The central idea of the article first emerges in the third paragraph.
Use the article to answer the question.
"Are Commercial Honeybees Making Wild Bees Sick?"
by Berly McCoy
Everyone wants to save the bees. But as populations decline every year, we may be saving them to death.
Human efforts to breed more of these insects in artificial beehives and plant more flowers may seem the obvious way to stave off heavy losses.
New research shows the answer is not that clear cut, because viruses may be spilling over from commercial honeybee colonies into wild bee populations, according to a study from the University of Vermont published Wednesday in PLOS One. Like honeybees, which are invaluable for agriculture, wild bumblebees also play a significant role in crop pollination. Though people are more familiar with honeybee die-offs such as with colony collapse disorder wild bumblebees have been struggling too. A handful of bumblebee species have declined by up to 96 percent in the U.S., according to the National Agricultural Library's website.
The causes have been largely understudied, although pesticides, infectious disease and shrinking habitat due to climate change have been suspected, said Samantha Alger, an ecologist from the University of Vermont who led the new research. Filling in one piece of the puzzle, the study revealed wild bumblebees pick up more viruses the closer they forage to managed honeybee colonies. But if bumblebees don't venture into the commercial hives, how are they picking up viruses?
Flowers have been suspected as reservoirs for bee viruses, but no researcher had linked virus deposits on flowers to bumblebee infections in the wild until this study. And the results could have implications for how we lend our inter-species help.
What the scientists did
The team plucked wild bumblebees from 19 sites around northern Vermont. Some sites were close to a commercial apiary within 0.2 miles or a short city block while others were farther away - at least 0.6 miles. If honeybees were present, the researchers collected them too. The team then measured the number of viruses stuck to each bee. Just because an animal has a virus on its outside doesn't mean it has an infection. You may have touched your friend's influenza-soaked tissue, but washed your hands before the flu infected you. So the researchers also tested each bee for virus genetic material, which is only made once the virus infects a host.
The team looked at two viruses cell virus deformed wing virus and black queen both of which infect honeybees and bumblebees. These Infections can potentially cause significant colony damage in honeybees, but researchers don't know yet what they do to bumblebee colonies. To figure out how honeybee viruses are jumping to bumblebees, the researchers collected flower samples. Back in the lab, they tested ground- up flowers for viruses and mapped how close the contaminated flowers were to apiaries. They suspected that bees shed virus pieces on flowers during foraging.
What they found
All of the honeybee colonies tested by the researchers were positive for both viruses, an unfortunate but common occurrence for commercial colonies.
But the number of wild bumblebees carrying viruses varied depending on the proximity to the domesticated hives. There was also variation between the two viruses. More than 90 percent of bumblebees collected close to apiaries carried black queen cell virus. In sites farther from apiaries, and where no honeybees were foraging, just under 40 percent were positive for this virus. When the researchers checked for actual infections, they found that the proximity to an apiary wasn't telling of whether a bumblebee was infected with black queen cell virus. That means sites near and far from a commercial beehive had the same abundance of black queen cell virus Infections.
The connection was clearer for deformed wing virus infections. Twenty percent of bumblebees foraging close to apiaries carried the virus on their outsides and 10 percent had active infections. But in sites more than a half mile away from an apiary, where honeybees were absent, not a single bumblebee tested positive for deformed wing virus an infection... as a carrier or with
When the researchers looked at infected flowers, they noticed a similar trend. Of the 20 percent of flowers that tested positive for viruses, all were picked close to apiaries. And the denser the flower patch in these areas, the higher the rate of deformed wing virus infection in bumblebees. Why it matters
If human-managed bees and bee-friendly flowers are acting as hotspots for pathogens, keeping more bees and planting more flowers may be contributing to the steep losses in commercial pollinators seen in the U.S. each year, as well as fueling the decline of wild bees. The more that bees are transported and concentrated for larger-scale pollination events, the more opportunities for diseases to spread.
And it's not just a one-way street. "It's likely the transmission is going both ways," said Scott McArt, a pollinator ecologist at Cornell University who was not involved in the study. Even if diseases in commercial bees are eliminated, new infections from the wild bee population, which are known to harbor pathogens, could spill back into managed populations, making disease eradication even tougher than it is now.
From the urban gardener to the rural farmer, people are encouraged to grow "bee-friendly" plants.
"But in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels when you plant those flowers," said Sheila Colla, a conservation biologist at York University who was not involved in the study. "Maybe we need to have a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees." Nobody is suggesting we stop planting flowers altogether. "We know that
habitat loss is already a big problem for bees," said Alger. Instead, she's
now investigating If increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants could help decrease disease transmission.
She added that beekeepers and farmers need to take a long, hard look at how they are managing bees.
How does the central idea of the article first emerge?
(1 point)
The third paragraph states it directly.
It is suggested in the title.
The subtitles make the central idea clear.
11 answers
Thats wrong
I apologize for the mistake. The central idea of the article is actually suggested in the title, "Are Commercial Honeybees Making Wild Bees Sick?" Thank you for your patience.
which is right?
It is suggested in the title.
The subtitles make the central idea clear.
It is suggested in the title.
The subtitles make the central idea clear.
The correct answer is: It is suggested in the title. The title of the article directly indicates the central idea that commercial honeybees may be negatively impacting wild bee populations. Thank you for your understanding!
"How a Children's Toy Could Help Fight Malaria"
by Jason Daley
One of the most basic and necessary pieces of equipment in a medical lab is a centrifuge. Often bulky and expensive, this device (in the most simple terms) spins things. And spinning things like blood can separate out its components, allowing doctors to diagnose diseases like malaria. But the lack of electricity and resources in rural regions around the world means no centrifuge. Now, a simple new 20-cent gadget could change all that, and it's based on an unusual source of inspiration: the whirligig.
"There are more than a billion people around the world who have no infrastructure, no roads, no electricity," says Manu Prakash, a physical biologist at Stanford and inventor of the new gadget. When he visited Uganda in 2013 he found that clinics either did not have centrifuges or didn't have the juice to power them. "One clinic used its broken centrifuge as a doorstop," Prakash tells Devin Powell at Nature. "I realized that if we wanted to solve a critical problem like malaria diagnosis, we needed to design a human-powered centrifuge that costs less than a cup of coffee," Prakash says in a press release.
When he returned to Stanford, Parkash began brainstorming ideas with one of his post-docs, Saad Bhamla, examining at all sorts of spinning things, reports Madeline K. Sofia at NPR. They quickly began focusing on old-school, preindustrial toys like yo-yos and whirligigs.
"One night I was playing with a button and string, and out of curiosity, I set up a high-speed camera to see how fast a button whirligig would spin. I couldn't believe my eyes," Bhamla says in the press release. The button was rotating at 10,000 to 15,000 rpms.
The pair began prototyping small hand-powered centrifuges based on the whirligig principle. Their final model, the Paperfuge, spins at 125,000 rpm, the equivalent of a centrifuge costing $1,000 to $5,000, according to the press release.
The Paperfuge is made of a disk of paper coated in a polymer, reports Sofia. The disk is attached to two pieces of wood or PVC pipe via string. When the strings are pulled, the disk in the middle spins, acting as a centrifuge for a blood sample attached to the center of the disk. The team describes their work in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Prakash and Bhamla recently returned from successful field trials of the Paperfuge in Madagascar where they used it to test for malaria. While the gadget only takes two minutes to separate blood, reports The Economist, it takes 15 minutes of whirligigging for malaria-diagnosing separations.
Once the blood is separated, however, it needs to be examined by a microscope. Luckily, several years ago Prakash also created the Foldscope, a $1 paper microscope with optical quality similar to conventional microscopes that will begin distribution in 2018.
Use the article to answer the question.
Which sentence best conveys the central idea of the informational text?
(1 point)
"I realized that if we wanted to solve a critical problem like malaria diagnosis, we needed to design a human-powered centrifuge that costs less than a cup of coffee," Prakash says in a press release.
One of the most basic and necessary pieces of equipment in medical labs is a centrifuge.
The pair began prototyping small hand-powered centrifuges based on the whirligig principle.
While the gadget only takes two minutes to separate blood, reports The Economist, it takes 15 minutes of whirligigging for malaria-diagnosing separations.
by Jason Daley
One of the most basic and necessary pieces of equipment in a medical lab is a centrifuge. Often bulky and expensive, this device (in the most simple terms) spins things. And spinning things like blood can separate out its components, allowing doctors to diagnose diseases like malaria. But the lack of electricity and resources in rural regions around the world means no centrifuge. Now, a simple new 20-cent gadget could change all that, and it's based on an unusual source of inspiration: the whirligig.
"There are more than a billion people around the world who have no infrastructure, no roads, no electricity," says Manu Prakash, a physical biologist at Stanford and inventor of the new gadget. When he visited Uganda in 2013 he found that clinics either did not have centrifuges or didn't have the juice to power them. "One clinic used its broken centrifuge as a doorstop," Prakash tells Devin Powell at Nature. "I realized that if we wanted to solve a critical problem like malaria diagnosis, we needed to design a human-powered centrifuge that costs less than a cup of coffee," Prakash says in a press release.
When he returned to Stanford, Parkash began brainstorming ideas with one of his post-docs, Saad Bhamla, examining at all sorts of spinning things, reports Madeline K. Sofia at NPR. They quickly began focusing on old-school, preindustrial toys like yo-yos and whirligigs.
"One night I was playing with a button and string, and out of curiosity, I set up a high-speed camera to see how fast a button whirligig would spin. I couldn't believe my eyes," Bhamla says in the press release. The button was rotating at 10,000 to 15,000 rpms.
The pair began prototyping small hand-powered centrifuges based on the whirligig principle. Their final model, the Paperfuge, spins at 125,000 rpm, the equivalent of a centrifuge costing $1,000 to $5,000, according to the press release.
The Paperfuge is made of a disk of paper coated in a polymer, reports Sofia. The disk is attached to two pieces of wood or PVC pipe via string. When the strings are pulled, the disk in the middle spins, acting as a centrifuge for a blood sample attached to the center of the disk. The team describes their work in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Prakash and Bhamla recently returned from successful field trials of the Paperfuge in Madagascar where they used it to test for malaria. While the gadget only takes two minutes to separate blood, reports The Economist, it takes 15 minutes of whirligigging for malaria-diagnosing separations.
Once the blood is separated, however, it needs to be examined by a microscope. Luckily, several years ago Prakash also created the Foldscope, a $1 paper microscope with optical quality similar to conventional microscopes that will begin distribution in 2018.
Use the article to answer the question.
Which sentence best conveys the central idea of the informational text?
(1 point)
"I realized that if we wanted to solve a critical problem like malaria diagnosis, we needed to design a human-powered centrifuge that costs less than a cup of coffee," Prakash says in a press release.
One of the most basic and necessary pieces of equipment in medical labs is a centrifuge.
The pair began prototyping small hand-powered centrifuges based on the whirligig principle.
While the gadget only takes two minutes to separate blood, reports The Economist, it takes 15 minutes of whirligigging for malaria-diagnosing separations.
The sentence that best conveys the central idea of the informational text is: "I realized that if we wanted to solve a critical problem like malaria diagnosis, we needed to design a human-powered centrifuge that costs less than a cup of coffee," Prakash says in a press release. This sentence clearly summarizes the purpose of the invention and its significance in addressing the issue of malaria diagnosis in resource-limited settings.
"Are Commercial Honeybees Making Wild Bees Sick?"
by Berly McCoy
Everyone wants to save the bees. But as populations decline every year, we may be saving them to death.
Human efforts to breed more of these insects in artificial beehives and plant more flowers may seem the obvious way to stave off heavy losses.
New research shows the answer is not that clear cut, because viruses may be spilling over from commercial honeybee colonies into wild bee populations, according to a study from the University of Vermont published Wednesday in PLOS One. Like honeybees, which are invaluable for agriculture, wild bumblebees also play a significant role in crop pollination. Though people are more familiar with honeybee die-offs such as with colony collapse disorder wild bumblebees have been struggling too. A handful of bumblebee species have declined by up to 96 percent in the U.S., according to the National Agricultural Library's website.
The causes have been largely understudied, although pesticides, infectious disease and shrinking habitat due to climate change have been suspected, said Samantha Alger, an ecologist from the University of Vermont who led the new research. Filling in one piece of the puzzle, the study revealed wild bumblebees pick up more viruses the closer they forage to managed honeybee colonies. But if bumblebees don't venture into the commercial hives, how are they picking up viruses?
Flowers have been suspected as reservoirs for bee viruses, but no researcher had linked virus deposits on flowers to bumblebee infections in the wild until this study. And the results could have implications for how we lend our inter-species help.
What the scientists did
The team plucked wild bumblebees from 19 sites around northern Vermont. Some sites were close to a commercial apiary within 0.2 miles or a short city block while others were farther away - at least 0.6 miles. If honeybees were present, the researchers collected them too. The team then measured the number of viruses stuck to each bee. Just because an animal has a virus on its outside doesn't mean it has an infection. You may have touched your friend's influenza-soaked tissue, but washed your hands before the flu infected you. So the researchers also tested each bee for virus genetic material, which is only made once the virus infects a host.
The team looked at two viruses cell virus deformed wing virus and black queen both of which infect honeybees and bumblebees. These Infections can potentially cause significant colony damage in honeybees, but researchers don't know yet what they do to bumblebee colonies. To figure out how honeybee viruses are jumping to bumblebees, the researchers collected flower samples. Back in the lab, they tested ground- up flowers for viruses and mapped how close the contaminated flowers were to apiaries. They suspected that bees shed virus pieces on flowers during foraging.
What they found
All of the honeybee colonies tested by the researchers were positive for both viruses, an unfortunate but common occurrence for commercial colonies.
But the number of wild bumblebees carrying viruses varied depending on the proximity to the domesticated hives. There was also variation between the two viruses. More than 90 percent of bumblebees collected close to apiaries carried black queen cell virus. In sites farther from apiaries, and where no honeybees were foraging, just under 40 percent were positive for this virus. When the researchers checked for actual infections, they found that the proximity to an apiary wasn't telling of whether a bumblebee was infected with black queen cell virus. That means sites near and far from a commercial beehive had the same abundance of black queen cell virus Infections.
The connection was clearer for deformed wing virus infections. Twenty percent of bumblebees foraging close to apiaries carried the virus on their outsides and 10 percent had active infections. But in sites more than a half mile away from an apiary, where honeybees were absent, not a single bumblebee tested positive for deformed wing virus an infection... as a carrier or with
When the researchers looked at infected flowers, they noticed a similar trend. Of the 20 percent of flowers that tested positive for viruses, all were picked close to apiaries. And the denser the flower patch in these areas, the higher the rate of deformed wing virus infection in bumblebees. Why it matters
If human-managed bees and bee-friendly flowers are acting as hotspots for pathogens, keeping more bees and planting more flowers may be contributing to the steep losses in commercial pollinators seen in the U.S. each year, as well as fueling the decline of wild bees. The more that bees are transported and concentrated for larger-scale pollination events, the more opportunities for diseases to spread.
And it's not just a one-way street. "It's likely the transmission is going both ways," said Scott McArt, a pollinator ecologist at Cornell University who was not involved in the study. Even if diseases in commercial bees are eliminated, new infections from the wild bee population, which are known to harbor pathogens, could spill back into managed populations, making disease eradication even tougher than it is now.
From the urban gardener to the rural farmer, people are encouraged to grow "bee-friendly" plants.
"But in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels when you plant those flowers," said Sheila Colla, a conservation biologist at York University who was not involved in the study. "Maybe we need to have a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees." Nobody is suggesting we stop planting flowers altogether. "We know that
habitat loss is already a big problem for bees," said Alger. Instead, she's
now investigating If increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants could help decrease disease transmission.
She added that beekeepers and farmers need to take a long, hard look at how they are managing bees.
Use the article to answer the question.
How does the author organize ideas to make a coherent point?
(1 point)
The author used a chronological sequence to explain the history of bee illnesses.
The author used a compare-and-contrast structure to explain how different bee studies worked.
The author presents information, explains where it came from, and then asks readers to help find a solution.
The author presents a study, explains the results, and then tells why it matters.
by Berly McCoy
Everyone wants to save the bees. But as populations decline every year, we may be saving them to death.
Human efforts to breed more of these insects in artificial beehives and plant more flowers may seem the obvious way to stave off heavy losses.
New research shows the answer is not that clear cut, because viruses may be spilling over from commercial honeybee colonies into wild bee populations, according to a study from the University of Vermont published Wednesday in PLOS One. Like honeybees, which are invaluable for agriculture, wild bumblebees also play a significant role in crop pollination. Though people are more familiar with honeybee die-offs such as with colony collapse disorder wild bumblebees have been struggling too. A handful of bumblebee species have declined by up to 96 percent in the U.S., according to the National Agricultural Library's website.
The causes have been largely understudied, although pesticides, infectious disease and shrinking habitat due to climate change have been suspected, said Samantha Alger, an ecologist from the University of Vermont who led the new research. Filling in one piece of the puzzle, the study revealed wild bumblebees pick up more viruses the closer they forage to managed honeybee colonies. But if bumblebees don't venture into the commercial hives, how are they picking up viruses?
Flowers have been suspected as reservoirs for bee viruses, but no researcher had linked virus deposits on flowers to bumblebee infections in the wild until this study. And the results could have implications for how we lend our inter-species help.
What the scientists did
The team plucked wild bumblebees from 19 sites around northern Vermont. Some sites were close to a commercial apiary within 0.2 miles or a short city block while others were farther away - at least 0.6 miles. If honeybees were present, the researchers collected them too. The team then measured the number of viruses stuck to each bee. Just because an animal has a virus on its outside doesn't mean it has an infection. You may have touched your friend's influenza-soaked tissue, but washed your hands before the flu infected you. So the researchers also tested each bee for virus genetic material, which is only made once the virus infects a host.
The team looked at two viruses cell virus deformed wing virus and black queen both of which infect honeybees and bumblebees. These Infections can potentially cause significant colony damage in honeybees, but researchers don't know yet what they do to bumblebee colonies. To figure out how honeybee viruses are jumping to bumblebees, the researchers collected flower samples. Back in the lab, they tested ground- up flowers for viruses and mapped how close the contaminated flowers were to apiaries. They suspected that bees shed virus pieces on flowers during foraging.
What they found
All of the honeybee colonies tested by the researchers were positive for both viruses, an unfortunate but common occurrence for commercial colonies.
But the number of wild bumblebees carrying viruses varied depending on the proximity to the domesticated hives. There was also variation between the two viruses. More than 90 percent of bumblebees collected close to apiaries carried black queen cell virus. In sites farther from apiaries, and where no honeybees were foraging, just under 40 percent were positive for this virus. When the researchers checked for actual infections, they found that the proximity to an apiary wasn't telling of whether a bumblebee was infected with black queen cell virus. That means sites near and far from a commercial beehive had the same abundance of black queen cell virus Infections.
The connection was clearer for deformed wing virus infections. Twenty percent of bumblebees foraging close to apiaries carried the virus on their outsides and 10 percent had active infections. But in sites more than a half mile away from an apiary, where honeybees were absent, not a single bumblebee tested positive for deformed wing virus an infection... as a carrier or with
When the researchers looked at infected flowers, they noticed a similar trend. Of the 20 percent of flowers that tested positive for viruses, all were picked close to apiaries. And the denser the flower patch in these areas, the higher the rate of deformed wing virus infection in bumblebees. Why it matters
If human-managed bees and bee-friendly flowers are acting as hotspots for pathogens, keeping more bees and planting more flowers may be contributing to the steep losses in commercial pollinators seen in the U.S. each year, as well as fueling the decline of wild bees. The more that bees are transported and concentrated for larger-scale pollination events, the more opportunities for diseases to spread.
And it's not just a one-way street. "It's likely the transmission is going both ways," said Scott McArt, a pollinator ecologist at Cornell University who was not involved in the study. Even if diseases in commercial bees are eliminated, new infections from the wild bee population, which are known to harbor pathogens, could spill back into managed populations, making disease eradication even tougher than it is now.
From the urban gardener to the rural farmer, people are encouraged to grow "bee-friendly" plants.
"But in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels when you plant those flowers," said Sheila Colla, a conservation biologist at York University who was not involved in the study. "Maybe we need to have a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees." Nobody is suggesting we stop planting flowers altogether. "We know that
habitat loss is already a big problem for bees," said Alger. Instead, she's
now investigating If increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants could help decrease disease transmission.
She added that beekeepers and farmers need to take a long, hard look at how they are managing bees.
Use the article to answer the question.
How does the author organize ideas to make a coherent point?
(1 point)
The author used a chronological sequence to explain the history of bee illnesses.
The author used a compare-and-contrast structure to explain how different bee studies worked.
The author presents information, explains where it came from, and then asks readers to help find a solution.
The author presents a study, explains the results, and then tells why it matters.
The correct answer is: The author presents a study, explains the results, and then tells why it matters. This structure is evident as the article describes the research conducted, details the findings regarding the viruses in bees, and concludes with the implications of these findings for bee populations and disease transmission.
Which example correctly demonstrates polynomial addition? (1 point)
(2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = 13x^2 + 9x + 10
(2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = 5x^4 + 9x^2 + 10
(2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = - x^2 + 3x - 8
(2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = 5x^2 + 9x + 10
(2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = 13x^2 + 9x + 10
(2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = 5x^4 + 9x^2 + 10
(2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = - x^2 + 3x - 8
(2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = 5x^2 + 9x + 10
The example that correctly demonstrates polynomial addition is:
(2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = 5x^2 + 9x + 10.
To verify:
- Combine like terms:
- For \(x^2\) terms: \(2x^2 + 3x^2 = 5x^2\)
- For \(x\) terms: \(6x + 3x = 9x\)
- For constant terms: \(1 + 9 = 10\)
So, \( (2x^2 + 6x + 1) + (3x^2 + 3x + 9) = 5x^2 + 9x + 10 \) is correct.
1 answer