SCIENCE QUESTIONS (in reverse chronology)

QUESTION FOR THE DAY December 13, 2022

What do we know about the December 5, 2022 Thermo Nuclear Fusion event at LLNL (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) in California? Start with 10,000 people.

Fusion powers our sun and other stars. Historically, we have dreamed of making clean energy but it has not been possible to generate more energy than what it takes to fuel a reactor in a power plant. 

But on December 5th, 2022 a team of scientists at LLNL fired 192 giant lasers into the ends of a gold capsule target containing a  bb sized pellet of very heavy hydrogen.   (see Fig. 1 )

Figure 1 

 

A gold capsule under the focus of 192 lasers instantly vaporizes creating a plasma that compresses the heavy hydrogen pellet inside. This extreme pressure forces the hydrogen molecules to release more energy that it took to power the 192 lasers. This was the world changing thermonuclear event of December 5, 2022 that took place 47 miles east of San Francisco.

 

 Experimental Physicist Tammy Ma explains

 

 

 

 

Figure 2 : using HEAVY HYDROGEN (from sea water.  Just one gallon of seawater could produce as much energy as 300 gallons of gasoline.Credit: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2014/02/fuel-gain-over-unity-in-inertially.html

 

 

 

There are two pathways to the creation of fusion energy: 1. magnetic confinement and 2.  inertial confinement (used at LLNL).

 

1. Magnetic-confinement bottles the fusion reaction into a magnetic container while inertial-confinement employs laser arrays.

Illustration: Chris Philpot

 

 

How The National Ignition Facility (NIF) Works

QUESTION FOR THE DAY August 5, 2022

1. Why does the rain have a pleasant scent?  Click HERE.

2. How far away is lightning? Click HERE.  Scroll way down for the answer.

 

3. Tachinid flies lay their eggs by either 1. depositing eggs directly on monarch caterpillars or 2. depositing eggs on milkweed plants emitting a distress scent that draws tachinids to a prime egg depositing location, and where caterpillars will come in close contact with eggs. 

Our question for today is which method of egg transfer is being used by tachinid flies here in Orange County California?  When we find this answer, we'll better be able to increase the chances of survival for local monarch butterflies. This week, I've brought small caterpillars to safety inside just in case tachinid eggs are deposited on older caterpillars.  I've also started washing milkweed leaves and seed pods in case tachinid eggs have been left on the milkweed.  Next, I'll do research on which egg depositing method is in play at this location.  

SOURCE #1

https://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/diptera/index.htm#Brachycera

 

Count five seconds. Sound travels about 1 mile in 5 seconds.

PARASITES, PARISITOIDS, AND MONARCH BUTTERFLIES

Monarch butterflies are facing extinction. The cause might just be a Tachinid, a beneficial fly (beneficial to agriculture) but not to Monarch butterflies.  See video clips 1 & 2.

Video Clip 1

Source:  Toby Manzanares

Here, we will start a data set that will shed light on this threat during Monarch Season 2.

DATE          DEATHS FROM                UNKNOWN                      SURVIVED TO

                    PARASITOIDS                  CAUSE OF DEATH          ADULT BUTTERFLY   

    

8-10-2022               15                                           2                                            4

QUESTION FOR THE DAY        Some species of tachinid flies 1. lay their eggs directly on monarch caterpillars while others species 2. deposit them indirectly on milkweed plants.

When monarch caterpillars feed on milkweed, the plant emits a distress scent. Tachinids flies evolved to follow the trail of that scent to located monarch larvae. 

Our question for today is which method of egg transfer is being used by tachinid flies here in Orange County California?  When we find this answer, we'll better be able to increase the chances of survival for local monarch butterflies. This week, I've brought small caterpillars to safety inside just in case tachinid eggs are deposited on older caterpillars.  I've also started washing milkweed leaves and seed pods in case tachinid eggs have been left on the milkweed.  Next, I'll do research on which egg depositing method is in play at this location. 

 SOURCE #1   SOURCE #2 Our parasitoid Tachinid fly may be Chetogena sp. documented in El Morro Canyon, Laguna Beach.CA

SOURCE #2

"In some species, eggs are deposited on foliage near the host insect, and the maggots are ingested during feeding by the host after they hatch. In other species, the adult fly glues eggs to the body of the host, and the maggots penetrate into the host's body after the eggs hatch. Some female tachinids possess a piercing ovipositor and insert their eggs into the host body. In all cases, tachinid maggots feed internally in their hosts and exit the host body to pupate."  --From University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.

The following four photos are to aid in the identification of the tachinid fly parasite in our South Laguna Beach study.

Click HERE to participate in the Monarch Community Science Project

Click HERE for Monarch Health Annual Results

"A study looking at the rates of parasitization by the most common tachinid parasitoid of Monarchs, Lespesia archippivora, showed that about 13% of wild Monarch caterpillars contained these parasitoids!"  --Matthew L. Gimmel, Ph.D. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

So how do Tachinid eggs get onto and into a Monarch caterpillar?

James E. O'Hara  http://www.nadsdiptera.org/Tach/AboutTachs/TachOverview.html

"The ancestral mode of host finding in Tachinidae likely involved a series of cues, olfactory and visual, that guided a searching female to the right microhabitat and host plant and then to an exposed host, where perhaps tactile stimuli initiated oviposition behavior. This method of host location is still common, but there are many sophisticated behaviors that have evolved to aid the searching tachinid. For example, oviposition in numerous tachinids does not involve the visual sighting of a host. In the case of Goniini, microtype eggs are deposited on the food plant of a host, usually in response to plant volatiles released at the site of feeding damage, and the eggs do not hatch until ingested by a host."

"Tachinid flies and other parasitoids exert selection pressures on their hosts to evolve ways in which to minimize parasitism. The more obvious may involve the evolution of cryptic coloration, specialized feeding strategies such as concealed feeding or feeding at night, or evasive maneuvers that are evoked when a host is attacked. Less obvious, but quite important at the community level, are the effects of tachinid parasitism on host and host-plant interactions (i.e., tritrophic interactions). Insect herbivores do not always feed preferentially on plant species that provide the highest nutrition. Certain insect herbivores will feed on less preferred host plants if such feeding reduces their level of mortality due to parasitism. The investigation of enemy-free space as an important component of tritrophic interactions is an active area of research."

Click HERE for the entire O'Hara article.

Video Clip 2:  Tachinid fly depositing eggs on caterpillar.

Source: http://www.filming-varwild.com/a-machaon.html