Tha smartest mother fucker in the room
the flies
Submitted 7 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/9c12dbcd-7443-4517-a903-27a0559414b0.png
Comments
wolfpack86@lemmy.world 7 months ago
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What is the burger tie for? To repel hippies?
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 7 months ago
No it’s to wipe the sauce off his chin after finishing a burger!
Emmie@lemm.ee 7 months ago
What is America known for? Burgers and prisons
wolfpack86@lemmy.world 7 months ago
No, that’s just to look cool
wieson@lemmy.world 7 months ago
In the cited study with buckets, it was shown that striped and spotted surfaces attract fewer flies.
That makes me think if Nguni cattle Nguni cattle have an easier time with those pests.
If yes, that would be another plus for hardy landraces in place of overengineered, capitalmaxxed breeds.
Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world 7 months ago
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
So, I was able to convince a coworker that I had a friend who worked at our nearby zoo, and that my friend let me in on the secret that zebras aren’t real, they’re just horses painted to look like that, “big zoo is lying to us to get our money” you know.
Well, long story short I’m gonna need to steal this image from you and crop it, thanks.
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’m going on holiday to Cambodia in February. Guess I’ll bring my body paint supplies and run around in war stripes over my body.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
now that the song is playing forcefully in my brain i’m going to make you suffer with me
roguetrick@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Don’t forget to pack a wife.
gwen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
YESSS BEAT ME TO IT LMAO
And009@reddthat.com 7 months ago
Can confirm, insects are drawn to brightness
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Luckily my soul is dark and bitter.
ummthatguy@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Good for their physical health, but not great for their personal goals and expectations.
neidu2@feddit.nl 7 months ago
Yup. Large creatures knows better than to wear stripes.
ummthatguy@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
I’m pretty sure this study shows that paint repels mosquitos. Not much else.
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 7 months ago
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Why has evolution let these cows down?
InverseParallax@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I mean, we kind of hijacked evolution in favor of hypergrowth and ludicrous gazongas a long time ago.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Hippity, hoppety. Your natural selection is now my property!
loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
In most places horse are more nuisances than actual threats to large mammals. But then, there are the tsé-tsé flies…
CrispyFern@hexbear.net 7 months ago
That one zoo that painted a donkey and tried to pass it off as a zebra were just way ahead of their time
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Wasn’t that a dog and a panda?
gmtom@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’m about to start dressing like beetlejuice
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Reminds me of a donkey I saw in Mexico painted like a zebra trying to trick tourists
AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Sure, but there’s also the secondary market of people who think it’s hilarious to get a photo with a donkey painted like a zebra to trick tourists. Lean into it a bit, like wrestling, it could be fun.
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
After 10 Pacificos I will in fact be leaning
Cort@lemmy.world 7 months ago
This is no donkey painted like a zebra, it’s a majestic hybrid zonkey. Just 5 dollars to take a photo, or 3 for $10.
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’ll come back after 10 Pacificos
JokeDeity@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Source? I’m curious to read about this. How do they know the paint didn’t do it? Another comment here said that spots also do the trick, so if you have two cows in the same field, one spotted and one solid colored, is the solid colored cow getting 2x as many flies? Do the stripes still work when surrounded by other cows who don’t have stripes? So many questions!
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
This is why we need the paper linked with the meme. It seems obvious that a fly would prefer skin to paint.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 7 months ago
I like to see what you guys can find when you dig around. ;)
exasperation@lemm.ee 7 months ago
How do they know the paint didn’t do it?
There were 3 groups of black cows: an unpainted control group, a black stripe group painted with black stripes (not very visible because the cows were already black), and a black and white painted group. The control group had similar results to the black stripe group, which suggests that the black paint alone didn’t do anything.
So further research could be to compare to an all black painted group and an all white painted group, with no unpainted fur, as well. If it’s the pattern, then one would expect the totally painted cattle of either paint color would see similar results as unpainted.
JokeDeity@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Brilliant, thanks!
bstix@feddit.dk 7 months ago
If they figure out if it’s the white stripes or black stripes that do the trick they could reach 100%.
bi_tux@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I first read function as in mathemetical function, now I wonder, what the avarege zebras stripes function is
felsiq@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
Pedantic warning: it’s not a conventional function, cuz it’d be multivalued for any given input no matter where you put the axes lol
lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
Some horse fly blankets and hoods have a zebra pattern, probably for the same reason.
AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 7 months ago
Moobra
ryan213@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
That’s where Hershey’s Cookies and Cream chocolate bars are from!
over_clox@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Wait wait wait, I’m calling bullshit. I see no udders, nor any horns. That’s obviously two people wearing a striped cow costume for Halloween, duh.
three@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Why are the top comments in a science community so proudly anti-intellectual?
Donut@leminal.space 7 months ago
It’s a meme community, it’s kinda in the name. Brains go out, meme go in. Monke laugh
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Yeah but is this community for the scientists, or the memers!
engelsaxons@hexbear.net 7 months ago
So if flies are attracted to dead things, and black and white stripes deter flies, then I believe we’ve just explained Beetlejuice’s appearance!
propter_hog@hexbear.net 7 months ago
QED
Retrograde@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What if the flies just hated the smell of the paint lol
rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Cute dog
autokludge@programming.dev 7 months ago
Beeflejuice
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 7 months ago
See, some people think forcible sterilization is never acceptable, and yet we have multiple comments from people that didn’t read the study asking if the authors thought of something.
Maybe you’d know if you were literate.
You can have your balls back if you do your homework.
MBM@lemmings.world 7 months ago
This thread is like a Reddit/Lemmy Smart Guy combo. People who just assume paid researchers didn’t consider this extremely basic thing they learned about in high school, and also hinting at IQ-based eugenics
PineRune@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Being illiterate has no correlation with wanting other people to do all the work for me. We’re just lazy. Please do some homework before jumping to conclusions.
desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
still sounds like reproduction being a privilege is a good idea
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Alright, so for the idiots here, how is this not a study showing that paint repels mosquitos?
Dragonstaff@leminal.space 7 months ago
The treatments were black-and-white painted stripes, black painted stripes, and no stripes (all-black body surface). Recorded fly-repelling behaviors were head throw, ear beat, leg stamp, skin twitch, and tail flick. Photo images of the right side of each cow were taken using a commercial digital camera after every observation and biting flies on the body and each leg were counted from the photo images. Here we show that the numbers of biting flies on Japanese Black cows painted with black-and-white stripes were significantly lower than those on non-painted cows and cows painted only with black stripes
Black paint was not as effective as black and white paint.
keepcarrot@hexbear.net 7 months ago
Time to dust off my old timey prison outfit
pjwestin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Interesting. A while ago, I read that zebra stripes were meant to confuse predators. Basically, the idea was that when they ran as a herd, their stripes made it difficult to tell where one zebra ended and the other began. I wonder if that’s considered bunk now or if this is supposed to be an additional benefit.
10_0@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Can’t wait to see this in British fields whenever I venture outside the basement!
Isa@feddit.org 7 months ago
Sure, that it wasn’t the smell of the paint, that drove the insects away?
flora_explora@beehaw.org 7 months ago
If you look at the study you can see that they also had a treatment of black stripes on black cows to control for just that:
The cows were assigned to treatments using a 3 × 3 Latin-square design. The treatments consisted of black-and-white painted stripes (B&W), black painted stripes (B), and no stripes (CONT) as a control (Fig 1).
Isa@feddit.org 7 months ago
Thanks for the response. 🙂 I indeed hadn’t look into the paper as there was no link in the original post, but I have done so now and it seem, you are right. Thanks! 👍
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Do zebras smell of paint?
Isa@feddit.org 7 months ago
This doesn’t help very much.
FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 7 months ago
moo
lnxtx@feddit.nl 7 months ago
Yay, more animal abuse.
Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 7 months ago
If it actually helps to deter insects, than I think it is the opposite of animal abuse.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
They might mean the paint itself is abuse, which I think most vegans would agree with, but the more solid part is the abuse around owning either a commercial farm cow, or a research and testing cow.
It is just a picture but its hard to assume this cow came in from the grassland asking for help woth mosquitos, and we nice humans obliged.
bi_tux@lemmy.world 7 months ago
how exactly is painting a cow animal abuse? I’m curios
over_clox@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Did they study the paint chemicals themselves to see if that by itself was a natural bug repellant?
Did they check if the paint chemicals are even safe for cows?
🤔
essteeyou@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What if it’s just the white stripes (not the band)? Do white cows have the same number of flies? What if you paint them with black stripes?
Maybe those are answered in the article, but I’ll never read it.
over_clox@lemmy.world 7 months ago
LOL, same. Not worth the reading time. Any which way you twist it, there’s still probably way too many unknown factors.
Liz@midwest.social 7 months ago
Yes. They had a control group with only black stripes along with an unpainted group. I would have to assume they also checked the paints for potential repellents, but I only skimmed the article.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6776349/
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 7 months ago
There is also the point creating a barrier.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Instead of unpainted black they should have done painted black, or done both.
SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I haven’t read the study, but most of these would need a placebo group, so divide the herd into thirds, one with no paint, one with stripes, and one fully painted white to get a baseline for each group. Also would be good to randomize which group each cow goes in each day so to rule out one cow who is especially tasty to flies.
Tja@programming.dev 7 months ago
Also blindfold the scientists and the cows so it’s double blind. We don’t want the cows acting in a fly-attracting way because of placebo.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Those groups also have another characteristic that changes: the amount of the cow covered in paint.
How do you determine if its that vs the stripes or colors?
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’ve not seen the study referenced, but if I were doing it I’d have cows I painted with white paint, white stripes, black paint, and a control I left unpainted.
over_clox@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Yes, obviously. But are the flies possibly repelled by the paint? Are the flies even able to bite through the paint?
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
This study is posted in another comment here, but they left out the black paint group.
blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
A control group where they mix the colors together and paint them grey would answer that
over_clox@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Can a biting fly even penetrate paint, to consume that precious bovine blood?
StaticFalconar@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What if you actually read the study before asking questions 😅😜🤔