Termites' Attraction To Small Amounts Of Carbon Dioxide Lures Pests To Their Deaths
...find food and shelter can also be used against the insects asa non-toxic alternative to current forms of pest...od--releases CO2, a process that likely guides the insects to food.Concentrations of the gas inside termite colonies is higher than ambient air,suggesting term...Ant Pheromone May Aid Alzheimer's Patients
... mark a territory. Kin-recognition pheromonestell insects who's family and who's not, even within the same species, andnon-kin trying to enter a nest without the appropriate pheromone are fought offor killed. Recruitment pheromones, such as those produced by the "Aphaenogasterrudis" ants, rally nest mates ...Biologist Experiments With His Own Front Yard
...e reader into the otherwise unnoticed world of the insects hestudies, beginning with simple, curious observat... And he pulls off this bit of enchantment with insects -- "bugs" to most of us. "The insects are the stars as far as I'm concerned," said Alcock. "T...Plants Thrive With Insect-Induced Immune Responses
...mology and anauthority on the interactions between insects and their host plants. The study was conducted usi... clipping damage. Naturally occurring plant-eating insects were plucked from the plants in allgroups so that only the test group plants received feeding-induce...'Mean Gene' Found In Africanized Honey Bees
...call it defensive behavior," Hunt says. "Different insects use various methods to protect themselves from predators. Bee stings are a response to predation by mammals -- bee venom is specialized for causing pain in vertebrates." Africanized bees are just one of many subspecies of honey bees. They were introd...Butterfly Wings, Beetle Horns Teach Biologists Basic Lesson In Development's Laws
...joining part." According to Nijhout, the insects made good experimental animals fordemonstrating such competition because during metamorphosis they were "closedsystems." An insect pupa does not feed and instead contains a fat body thatprovides the only nutrition for the developing adult animal, ma...Insect Taste Buds Target Of Control Method
... critical to insects. Mullin does not know what insects perceive as taste, but he does know that chemical...ground-up squash rinds with pesticides to get the insects to ingest the pesticides. "But purified cucurbitacins are too toxic to use and too water soluble...Composting Livestock Waste Provides Benefits
... The composting does not attract flies and other insects as manure does. The potential for nutrient runoff resulting in pollution is greatly reduced. Weeds and pathogens in manure are destroyed before they are applied to the fields. The compost is a more uniform material than manure, which makes fiel......ion range of any mammal, says Crognale. Somebirds, insects and fish have even wider vision ranges. The researchers hope to use the mice to investigate a number ofscientific questions. Crognale is interested in understanding how the transgenicmice are able to use information being gathered by the new ...Biggest Acoustics Meeting Ever
...and shorter-term rhythms in theacoustic signals of insects could help scientists monitor changes in insect populations (4aAB2). Studyinghow female midshipman fish distinguish between the concurrent mating calls ("hums") of males singing tothem together, Andrew Bass's lab at Cornell University ( ahb3@cornell....Researchers Show Mechanism And Similarities Of Biological Clocks
...nt circadian clock genes that are conservedbetween insects and mammals," Takahashi said. "These genes define a surprisinglysimple and elegant feedback loop of gene activation and inhibition that composesthe core mechanism of the clock in animals." In the first paper, Charles Weitz and coworkers at Ha...The Fishing Hole Had Better Be Upstream From Commercial And Industrial Centers
...of urbanization on the diversity andpopulations of insects that live some stage of their lives at the bottom ...d at 12 streams in western North Carolina,counting insects and measuring physical and chemical conditions of the streams.The streams studied come from watershe...New Microbial Insecticide As Potent As Bt
...ens, a bacterium that, innature, infects and kills insects with the help of a tiny worm or nematode. The toxi... "These new toxins are highly efficient killers of insects and they hold for thefuture the same promise first revealed in Bt more than 30 years ago," saidffren...Third Annual Awards For Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Recognize Innovations
...imilar among organisms to suffer harm inuntargeted insects and reptiles to birds and mammals, including humans. TheRohm and Haas insecticides, on the other hand, mimic a chemical signal thattells the developing pests to molt. The company says caterpillars and beetlegrubs stop eating shortly after exposure an...USGS And Arizona Game And Fish Begin Partnership To Study Western Yellow-Billed Cuckoo
...thinning ofeggshells and decreased availability of insects and other cuckoo prey killedby insecticides. "Cuckoos aren't very visible to people to begin with," said Sogge. "They aresecretive and live in dense-growth habitats. It is easier to overlook thedecline of such wildlife." John D. Buffington, USGS chie...News Backgrounder: Duke Primate Center Successfully Fosters Mysterious Aye-Ayes
... aye-aye shows an extraordinary skill at detecting insects hiddenbeneath tree bark by tapping its way along a trunk, big ears cupped over thewood, using its keen hearing to distinguish tiny subsurface hollows. It thengnaws into the wood and uses its long finger to fish out the morsel. Yet despitesuch clevern...Denatured Proteins Rescued By Trio Of Chaperones
... disease organisms that are carried by coldblooded insects survive the sudden temperature transition as they are injectedinto their warm-blooded hosts," says Glover. Chaperones from bacteria, plants, lower animals and humans are virtually identical. This means that they probably evolved to protect t...Weevils Wipe Out Killer Weeds In Papua New Guinea
...ustralia's "six-legged ambassadors" - tiny benign insects now saving crops, family livelihoods, industries and ecosystems around the Asia Pacific region. Water hyacinth infestations clogging up the Sepik River wetlands were causing great hardship to people using the rivers and streams to move around ......t programs. "Each time we find a new talent in the insects we study, we are brought towonder about treasures that remain unknown. After all, most insects remain yetto be discovered," Eisner says. The E. borealis studies by Meinwald, Eisner, Farmer an...