[HN Gopher] Namibian fairy circle debate rages on: Sand termites...
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Namibian fairy circle debate rages on: Sand termites or Turing
mechanism?
Author : thunderbong
Score : 36 points
Date : 2023-07-27 19:53 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| Zanni wrote:
| Turing "mechanism" is a bit misleading, but I'm fascinated to
| learn about Turing _patterns_. [0] I 'm not swayed by either side
| of the debate (and don't really care), but learning about Turing
| patterns was worth the read.
|
| [0] https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/turing-
| patterns/4991...
| digging wrote:
| I was pretty confused here. The article should have explained
| the meaning of Turing patterns sooner. It's a much drier (heh)
| article than expected without the premise of unconscious
| biological systems performing computations in sand.
| zabzonk wrote:
| not obvious to me from the ars article, but the circles are
|
| > 2 and 12 metres (7 and 39 ft) in diameter
|
| according to WP
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| This isn't mentioned in the article (or I hope I didn't miss it)
| but did they try to dig into the patches to check if there are
| termites or not? They said they measured moisture at different
| levels beneath the surface, but that can be done without actually
| digging.
| Loughla wrote:
| Right? Isn't it super simple to see if there are termites
| there? I was lost about that.
| baerrie wrote:
| The article says that the damage to the grass roots is hard to
| discern and requires magnification. Also, the termites
| apparently are hard to observe but have been found
| permo-w wrote:
| impressively attention-grabbing headline aside, could they not
| both the true? a Turing mechanism where termites are the
| "activator chemical"
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(page generated 2023-07-27 23:00 UTC)