
Dung Beetles Navigate via the Milky Way - komuW
https://voices.nationalgeographic.org/2013/01/24/dung-beetles-navigate-via-the-milky-way-an-animal-kingdom-first/
======
pavlov
Ancient Egyptians considered dung beetles sacred, and believed that they were
responsible for rejuvenating the sun during the night. Egyptians also had a
keen spiritual and scientific interest in astronomy.

Now it's revealed that dung beetles can perceive the galaxy. Coincidence? I
think not.

Obviously dung beetles are descended from a race of astronavigators who taught
the Egyptians everything. _They are the ancient astronauts._ [Cue theremin
music]

~~~
BartSaM
Is this Reddit now?

~~~
bcbrown
pavlov's account was created 3130 days ago; that's 8.5 years. BartSam's
account was created 37 days ago.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
jrimbault
Everyone should read the guidelines really.

>If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying
that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a common semi-noob illusion, as old as
the hills.

~~~
BartSaM
I am on HN since many years, a user just recently. I was not implying that HN
turns in to Reddit. I was implying that this comment is worthy Reddit, not
HackerNews - a professional website that strives to hold on to some standards.

I have read the guidelines. Really.

~~~
tim333
There doesn't seem anything in the guidelines saying you shouldn't make jokes.
Or it being a professional website for that matter.

~~~
sethrin
This is true. However, while jokes are not expressly against the rules, the
community moderation rarely favors them. Personally, I read a lot of Slashdot,
and to some degree enjoy the level of humor, political debate, and anonymous
commentary there. I find that the signal to noise ratio here is somewhat
better. I don't think it likely that anyone would be banned for exclusively
making joke comments, but generally I think the expectation is that while
informative or insightful commentary may also be humorous, the primary purpose
here is not entertainment.

------
njharman
This is less surprising if you imagine evolution to be a reinforcement machine
learning system. The dung beetle actors are given all the sensory inputs of
their environment. Those that used the inputs (which happened to be our
galaxy) where better at satisfying goal and thus had higher selection rate for
next iteration of system. The actors, much like machine leaning, AI, don't
have any logic nor any reasoning. They simply are a ludicrously complex, but
deterministic state machine of inputs -> mess -> outputs. The mess being
seeming unintelligible, not rational, with lots of "cruft".

~~~
lioeters
I think that's a relevant metaphor, to look at evolution as a kind of machine
learning system - especially the aspect of actors not "knowing" or
understanding the logic/reasoning behind their (seemingly?) intelligent
behavior. That might be a way to explain "intelligent design" in nature,
without bringing God or consciousness into the narrative.

~~~
nashashmi
> without bringing God or consciousness into the narrative.

Are you that afraid of God?

Honestly though, the more you break apart and put together the world through
science, the stronger are the signs of a higher order.

The more you take comfort in shallow explanations, the dimmer and darker your
world becomes.

Machine learning! Hah! It is nothing more than pattern recognition. Reactions
to that pattern are a different thing entirely.

~~~
stouset
Are you that desperate for a God that you recoil when scientists and
mathematicians find a natural explanation for some phenomenon?

The more you break apart the world through science, the more you realize that
even the simplest of rulesets can give rise to an incredibly complex network
of of structure, behavior, and incentives — no deity required.

Enjoy your ever-shrinking God of the Gaps.

~~~
nashashmi
There is nothing natural about a dung learning to navigate using the stars.
Nothing that great either. A creature will always try to figure its way using
objects as a reference point.

An incredibly complex network of structures is more proof of a higher order.

Enjoy your belief in a perpetually self-correcting field of science and a
perception of the world that never ceases to change. By definition, you'll
never find peace.

~~~
gnaritas
> There is nothing natural about a dung learning to navigate using the stars.

Yes there is, it's perfectly natural as was just explained to you above. No
magic required, simple evolution.

> An incredibly complex network of structures is more proof of a higher order.

No, it isn't. It's well established that very simple rules can create
incredibly complex network of structures with no higher order whatsoever.

> Enjoy your belief in a perpetually self-correcting field of science and a
> perception of the world that never ceases to change. By definition, you'll
> never find peace.

Nonsense. If you require iron age superstition to achieve peace, that's you;
others don't have that requirement.

~~~
nashashmi
I honestly wished you made better backup points to your arguments. I'm left
with nothing to go on as it is now.

Not natural does not imply magic. Nature by my reasoning is magical though.
Simple rules fail in the subject of the Heisenberg principle.

~~~
gnaritas
> I honestly wished you made better backup points to your arguments. I'm left
> with nothing to go on as it is now.

I don't need to, you either understand evolution or you don't; it's not an
opinion to be argued, it is how the world works. There's nothing you can
refute, any refutation is simply evidence you do not understand the facts of
reality. You can't argue with someone who denies evolution, their mind doesn't
value facts.

> Nature by my reasoning is magical though.

Then your reasoning is flawed. Magic is that which breaks the rules of nature,
like your god for example. Nature is not magical, the natural world is the
very definition of not magic.

> Simple rules fail in the subject of the Heisenberg principle.

You don't understand evolution, you're nowhere near ready to approach the
topic of quantum mechanics.

~~~
nashashmi
I give up. An atheist is not an atheist by logic. But rather by arrogance and
ignorance. And the nature of your tone seems to prove it. My only advice is to
tone down your hate and aversion to all things theological and reduce your
pride in the explanation of science. Because when it gets old and stale and
the excitement wears off, you will see things in a more "connected sense."
Like theology is just another version of science kind of thing.

~~~
gnaritas
> Because when it gets old and stale and the excitement wears off, you will
> see things in a more "connected sense."

No, reason and logic don't get old or stale, and they prevent me from thinking
how I "see things" has anything to do with reality. Nature is what it is, it
doesn't care about your beliefs and fears and need for an afterlife. Never
mind the humor in the one with an imaginary friend he's trying to push on
others calling others arrogant and ignorant, lol, don't project your flaws on
me. People are here talking about a dung beetle story and you're
prothletising, it's disgusting; keep that shit to yourself.

------
vermontdevil
Saw this in the twitter thread where this topic was started

A dung beetle goes into a bar. He doesn't order a drink. He just takes a
stool.

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komuW
I have found the link to the original paper:
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.12.034](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.12.034)

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rexfuzzle
For context: TED talk where navigation via the sun is discussed and shown-
[https://www.ted.com/talks/marcus_byrne_the_dance_of_the_dung...](https://www.ted.com/talks/marcus_byrne_the_dance_of_the_dung_beetle)

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olegkikin
But how do they know it's not based on just a few bright stars? Milky way is
pretty hard to see with our large human eyes. Insect eyes are good for
panoramic views, but much less efficient at low light acuity.

~~~
njharman
> Milky way is pretty hard to see with our large human eyes.

It's not, at all. It's just become hard to see in the last 100 years or so of
massive light pollution.

~~~
sliverstorm
Piling on, a real dark-sky site is worth a visit. First one I've been too is
the Cosmic Campground.

I don't have my photos on hand, but it really looks like this to the naked
eye, maybe even more vibrant:

[http://www.darksky.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/01/CC_MilkyWa...](http://www.darksky.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/01/CC_MilkyWay-700x366.png)

(Be careful, at the CC we accidentally were "those guys"\- there were no
lights at all except red headlamps, and our car kept lighting up like a
Christmas tree)

------
joelrunyon
Here's the tweet thread that brought this to the forefront today -
[https://twitter.com/GeneticJen/status/897153736669356032](https://twitter.com/GeneticJen/status/897153736669356032)

------
lai
That dung beetle helmet is hilarious.

------
mcone
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6422393](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6422393)

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zoom6628
Dung beetles 1 Humans 0 There are so many things left to discover and
understand on the planet. Great time to be a scientist, or a maker.

------
samstave
"little cardboard hats"

I never thought a dung beetle could sound so cute.

------
Moshe_Silnorin
What wonders we see in nature.

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ythn
Wow, they put the beetles in a planetarium? Nice

