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Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

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Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#21

so the honeycomb was mostly empty ? if there are 6 empty cells around each full cell, that would be the minimum extra distancing they could do

And also have they taken out the effect of parasite in their population (quantity), which implying "social distancing"?

Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#22
post #7
post #5

The term "social distancing" was not a thing until the CoVid-19 pandemic, in my experience. It could be a sign of the times so the term is used because it is now popularly understood. The Intro notes that "This hypothesis has been recently confirmed in the ant Lasius niger infected with the fungal pathogen Metarhizium brunneum, which induced behavioral changes ..." So it looks like this behaviour might be selected fo…

It has been part of the literature since the early 1980s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=social+distanc... It just wasn't a widely-known term because we didn't have much need for it.

This is not correct. Almost all old ngram references are not to do with the current terms usage.

That's because the term is wrong.

It's not social distancing it should be physical distancing. Even then it should be more abstract and more about restricting shared air.

This has been a PR failure.

Contagion used it in 2011 (Not Outbreak). So it is a old term that might be interesting to trace. One might guess SARS? Or maybe Contagion even made it famous.

(And bees can't social distance, you'd have to be brain dead to believe this. No animal can. Humans couldn't for most of their time on Earth. Animals can avoid diseased animals and perhaps emergent behaviour of a hive might seem like bees social distance, but the bee isn't. But it's a stupid name anyway, so it's kinda obvious the paper is crap)

Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#23
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been part of the literature since the early 1980s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=social+distanc... It just wasn't a widely-known term because we didn't have much need for it.

Well, we did have a need for it but we just chose to ignore that need. Something like 30,000 people died every year from the regular flu in the USA alone, before pandemic. Social distancing (and masks) would bring that number to close to 0. So if we're going by metrics of, we'd like to save 30,000 people every year, we absolutely had a need for social distancing all this time. But I get it, our society has a large to…

You're forgetting about the need for closeness and connection. Suicide rates among youth are at an all-time high. Crime and murder rates have gone up tremendously since the beginning of the pandemic. Saving 30,000 from the flu sounds great, but there are serious impacts from the extreme mask mandates and social distancing and the ones I mentioned are just what are immediately obvious. I imagine when you see the educational impact that many low income students actually end up suffering the most during the pandemic. Many teachers simply don't care if students aren't in school anymore. After all, if a student has the sniffles they'll get quarantined from school for 10+ days with no supplemental education.

I find what you're proposing might actually say more about your mental state than that of the people you think are endangering others by existing and wanting human connection.

Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#24
What we are seeing in human society is a psychological attack. Murder and suicide rates are skyrocketing. Funny how the media says we don't know why. Maybe it has to do with the lack of social supports. When inflation and housing prices are at an all time high, we are still quarantining kids for 10+ days from school and expecting parents to have unlimited paid family leave.

Kids are expected to sit inside the whole time and obesity is also at an all time high. Make sure we reward people for getting vaccines with donuts and free alcohol. Might as well give them a pack of cigarettes as well since we care so much about health as a society.

Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#25
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we did have a need for it but we just chose to ignore that need. Something like 30,000 people died every year from the regular flu in the USA alone, before pandemic. Social distancing (and masks) would bring that number to close to 0. So if we're going by metrics of, we'd like to save 30,000 people every year, we absolutely had a need for social distancing all this time. But I get it, our society has a large to…

You're forgetting about the need for closeness and connection. Suicide rates among youth are at an all-time high. Crime and murder rates have gone up tremendously since the beginning of the pandemic. Saving 30,000 from the flu sounds great, but there are serious impacts from the extreme mask mandates and social distancing and the ones I mentioned are just what are immediately obvious. I imagine when you see the educa…

Social distancing doesn’t always and automatically mean widespread prolonged lockdown. We are dealing with a novel coronavirus right now which how it spread and testing wasn’t immediately at hand. For something like the flu that we’re quite good at testing for social distancing could be as simple as stop incentivizing employees to come to work sick, and stop incentivizing parents to send their kids to school or daycare sick.

Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#26
Ants dispose of ants that are cordyceps infected for their “social distancing”. The worst part is the political stances people make based on the logic of social insects.

Social distancing is such a fuzzy term, it is as clear as the word “thing”.

Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#27
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been part of the literature since the early 1980s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=social+distanc... It just wasn't a widely-known term because we didn't have much need for it.

Well, we did have a need for it but we just chose to ignore that need. Something like 30,000 people died every year from the regular flu in the USA alone, before pandemic. Social distancing (and masks) would bring that number to close to 0. So if we're going by metrics of, we'd like to save 30,000 people every year, we absolutely had a need for social distancing all this time. But I get it, our society has a large to…

One thing i admired when traveling to south east asia in the years before covid - people wearing masks to protect others in case they got any kind of respiratory sickness, or protecting themselves. In comparison, even in progressive countries like Switzerland, during initial phase of Covid people wearing masks to work and outside were sometimes badly ridiculed by natives young and old, and in some cases even fired from work for 'spreading panic' (I know a guy on immunosupressants who had no other choice).

In comparison with usual western coughing and sneezing on all public transport it seemed extremely considerate and I've expressed numerous times the wish west would adopt this at least a bit.

But maybe my optics is flawed and this was an after-effect of SARS which missed west completely and before that, it was same situation there.

Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#28
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been part of the literature since the early 1980s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=social+distanc... It just wasn't a widely-known term because we didn't have much need for it.

Well, we did have a need for it but we just chose to ignore that need. Something like 30,000 people died every year from the regular flu in the USA alone, before pandemic. Social distancing (and masks) would bring that number to close to 0. So if we're going by metrics of, we'd like to save 30,000 people every year, we absolutely had a need for social distancing all this time. But I get it, our society has a large to…

> Something like 30,000 people died every year from the regular flu in the USA alone, before pandemic. Social distancing (and masks) would bring that number to close to 0.

How many of that number are people dying with flu, as opposed to from flu?

It wasn't long ago that pneumonia was called "old man's friend".

Measures to coddle our immune system can also be counter productive. The flu season in the UK is feared to be bad this year, as people have spent so long without mixing.

Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#29
post #5

The term "social distancing" was not a thing until the CoVid-19 pandemic, in my experience. It could be a sign of the times so the term is used because it is now popularly understood. The Intro notes that "This hypothesis has been recently confirmed in the ant Lasius niger infected with the fungal pathogen Metarhizium brunneum, which induced behavioral changes ..." So it looks like this behaviour might be selected fo…

If find the term social distancing misleading, it's not about social but physical distance.

Re: Honey bees increase social distancing when facing ectoparasite

#30
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been part of the literature since the early 1980s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=social+distanc... It just wasn't a widely-known term because we didn't have much need for it.

We watched the old movie "Outbreak" at the start of Covid, and was surprised that the term "social distancing" is used in that movie to describe mitigations we should use during the pandemic. That movie is from 1995.

At the same time there was an large ebola outbreak in africa. Imagine the conspiracy theories nowadays about this coincidence.
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