as a home to many colorful species of single-celled algae. The two organisms have evolved over millennia to work together, with corals providing shelter to algae,
A: So who were Hollywood’s highest-paid stars of 2023? B: No. 5 to No. 2 were: Matt Damon with US$43 million, Ryan Gosling with US$43 million, Tom Cruise with US$45 million, and Margot Robbie with US$59 million. A: Didn’t Tom Cruise top the list? B: Nope, Adam Sandler was No.1, having made US$73 million, which is about NT$2.34 billion. A: Wow, maybe I should change my career to acting. A: 好萊塢去年的片酬排行榜前幾名是誰? B: 第5到2名是︰麥特戴蒙、4300萬美元,雷恩葛斯林、4300萬美元,湯姆克魯斯、4500萬美元,瑪格羅比、5900萬美元。 A: 冠軍竟然不是阿湯哥? B: 是亞當山德勒、片酬7300萬美元,大約23.4億台幣! A: 天啊或許我也該轉行當演員啦。 (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
A symbol of purity and cleanliness, the color white is the standard color for coats worn by doctors. While this has been the case for well over 100 years, it hasn’t always been so. In fact, before the late 19th century, doctors wore formal black attire, which was similar to that worn by clergymen. Black was chosen for practical reasons—it hid stains from medical procedures and presented a sense of seriousness. The major reason for the color change of the doctor’s coat was to distinguish qualified, professional doctors from those with little or no medical training. Since medical science