Male | Jotup

Most bees don’t die after stinging – and other surprising bee facts

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Thursday, April 25, 2024

Well, Bee, Stinger, Ant, Male, Anatomy, Attitude, Sting, Death, Skin, Honey, Apis, Animal, Wasp

But maybe we also felt a tinge of regret, or vindication, knowing the offending bee will die.

Key Points:

But maybe we also felt a tinge of regret, or vindication, knowing the offending bee will die.
Only eight out of almost 21,000 bee species in the world die when they sting.
To understand the intricacies of bees and their stinging potential, we’re going to need to talk about the shape of stingers, bee genitals, and attitude.

Our beloved, and deadly, honey bees

Native to Europe and Africa, these bees are today found almost everywhere in the world.
They are one of eight honey bee species worldwide, with Apis bees representing just 0.04% of total bee species.
We could say they die for queen and colony, but the actual reason these bees die after stinging is because of their barbed stingers.
Beyond that, bees and wasps (probably mostly European honey bees) are Australia’s deadliest venomous animals.

So what is a stinger?

A stinger, at least in most bees, wasps and ants, is actually a tube for laying eggs (ovipositor) that has also been adapted for violent defence. This group of stinging insects, the aculeate wasps (yes, bees and ants are technically a kind of wasp), have been stabbing away in self-defence for 190 million years. You could say it’s their defining feature.

The sting of the European honey bee is about as painful as a bee sting gets, scoring a 2 out of 4 on the Schmidt insect sting pain index.
On the flipside, most bee species can sting you as many times as they like because their stingers lack the barbs found in honey bees.

Can you tell who’s packing?

Globally, there are 537 species (about 2.6% of all bee species) of “stingless bees” in the tribe Meliponini. We have only 11 of these species (in the genera Austroplebeia and Tetragonula) in Australia. These peaceful little bees can also be kept in hives and make honey. Stingless bees can still defend their nests, when offended, by biting. But you might think of them more as a nuisance than a deadly stinging swarm.
Australia also has the only bee family (there are a total of seven families globally) that’s found on a single continent. This is the Stenotritidae family, which comprises 21 species. These gentle and gorgeous giants (14–19mm in length, up to twice as long as European honey bees) also get around without a functional stinger.
The astute reader might have realised something by this point in the article. If stingers are modified egg-laying tubes … what about the boys? Male bees, of all bee species, lack stingers and have, ahem, other anatomy instead. However, some male bees will still make a show of “stinging” if you try to grab them. Some male wasps can even do a bit of damage, though they have no venom to produce a sting.

Why is it always the honey bees?

So, if the majority of bees can sting, why is it always the European honey bee having a go?
First, the European honey bee is very abundant across much of the world.
So those hardworking European honey bees are really putting in the miles.

A complicated relationship

We have an interesting relationship with our European honey bees.
They can be deadly, are non-native (across much of the world), and will aggressively defend their nests.

Amy-Marie Gilpin receives funding from Western Sydney University and Horticulture Innovation Australia.
She is also a member of the IUCN Wild Bee Specialist Group Oceania.

How Anzac deaths changed the way we mourn to this day

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Thursday, April 25, 2024

Victor Farr, a private in the 1st Infantry Battalion, was among the first to land at Anzac Cove just before dawn on April 25 1915.When the first roll call was conducted on April 29, he was nowhere to be found.

Key Points:

Victor Farr, a private in the 1st Infantry Battalion, was among the first to land at Anzac Cove just before dawn on April 25 1915.

When the first roll call was conducted on April 29, he was nowhere to be found.
His record was amended to read “missing”, something guaranteed to send any parent into a blind panic.
It was not until January 1916 that it was determined Farr had been killed in action in Turkey sometime between April 25 and 29.
Read more:
How Anzac Day came to occupy a sacred place in Australians' hearts

A heavy price

Almost half of the eligible white, male population of Australia volunteered and enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force between 1914 and 1918. Of the 416,000 who joined up, more than 330,000 men served overseas. Of these, more than 60,000 would never return. These are among the highest casualty figures for any combatant nation in the entire war.

So the burden of bereavement fell on the shoulders of ageing parents.
The impact of wartime bereavement on ageing parents was enormous.

Some ended up in mental hospitals

She died unexpectedly at the age of 54 from heart failure on the first anniversary of her son’s death in France.
As I outlined in my PhD thesis, many working class mothers and fathers joined the wards of public mental hospitals, such as Callan Park in Sydney.

The psychiatric files I examined from several major mental hospitals showed evidence of delusions, fantasies and complete denial about their son’s death.
Upper class families avoided the stigma of public mental hospitals, as they could afford to see private doctors, and have nursing assistance at home.

How mourning changed

The scale of loss was as shocking as it was unprecedented, and permanently changed the culture of mourning practices in Australia.
Funeral services and overt displays of mourning differed according to class.

Neither was available to the bereaved in Australia during the Great War.
Read more:
Friday essay: images of mourning and the power of acknowledging grief
Instead, and with so many who were bereaved, the notion of claiming loss in public was seen as tasteless and vulgar.
The practice of wearing mourning black fell out of style.

Jen Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Gender-nonconforming ancient Romans found refuge in community dedicated to goddess Cybele

Retrieved on:

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Approved by the pope on March 25, 2024, the Vatican declaration asserts the Vatican’s opposition to gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy.

Key Points:

Approved by the pope on March 25, 2024, the Vatican declaration asserts the Vatican’s opposition to gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy.
Even in the ancient Roman Empire, individuals could transgress traditional conceptions of gender roles in various ways.
As a scholar of Greek and Latin literature, I have studied the “Galli,” male followers of the goddess Cybele.

Cybele: Mother of the gods

In the philosophical treatise “Hymn to the Mother of the Gods,” Julian the Philosopher, the last pagan emperor of the Roman empire, writes about the history of the cult of Cybele. In this treatise, he describes the cult’s main figures and how some of its rites were performed.

Often referred to as the Mother of the Gods, Cybele was first worshiped in Anatolia.
Cybele’s cult gave rise to a group of male followers, or attendants, known as Galli.
Among the surviving material evidence related to their existence are sculptures, as well as a Roman burial of an individual Gallus discovered in Northern England.

Attis: Cybele’s human companion

A statue from Ostia, Rome’s port city, depicts a reclining Attis, Cybele’s youthful male human companion.

In their tellings of Cybele’s myth, Greek and Roman authors give differing versions for Attis’ self-castration.
The Roman poet Catullus describes how Cybele puts Attis into a state of frenzy, during which he castrates himself.

Material evidence for the Galli

A relief sculpture from Lanuvium, now at the Musei Capitolini in Rome and dated to the second century C.E, is one of the few surviving representations of a Gallus.

The sculpted figure is adorned with an elaborate headdress or crown, a torque necklace and a small breastplate, as well as ornate clothing.
At Cataractonium, a Roman fort in Northern England, a skeleton was uncovered in the necropolis of Bainesse during excavations in 1981-82.
An examination of the bones, however, revealed that the remains were those of a young man – likely in his early twenties.

Respect for Galli

Galli, unlike other men in Rome or its empire, were able to openly present themselves or live as women, regardless of their assigned sex or how they identified.
Catullus’ poem and comments by other authors indicate that they perceived the gender of the Galli as differing from Roman concepts of masculinity.
However, the Galli were also, reluctantly, respected for the role they played in Cybele’s cult.
It is tempting to see the Galli as nonbinary or transgender individuals, even though the Romans did not know or use concepts such as nonbinary or transgender.

Tina Chronopoulos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Ancient nomads you’ve probably never heard of disappeared from Europe 1,000 years ago. Now, DNA analysis reveals how they lived

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Thursday, April 25, 2024

Health, Marriage, Down syndrome, Sibling, Cohesion (computer science), Disease, Chronology, Genetics, Society, Research, DNA, Female, Max Planck Society, Woman, Male, European Research Council, Byzantines

For centuries, our main sources of information have been pottery sherds, burial sites and ancient texts.

Key Points:

For centuries, our main sources of information have been pottery sherds, burial sites and ancient texts.
But the study of ancient DNA is changing what we know about the human past, and what we can know.

Who were the Avars?

The Avars were a nomadic people originating from eastern central Asia. From the 6th to the 9th century CE, they wielded power over much of eastern central Europe.

The Avars are renowned among archaeologists for their distinctive belt garnitures, but their broader legacy has been overshadowed by predecessors such as the Huns.
Nevertheless, Avar burial sites provide invaluable insights into their customs and way of life.

Kinship patterns, social practices and population dynamics

We combined ancient DNA data with archaeological, anthropological and historical context.
As a result, we have been able to reconstruct extensive pedigrees, shedding light on kinship patterns, social practices and population dynamics of this enigmatic period.

We sampled all available human remains from four fully excavated Avar-era cemeteries, including those at Rákóczifalva and Hajdúnánás in what is now Hungary. This resulted in a meticulous analysis of 424 individuals. Around 300 of these individuals had close relatives buried in the same cemetery. This allowed us to reconstruct multiple extensive pedigrees spanning up to nine generations and 250 years.

Communities were organised around main fathers’ lines

Our results suggest Avar society ran on a strict system of descent through the father’s line (patrilineal descent).
In contrast, women played a crucial role in fostering social ties by marrying outside their family’s community.
Our study also revealed a transition in the main line of descent within Rákóczifalva, when one pedigree took over from another.
Our results show an apparent genetic continuity can mask the replacement of entire communities.

Future direction of research

Our study, carried out with researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, is part of a larger project called HistoGenes funded by the European Research Council. This project shows we can use ancient DNA to examine entire communities, rather than just individuals. We think there is a lot more we can learn.

Now we aim to deepen our understanding of ancestral Avar society by expanding our research over a wider geographical area within the Avar realm.
Additionally, we plan to study evidence of pathogens and disease among the individuals in this research, to understand more about their health and lives.
Another avenue of research is improving the dating of Avar sites.

Bunbury receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) (project number CE170100015).
Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 856453.

South Africa’s youth are a generation lost under democracy – study

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Thursday, April 25, 2024

But what is the real state of young South Africans – defined as people below the age of 34 – after 30 years of democracy?

Key Points:

But what is the real state of young South Africans – defined as people below the age of 34 – after 30 years of democracy?
My recent research paper tracing 30 years of analysing youth marginalisation has found that youth in South Africa, who make up 34.3% of the population, have not fared well under democracy.

Measuring marginalisation

The survey recorded indicators like unemployment and level of education, as well as subjective views like feelings of alienation (not belonging in society).
The results were arranged on a scale of how far some young people had been pushed to the margins of society.
Comparing data from the 1992 and 2018 indices of youth marginalisation, the same proportion (5%) is clearly “lost” – scoring off the chart on virtually every indicator.
In terms of how much potential South Africa has squandered, they represent an entire generation of opportunity lost to the country.

Marginalised but not lost

As ever, they demonstrated their instrumental value to the adults controlling violence on various sides.
Those same adults and the media spoke of a “lost generation” – specifically, black, male, urban youth.

Marginalisation over time

In 1993, after first presenting to assembled youth organisations in 1992, we released the first iteration of the marginalisation index, Growing up Tough.
Despite the belief of our church sponsors that no-one is ever truly “lost”, that became the central category of the index.
In all, 5% of respondents scored high on all, or most, of the indicators in the 12 dimensions.
Most of the items in the index were later used by the Gauteng City Region Observatory in its early Quality of Life survey, allowing analysis of marginalisation across the entire Gauteng province population.
Only 0.3% of white youth (and 0.5% of Indian youth) showed signs of high marginalisation.

David Everatt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Why reading and writing poems shouldn’t be considered a luxury in troubling times

Retrieved on:

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Poetry by Wordsworth, Yeats and the only woman poet on our school curriculum, Emily Dickinson, became my sustenance.

Key Points:

Poetry by Wordsworth, Yeats and the only woman poet on our school curriculum, Emily Dickinson, became my sustenance.
In my teens, I was deeply affected by the plight of Ann Lovett.
My most recent collection, Conditional Perfect (2019), offers a broader emotional range, including anger about many forms of oppression.
I recognise that poetry can indeed be “the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness”, as the author Alice Walker once stated.

Poetry for social change

In a world teeming with injustice, it is more urgent than ever to read (and write) poetry that engages with social realities and inequities.
Poetry, as Audre Lorde memorably stated, “is a vital necessity of our existence.
In our social media-driven era, where it often feels as if nuance is in jeopardy, it is timely to think about how poetry can embrace the political while not succumbing to the lure of rhetoric.
During the Arab Spring in 2010, Abu Al-Qasim Al-Shabi’s poem The Will to Life captured the emotions of Tunisian protesters in their struggle for democracy and change.

Writing political poetry

What are the skills writers need to enable them to speak out, while avoiding the didactic and over-simplistic meaning?
These are some of the questions my colleague, poet Eoin Devereux, and I are discussing today with special guest poet and renowned activist Sarah Clancy, in a unique online event for this year’s Poetry Day Ireland.
To quote American poet Joy Harjo:
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.
Emily Cullen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Why don’t female crickets chirp?

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Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Sun, Noise, Female, Human, Male, Plant, Leg, Behavior, Kid, Grasshopper, Arthropod, Firefly, Butterfly, Animal, Singing, Spider, Toy

Why don’t female crickets chirp?

Key Points:

Why don’t female crickets chirp?
Among crickets, males are the only ones that make noise because females don’t have sound-producing structures on their wings.
But the female can hear very well and will come to a male who is signaling to her from some distance away.
You can learn to recognize them with a little practice, even if you never find the actual crickets.

Beyoncé and Dolly Parton’s versions of Jolene represent two sides of southern femininity

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Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Wind, Negotiation, Lemonade, Hatred, Head, Marriage, Modesty, Noise, Betrayal, Beauty, Femininity, Sleep, Attitude, African Americans, Rest, Hope, Woman, Male, Skin, The Golden Girls, Language, Pain, Linguistics, Movement, Human, Music

On her new album, Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé puts a new spin on Dolly Parton’s classic song, Jolene.

Key Points:

On her new album, Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé puts a new spin on Dolly Parton’s classic song, Jolene.
Some people commenting online were vocal about not liking Beyoncé’s version, often citing its lack of vulnerability when compared to Parton’s version.
There are upwards of 80 covers of Jolene, but Beyoncé’s is a departure from the rest.
The Houston native’s Jolene is decidedly Black, and therein lies the crux of the different reactions towards the song.
It is important to examine the story Dolly Parton tells on Jolene because it, too, is rooted in her racial and gendered identity as much as Beyoncé’s Jolene is.

How is Beyoncé’s story the same but different?

Towards the end of the song, Beyoncé and her partner turn a corner and offer hope against the disruption that Jolene represents.
Beyoncé’s Jolene is introduced by Dolly Parton herself in a short interlude.
Parton makes a clear association between her experience with Jolene and Beyoncé’s experience with “Becky with the good hair” (or “hussy” as Parton says).
But the term has evolved to encompass racially ambiguous women with European or Asian features, lighter skin and loose curls or straight hair.
Why would we expect the song to be the same when these two women are far from?

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.
Kadian Pow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

What doesn’t kill you makes for a great story – two new memoirs examine the risky side of life

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Tuesday, April 23, 2024

HR, Head, Excitable Boy, Monster Energy, Progressivism, Face, Human, Learning, Risk, Memory, Name, Essay, Shock, Education, Travel, Angel, Diary, Politics, Commodore, Bucking horse, Life, Student, Eye, Adolescence, Datsun, Woman, Male, Sydney University Dramatic Society, Peisley, Hachette, Embarrassment, System, Mouth, Injection, Catharsis, Collection, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Instinct, Virtue, Hand, Syndrome, Fear, State, Book

She questions whether women like herself – that is, the well-educated, sexually liberated beneficiaries of second-wave feminism – are really better off than their 1940s counterparts.

Key Points:

She questions whether women like herself – that is, the well-educated, sexually liberated beneficiaries of second-wave feminism – are really better off than their 1940s counterparts.
But it isn’t quite the avant-garde art crowd looking for anonymous vaginas to cast in their latest 16mm masterpieces either.

Reconstructed from the travel diary the author kept at the time, the adventure is everything you could possibly hope for in a road trip – provided you (or your daughter) aren’t the one taking it.
Datsun Angel proves the old adage about time and tragedy making for champagne comedy.
It self-consciously situates itself as a cross between the substance-induced exuberance of Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, and the provincially impassioned politics of Australian novelist Xavier Herbert.

For all her progressivism, there is a note of nostalgia ringing through Broinowski’s recollections.
Datsun Angel harks back to a looser – dare I say, more enjoyable – university experience.
The narrative promises, against well-intentioned assurances to the contrary, that what doesn’t kill you will, at the very least, make for a good story later on.
Broinowski goes part way towards acknowledging as much when she ends her postscript with: “If you’re male and reading this, kudos.

Detachment

Let me borrow one instead from the middle-aged Elmore Leonard fan whom Gordon encounters in the State Library Victoria early in the book: “dickhead”.
Yes, that about captures it: the protagonist of Excitable Boy is an unequivocal, grade-A dickhead.
Fortunately for Gordon (and dickheads more generally), the affliction may be chronic, but it need not be terminal.
This denotes an overriding structure or cohesion that I felt somewhat lacking from the work as a whole.

Detachment characterises much of Gordon’s storytelling as he kicks his younger self around the back alleys of Melbourne like a half-squashed can of Monster Energy Drink.
To be honest, I still haven’t made my mind up if Gordon’s aversion to Aristotelian catharsis is one of the book’s virtues or vices.
Detail has to be controlled by some overall purpose, and every detail has to be put to work for you.
Detail has to be controlled by some overall purpose, and every detail has to be put to work for you.
It is often difficult to gauge what overall purpose the details are serving in these essays, beyond fidelity to memory.

Luke Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Many prisoners go years without touching a smartphone. It means they struggle to navigate life on the outside

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Friday, April 19, 2024

Interview, Health, Crime, COVID, Face, Learning, Survival, Digital, NSW, Unemployment, Risk, Prison, Education, Ageing, Prisoner, Mortality, Recidivism, Social isolation, Literacy, Anxiety, Food, Male, Rehabilitation, MyGov, Nursing

You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy.

Key Points:

You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy.
We need only to look back ten years to realise how quickly things have changed.
In 2013, we were still predominantly buying paper bus tickets and using Facebook on a desktop computer.

Unfamiliar tech damaging confidence

Prison populations are getting older worldwide for a few reasons, including general population ageing, trends towards people entering prison at an older age, or staying in for longer. At the same time, Australian prisons remain highly technologically restricted environments, mostly for security reasons. We interviewed 15 Australians (aged 47–69 years) about their experiences of reintegration following release from prison.

They described feeling like a stranger thrown into a world where survival depended on their ability to use technology.
Regardless of their experiences before imprisonment, the rapid digitisation of daily functions that were once familiar to them rendered their skills and confidence irrelevant.
One former inmate said:
There’s a significant gap […] for anybody who’s done, I’m gonna say, probably more than five to seven years [in prison].
There’s a significant gap […] for anybody who’s done, I’m gonna say, probably more than five to seven years [in prison].

Exacerbating recidivism

There’s concerning evidence around recidivism, risk of post-release mortality, social isolation, unemployment and homelessness.
Digital exclusion creates an additional barrier for those who are older, who already face a high risk of medical and social marginalisation.
A former prisoner said:
Think about it, after being in ten years, well you think, okay, where do I start?

What can be done?

The interviewees provided suggestions for how such programs could be delivered and a keenness to engage with them.
They tended to focus on learning in environments free from stigma and judgement of their literacy level or histories, with hands-on experience and face to face support.
Interviewees favoured learning while in prison, with additional support available on the outside.
Based on the evidence, we can be certain this will encourage positive change for the 95% of Australian prisoners who will eventually be released.

Ye In (Jane) Hwang has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the Australian Association of Gerontology, and the University of New South Wales Ageing Futures Institute for this work.