The chemicals in their nearby environment are what make the embryos develop into Queen bees. It makes one wonder what sort of nearby chemical environments do to human embryo development.
Since human fetuses are usually encapsulated within the womb of an adult woman, they’re far more insulated from arbitrary chemical environments than bee larvae. But of course we know of many cases where chemicals make it through the mother’s body and into the fetus’s immediate environment, affecting its development: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fetal-alcohol...
Temperature is another factor. IIRC amphibian embryos have to develop in a wide range of temperatures (an egg might be stuck to a leaf), so their cells have many more variants of proteins, where each variant is most-effective in a different temperature band.
In contrast, a mammal blastocyst or embryo already has the multicellular mother keeping temperature within a narrower band.
Yeah, ages ago I read in a book about evolution that mammalian genes are actually simplified (or optimized, if you will) compared to amphibians because we don't have to accomodate as wide of a temperature range due to being warm-blooded and giving live birth.
I also recall seeing in a documentary that the temperature of crocodile eggs will determine if it's a male or female. Wikipedia seems to back that up:
Another interesting example is sea turtles, whose eggs are in a relatively stable environment (sand), but its temperature changes year to year. Based on the temperature of the eggs, you see a different distribution of offspring sex.
I guess having just read about the positive impact the bees have to develop into Queen bees I was wondering if there are positive chemicals a human female could produce to give better than average outcomes.
If you think fetal alcohol syndrome is bad, check what the consequences of lead poisoning are, knowing that just about every state has mass-contaminated their population with lead and then refused to help with the consequences.
You can avoid fetal alcohol syndrome. You cannot realistically avoid fetal lead poisoning.
Well you can't really undo lead poisoning. Nor microplastics, etc. Once those have gotten into a population that's just how the population's gonna be. So it makes sense that there's nothing to do about a lead-poisoned population other than stop adding more.
> So it makes sense that there's nothing to do about a lead-poisoned population other than stop adding more.
Well the criticism is, of course, that lead poisoning, in most cases was the government doing it (e.g. Flint, and lead pipes in Europe). As for "nothing to be done" ... well, no. But that still leaves the government responsible for the damage (which in cases they had a private party to convict was lifetime care + damages).
Of course, governments decided, immediately, they weren't responsible.
Lead poisoning either kills you quickly (large doses, or you're already an adult) or turns you into an idiot, permanently (young kids, including in the womb)
> microplastics ...
No version of microplastics damages kids' brains, so it doesn't compare, really.
> In 2016, scientists published two studies regarding human embryos developing for thirteen days within an ecto-uterine environment.
> […]
> A 14-day rule prevents human embryos from being kept in artificial wombs longer than 14 days; this rule has been codified into law in twelve countries.
Drones are haploids so probably nothing. I suspect you'd need the full chromosome set to get the full developmental effect of the royal treatment.
Given that when a hive goes queenless the workers start laying eggs including in the royal chambers they're desperately building, and since the workers are unfertilized all of the eggs are haploids that hatch into drones, it has probably happened many times throughout apian history. No drag queens have been spotted.
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