https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqTubMeydDE
His whole channel is also excellent.
Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest
391–398 of 398 posts
Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know much about bees but I just recently started following an Instagram account (@texasbeeworks) that earlier this year posted a video[1] of a bee with a Varroa Mite. The video's caption: "Alright, here is what I want everyone to know about ‘murder hornets’. Only one nest of Asian Giant Hornets has been found in North America and it was quickly eradicated. Right now, the nation’s top entomologists are watchin…
> Only one nest of Asian Giant Hornets has been found in North America and it was quickly eradicated. Right now, the nation’s top entomologists are watching the situation and beekeepers like myself are not worried. I can't help but think of when we only had one covid case and people said not to worry.
I feel like there's a difference between...
> Right now the nation's top entomologists are watching the situation and beekeepers like myself are not worried.
... and ...
> It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.
Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know where I live most native pollinators are very selective and, as a result, in very small numbers since their habitat doesn’t resemble what it did even 100 years ago. They’re a drop in the bucket compared to what we require... And even if we made enormous efforts to boost their populations, I think they’d largely only pollinate fruit trees.
Not disagreeing with you just curious why they would largely only pollinate fruit trees?
Good question. I should have specified that I was saying that in the context of conventional crops. From what I've read, they don't pollinate many conventional crops but they are drawn to fruit trees. Otherwise mostly native plants which humans don't cultivate for food.
In some places I know similar species are actually grown for commercial pollination, so it'll vary from place to place for sure.
Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest
#394I always find the anti-environmentalist position that pops up on HN interesting. For a technical audience, they are amazingly unaware of "Systems Thinking". Saying "MEH, there are other pollinators" is lazy thinking. Our ecosystem is a vast web of interconnections. You cannot predict how one HUGELY important species being destroyed will affect the rest of our ecosystem. Furthermore: People use honey bees for honey (…
It's okay, we can just get cheap Chinese labor to manually pollinate all the fruit.
https://www.wired.com/2014/05/will-we-still-have-fruit-if-be...
Wonder how the economics are now!
Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that's Elon's position then he must have a huge load of cognitive dissonance if he still thinks prioritizing colonization of Mars is a worthwile contribution.
I'm rarely one to defend Elon, but that isn't cognitive dissonance, it's trying to have a plan B in face of reality. He certainly can't personally stop climate change, but maybe in theory he can get a step closer to building an ark. Hope/push for the former, prepare for the latter.
I disagree. If we bring earth into a state where Mars looks like the better alternative, then we deserve to go extinct.
Have you seen how Mars looks like? What the conditions are like? Temperature? Atmosphere? Radiation? Ecosystems (none)? Water (none)? Breathable air (none)? How could that ever be more inviting than earth?
Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hives are already a protective bubble, if the bees could make it more secure, they would. We could make lasers driven by ML to identify the hornets and shoot them down as they approach a hive, but that would be really expensive :)
> if the bees could make it more secure, they would I don't think the bees really have any input.
I'm not a beekeeper, and sure, the modern hives are also optimized for productivity and easy access(bees are forced to produce more honey than they would naturally produce) -- but hives entrances have certain dimensions taken from nature so the bees can cool the hive -- you cannot make the entrances smaller or the hive will overheat.
Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest
#397I always find the anti-environmentalist position that pops up on HN interesting. For a technical audience, they are amazingly unaware of "Systems Thinking". Saying "MEH, there are other pollinators" is lazy thinking. Our ecosystem is a vast web of interconnections. You cannot predict how one HUGELY important species being destroyed will affect the rest of our ecosystem. Furthermore: People use honey bees for honey (…
In general, I find people, probably due to the sheer difference in timescale that is beyond palpable understanding, to appreciate that our collective environmental impact precludes other species the evolutionary time to adapt to our impact and to fill gaps in "species web" to fill all the extinctions that are occurring.
Mass extinctions in the past were over a timescale of thousands of years, so there was some time for evolutionary "computation" to adapt.
Human mass extinction is occurring on the timescale of decades.
Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's hard to compare across countries. But mask-wearing Japan and South Korea have higher rates of flu and pneumonia deaths than the US/Canada/Europe Possibly confounded by disparate population densities. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_depend...
Belgium, the Netherlands, and Israel are all slightly less dense than South Korea, and more dense than Japan. Yet all three have significantly lower flu/pneumonia death rates than either South Korea or Japan. Bangladesh also has a slightly lower flu/pneumonia death rate than Japan, even though it has 3x the density (though Bangladesh has a somewhat lower life expectancy (72) than Japan (84); Belgium, Netherlands, and…
Do you have a source for that?