Ants Have Teacher-Pupil Relationships
LONDON, Jan. 12, 2006 (UPI) British biologists have discovered that ants teach each other how to get food, in the first known example of a teacher-pupil relationship in non-humans.
Nigel Franks, a biologist at the University of Bristol, says members of the ant species Temnothorax albipennis use a technique known as tandem running to teach each other how to get from the nest to a food stash.
“While it’s well known that animals will mimic each other, so one animal is learning from another . . . there’s sort of a two-way street in teaching that defines true teaching,” he said.
A report by Franks and colleague Tom Richardson appear in the journal Nature.
In a tandem run, the lead ant only continues forward when frequently tapped on its legs and abdomen by the following ant’s antennae. When a gap appears between the two, each ant adjusts its speed to close it.
The lead ant could reach the food stash four times faster when not slowed by a follower, researchers said. But the follower ant finds the food faster than when searching alone and is ultimately able to quickly run solo errands.
—Copyright 2006 United Press International.
I am thinking of a color
“One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I havent mentioned
orange yet. Its twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES.”
—Frank OHara, from Why I Am Not a Painter. Thank you Ed Pramuk . . . I love this quote!
sparkling and twinkling
“Mr. Wonka was standing all alone just inside the open gates of the factory.
And what an exraordinary little man he was!
He had a black top hat on his head.
He wore a tail coat made of a beautiful plum-colored velvet.
His trousers were bottle green.
His gloves were pearly gray.
And in one hand he carried a fine gold-topped walking cane.
Covering his chin, there was a small neat pointed black bearda goatee. And his eyeshis eyes were most marvelously bright. They seemed to be sparkling and twinkling at you all the time.”
—Roald Dahl, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 1964.
Violet, youre turning violet
“Mercy! Save us! yelled Mrs. Beauregarde. The girls going blue and purple all over! Even her hair is changing color! Violet, youre turning violet, Violet!”
—Roald Dahl, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 1964.
not a speck of light is showing
“Theres no earthly way of knowing
Which direction they are going!
Theres no knowing where theyre rowing,
Or which way the rivers flowing!
Not a speck of light is showing,
So the danger must be growing,
For the rowers keep on rowing,
And theyre certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing. . . .”
—Willie Wonka, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, 1964.
Abbot Sugers theory of light
“Abbot Sugers theory of light . . . argued that man could come to a closer understanding of the light of God through the light of material objects in the physical world. This accounts for Sugers interest in magnificent liturgical vessels of gold and silver and also for the extraordinary set of stained-glass windows with which he adorned the radiating chapels of the chevert of St. Denis. He understood that stained glass had three basic properties: it was a bearer of holy images, an intrinsically rich material resembling precious stones, and a mystery, because it glowed without fire.”
—Robert Branner, from Gothic Architecture, 1965.
a dark star
“Like a dark star
That wants to hide,
You must, pretty lady,
Stay from my side,
And always on others
Rest those eyes
So no one discovers
What between us lies.”
Der von Krenberc (fl. ca. 1150), from the Krenberger, Der tunkel stern. From the anthology Lyrics of the Middle Ages, edited by James J. Wilhelm, 1990.
white as a lily, redder than a rose
“White as a lily, redder than a rose,
More splendid than a ruby oriental,
Your beauty I regard; no equal shows
White as a lily, redder than a rose.”
Guillaume de Machaut (c. 12951377), master musician of the middle ages, from the rondeaux Blanche com lys, plus que rose vermeille. From the anthology Lyrics of the Middle Ages, edited by James J. Wilhelm, 1990.
Diana
“When Diana with lamp of glass
Arises in the evening skies
Soft and glowly pinkly as
Her brothers fires round her die,
Zephyrs gentle breezes often
Force the clouds on high to soften,
Then steal away. . . .”
Anonymous, from the poem Dum Diana vitrea, part of the Carmina Burana, a collection of poems written down in the late thirteenth century which resurfaced in the early 1800s in Bavaria, not far from Munich. From the anthology Lyrics of the Middle Ages, edited by James J. Wilhelm, 1990.
Diana is the moon.
genus Rubia, family Rubiaceae, order Rubiales
“The madder rootdried and ground into dyers powderwas carried by Phoenician traders and mentioned in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Greek historian-wanderer Herodotus noted that it produced the striking vermilion shades on the goatskin cloaks of Libyas most elegant women. The Bible refers to madder as puah, which some scholars believe was also a lullaby sound used to calm crying infants. To the Romans, it was rubia, which has endured as its scientific name. Pliny the Elder believed the most bountiful madder flourished in gardens near Rome.
Genus Rubia, family Rubiaceae, order Rubiales. The linguistic lineage fans out in many direction: ruby, rubric, rubella.”
—Brian Murphy, from The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery, and Lore of the Persian Carpet, 2005.