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Heat sensors guide insects to a hot meal
Students of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, and colleagues in British Columbia were studying the lifestyles of the conifer seed bug when they noticed that when the weather got colder, they would be attracted to heat. Since the seed bug’s favorite food is conifer cones, they decided to look at the tree with an infrared camera. What they found was that the tree lit up like a Christmas tree, with all the cones being yellow meaning that the cones were emitting heat. To further test this idea, they took the temperature of the needles, which ended up being 15 degrees Celsius colder than the cones. Then, they exposed the seed bugs to strong and weak infrared radiations and they were always attracted to the stronger ones. From this, the scientists decided that the seed predators specialize in detecting heat that is emitted by their host plant.
5 comments:
Sarah did a really good job on picking an interesting article, giving a full summary, and making it to the point.
She can improve her article by explaining more because it was hard to follow due to the fact I wasn't sure what everything was. Also, she may want to put something in her summary that relates to people, such as the bugs were turning up in people's houses during the chilly weather.
I learned that the cones on the plant were up to 15 degrees Celsius warmer than the needles.
1- very direct, to the point
2- short nice summary
3- interesting - keeps reader interested
1- have facts better organized
2- simplify it - make it less confusing
I learned that there were bugs (the conifer seed bugs) that were attracted to heat.
Sarah did a good job because her article all aspects of the article needed to be known to understand it were mentioned. There were very few, if any, grammatical errors in her article as well. Lastly, her article was not of the ordinary, so it was easy for people to be attracted to.
However, Sarah could have explained what the seed bug was because i didn't know what it was when i read her article. Also, she could have explained the effect the bugs had on the tree to explain to the reader why it lit up.
I learned from this article that bugs have the ability to detect heat that is emitted by a plant.
I liked how she described the experiment they used. I also liked how she introduced the tendences of the seed bug. Lastly I liked how she showed what the students hypothosis was. Next time I suggest that she say why they were studying the bug and that she explain it better so its not as confusing. Some thing that helped me to understand was how she showed that the tree was emiitting heat which is responsible for the attraction of the bugs.
1. short and to the point
2. interesting article
3. taught me several new things
1. Maybe a bit more information is necessary
2. Could have explained about the bugs
1. I learned that these bugs are attracted to heat
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