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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

New research shows that the insects flying around the streetlights are in fact in a living hell that we made for bugs.

@science

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3

Essentially, their tiny bug brains think the light is the sunset, so they keep turning to keep the "sun" at the same angle so they can go "straight." No matter how far they fly, they don't make any progress. They are trapped in this little hell we made just for them, not understanding why they can't get to where they are going.

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[-] [email protected] 128 points 1 year ago

They are trapped in this little hell we made just for them, not understanding why they can’t get to where they are going.

same

[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago
[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago
[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

The toaster is brave. The vacuum, however...

[-] [email protected] 72 points 1 year ago

All the best scientific articles use phrases like "in living hell".

So sciencey.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

What?

Hell is the most scientific of all locations.

Hail science!!!

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Are they getting much science done down there? Obviously it must be helpful that all of history's greatest scientific minds are gathered in one place -- but if nobody's serving them breakfast then maybe they're perpetually hypoglycemic and not doing much good thinking.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I understood that reference.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[-] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago

Open flames are more humane. Then they just burn up so they're not trapped forever.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

That just sounds like making a metaphorical hell literal

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

@Kolanaki brings a whole new meaning to "all those bugs should be burning in hell"

[-] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago

One evening I built a campfire to keep warm on the banks of a river in southern France. As the fire got going, millions of moths poured from the trees into the flames. As the numbers increased the flames leapt higher, and the moths became the fuel. The horror, the horror…

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Like moths to a... Yeah

[-] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I learned this back in the 90s, I'm surprised new research is needed.

The solution seems to be LED lighting. The right LED bulbs don't trigger the bug brains.

Edit to add source (below) and I forget the detail: it's about using LEDs with less blue light, since blue light affects the bugs.

https://phys.org/news/2022-10-impact-energy-efficient-streetlights-insects.html

[-] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

According to this study LED lights made no difference.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

@alvvayson Existing research was about "how do we stop the bugs from circling our lights?". This is about *why* the bugs circle the lights. It artificially triggers the dorsal reflex, which disorients the bugs.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Which LEDs? LEDs are pretty much all giving off the same two colors to make white: blue and yellow (in a single chip made of a blue LED and yellow uv-reactive phosphor). Warm white, cool white, same thing just varying intensities of each color. Only cheap color-changing LEDs (now) will use R/G/B chips lit together without dedicated white chips. What wavelengths are they tracking?

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Shout out Shuji Nakamura, inventor of the blue LED. Kinda broke the whole thing wide open.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I also watched that last week.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Watched that video last night. That was more fascinating than it had any right to be.

I've been an electronics nerd since the 70s, and somehow never noticed blue LEDs becoming a thing.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

why would they break their own invention?

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago
[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Unless you try to take a picture of them. The autofocus spooks them

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Lmao suck it

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I wonder how bugs will evolve to adapt to this. I wonder if we could see bughavior change within our lifetimes

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

We already have. Not with this specific trait, but definitely with other ones.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Oh i bet, bugs evolve fast

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well I can’t see at night so cry about it, bugs.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

@Shkshkshk @science I read this too a few weeks ago, and it got the old noggin joggin'.

What if some higher lifeform has done the same to us? Our sun could be the gods' bathroom light.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Something something money something something materialism

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

they will evolve. they don't seem to have any trouble breeding

this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
233 points (95.3% liked)

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