Hessian fly genomics research will benefit wheat farmers, others
...ouldn't mutate to get around wheat's defenses, the insect would die out because they can't feed on any other plant. Scientists can't even raise them in the laboratory on artificial diets. However, every time the Hessian fly mutates and develops a new way to invade wheat, wheat breeders have been able to ide...Touching effects: Visiting plants in the field may alter their future
...l investigations into how field visitations affect insect community structures. "Although questions remain about visitation effects," Cahill says, "we believe it is clear that field biologists working with plants can no longer assume that their activities in the field do not alter the biology of study orga...Parasite's sperm-encryption keeps species apart
.... Wolbachia infects as much as 20 percent of all insect species, and tends to infect large percentages of the individuals in those species. It was first noticed more than 50 years ago when scientists noticed that some species of mosquitoes could interbreed when given antibiotics. In the 1970s researchers ...Genomics portends the next revolution in agriculture
...griculture. For example, by building resistance to insect pests into crops, scientists may help curb cavalier use of chemical pesticides that now take a huge environmental and human health toll in the developing world. The power of genomics, explains Goodman, lies in the fact that nature has been parsimonio...Purdue researchers develop new delivery system for gene therapy
...y processes."Both systems can infect mammalian and insect cells, but our new system presents several advantages over VSV-G in gene therapy and gene transfer," Sanders says. "For example, VSV-G is toxic, both to cells that are being infected and to cells that are producing the virus. We have seen no signs of...Roadsides may provide butterfly corridors
...ition to helping butterflies, roadsides could help insect pollinators, which are imperiled nationwide. Ries proposes to study this in Arizona, where roadsides collect twice as much water as the bordering desert habitat, suggesting that even unrestored roadsides could provide valuable habitat for pollinators......ht to be the only site in the world where complete insect specimens from the Triassic period are found in abundance. Biotic Provinciality of the Late Triassic Equatorial Humid Zone. Paul E. Olsen, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, polsen@ldeo.columbia.edu , 914-365-8491; et al. In the Trias...Fly on a treadmill demonstrates super directional hearing
...r hands when they tested Ormia ochracea , a tiny insect parasite with such acute directional hearing that ...ts. "I've been doing basic biological studies of insect hearing systems for over 20 years, and this work [with the Ormia ear] is the first to have a poten...Household ant invasions are determined by weather, not pesticide use, new study finds
...outinely invading human households. The aggressive insect also has become a major pest in other parts of the...preventing ant invasions, although some did reduce insect abundance when infestation was high following a rainstorm or during periods of drought. Even then, s...First dinosaur found with its body covering intact; displays primitive feathers from head to toe
...erved from feathers and fish scales to patterns on insect wings. These fossils have dramatically changed the way we understand what life was like during late Jurassic and early Cretaceous times, said Ji Qiang. How Are Dinosaurs Related to Birds? In the last two decades, other birdlike dinosaurs and di...Neuroscientist studies brains of bizarre-looking mammals
...way that differs from that by which human fingers, insect legs and most other appendages are formed. Instead of following the normal pattern of budding and growing out directly from the body, the moles distinctive nose rays form as fleshy cylinders on the side of the animals muzzle before detaching and unfo......aka Flyman) at UC Berkeley studies the dynamics of insect flight control - not in airplanes, theyre too big to play by the same rules - but in fruit flies and hawkmoths, blowflies and lacewings. Why? So that we can learn to fabricate tiny search, exploration, and reconnaissance tools that can operate chea...Scientists switch memory recall on and off in fruit flies
...n fruit flies to switch electrical activity in the insect brain on and off at will. In doing so, they have m...hers could test whether electrical activity in the insect brain is necessary for the acquisition, storage, or retrieval phases of memory. The scientists used ...New satellite study shows vegetation increases in North America
...s in southeast Canada -- which are recovering from insect damage -- and western Canada and Alaska. Recent warming in the northwest part of the continent appears to have triggered earlier annual snowmelt and an earlier beginning to the growing season, Hicke said. The observations were made in the visible...Biting may drive division of labor among social wasp workers
...rtant means of regulating the division of labor in insect colonies, he said. O'Donnell's findings, published in the current issue of the journal Behavioral Ecology, were based on detailed observation of three wasp colonies in a dry tropical forest in Costa Rica. He captured nearly 800 female workers fro...Research team unlocks secrets of the firefly flash
...ies light up," says Barry Trimmer, lead author and insect neurobiologist at Tufts, "but we now have the missing piece of the puzzle that explains how they are able to throw the switch on and off." In humans, nitric oxide (NO) acts as a messenger throughout the body, controlling blood flow in the body as we...GIS, bioinformatics collaborations offer promising new perspectives
...gative fields are better modeling of the spread of insect infestations, for instance that of the gypsy moth in the United States; better monitoring of diseases such as rabies in wildlife populations; improvements in agricultural productivity; and reductions in the negative environmental impacts of some agri...Tiny trickster flies into the zoological books
...l Invertebrate Taxonomy. "Although hundreds of new insect species are described every year, thediscovery of a new family is very rare," said Professor Austin. "Therehave only been 5 or 6 new families described from Australasia in thepast thirty years, and that is high compared with the rest of theworld," he...An epidemic may have gone unnoticed--DDT use in US linked to premature births in the 1960's
...ded in any assessment of the costs and benefits of insect control using DDT." Dr. Longnecker points out that other agents that are less toxic and less persistent, but more expensive, can be used to control malaria. He isnow working with epidemiologists in Mexico to see if women from malaria areas, highly e...For peppers, hot quite literally the spice of life, UF research shows
...ar the shrubs, further dispersing the seed, and an insect that kills the seeds and fruit of the pepper was much less common in the shade of the shrubs. So not only are the birds distributing undamaged pepper seeds, they are doing so in just the places the resulting plants are most likely to thrive, Tewksbu...