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31 October 2003

E-Bulletin Backscatter

Beetles Orient Themselves Using Polarized Scattered Moonlight

Sheldon,

Page 11 of the Sept. 2003 Laser Focus World has an article about work at several universities that showed that the African dung beetle (Scarabaeus zambesianus) has receptors for analyzing polarized light and that the beetle uses this for orientation at night. They actually use polarized moonlight to navigate! Apparently you can obtain more information from Marie Dacke at marie.dack@cob.lu.se.

This sounds like relatively low tech science, the kind of thing an amateur might contribute to. I wonder if there might be other beetles that do the same thing. You might ask if there are other beetles for whom navigation at night is an important element in their behavior. Those would be the beetles (or other creatures) to test.

Regards,

Peter Baum

Electricity and Magnetism Book

Sheldon,

This looks like an interesting source for amateur experimenters.

http://phyld.ucr.edu/Electricity%20&%20Magnetism%201/electricity_and_magnetism_book_1.htm

John Chalmers

California Fires

Tim Dolan sent us the following link to images of the fires currently raging in Southern California:

http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/fire_imagery.php

We'd like to thank Tim for bringing this resource to our attention

Sheldon Greaves

Celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope

Sheldon

SAS members might want to look at this web site with a very well-done presentation of some of the Hubble Space Telescope's best images. It's worth a look.

http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811-hubble.htm

Denise Greaves