Here鈥檚 some CU news you can use: twerking bees, the challenges of sending humans to Mars, and seven听lessons CU Boulder scientists helped discover about COVID-19.
Twerking bees phone home
What we learned:
- To communicate over long distances, honeybees pass pheromones, or small and odorous molecules, across a network that looks like a phone tree.
- As bees gather听around a queen to build a swarm, large numbers of them will engage in what scientists call the 鈥渟centing鈥� behavior: sticking their hind ends into the air and beating their wings furiously.
- The group's findings could one day help engineers to design more efficient telecommunications networks.
Challenges of sending humans to Mars
What we learned:
- When humans finally visit Mars, they may face a journey lasting 1,000 days.听
- If future Mars astronauts get lonely, or if something more serious goes wrong, help is a long way away.
- From developing new tools for monitoring the mental health of astronauts to designing space habitats that keep working even when people aren't听aboard, researchers are working to keep humans safe and healthy.
7 lessons about coronavirus that CU Boulder scientists helped discover
What we learned:
- Ventilation is key to reducing the spread of COVID-19.听
- Vaccinating adults 60 or above first seems听to be the most effective approach for lowering mortality rates.听
- We need to flatten the mental health curve, too. Fear, misunderstanding and loneliness can also be dangerous to our health.听