Black Hole Chaos, Tarantulas’ Surprising Friends

This week, the science headlines have been overwhelming, like an intense surge of information breaking through a barrier of ignorance. One might question who built that barrier and how it managed to get approved. Despite the many stories covered, here are three highlights, with two focusing on insects.

Unexpected Roommates

Tarantulas evoke one of two strong reactions: either deep-seated fear, as described by author David Foster Wallace as "the howling fantods," or fondness akin to that for pets like cats and dogs. People rarely feel neutral about these spiders.

Research from the University of Turku has uncovered surprising ecological interactions between tarantulas and various amphibians, reptiles, and insects. Notably, small frogs are often found living in tarantula burrows. They gain shelter while helping the spiders by consuming harmful insects.

The study also proposes that the hairy appearance of tarantulas might be an evolutionary defense against predatory army ants. Observations showed that these ants would clean up food scraps from tarantula burrows and were deterred from attacking the tarantulas by their dense, protective hairs. Alireza Zamani, the study’s lead author, suggests that these hairs serve to protect the tarantulas from ant attacks, supported by the fact that many burrowing tarantulas cover their egg sacs with urticating hairs.

Chaos in Black Holes

Black holes are studied indirectly through X-ray emissions from their accretion disks, which are complex and not fully understood. Researchers from the University of Helsinki aimed to understand how hot and cold regions form within these disks and lead to observable flares.

They created supercomputer simulations to analyze the effects of radiation, plasma, and magnetic fields around black holes, including quantum interactions. Their model revealed that turbulence in the accretion disk is driven by magnetic fields heating local plasma, which then emits X-rays. This research is groundbreaking as it is the first to include quantum effects in plasma physics models of black holes, answering questions that have puzzled physicists since the 1970s.

The study also explores how electrons and positrons (particles that annihilate each other) can exist near black holes and how these conditions create both hot and cold regions in the accretion disk.

Mosquito Targeting

How do mosquitoes accurately find their hosts? They use a combination of sensory information, including the scent of exhaled CO2. A study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara found that mosquitoes also use infrared vision, similar to the technology seen in the film "Predator," to locate human targets. When exposed to infrared radiation from a source at human skin temperature, mosquitoes were found to increase their host-seeking behavior twofold.

In laboratory experiments, mosquitoes exposed to both human odors and CO2, along with infrared radiation, displayed twice the probing activity compared to those exposed to just the odors and CO2. Nicolas DeBeaubien, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSB, was struck by the significant impact of infrared cues on mosquito behavior. However, it remains uncertain whether smearing oneself with mud to block infrared signals is as effective against mosquitoes as it is against extraterrestrial hunters.