Success of introduced Argentine ants tied to reduced genetic variation
...imilar, territorial ants has managed to keep these insects in check and in smaller, much more sharply defined colonies than those in California. "When we did our field work in Argentina, it was surprisingly difficult to find Argentine ants, compared to our experience in California," says Ted J. Case, a pro...Fragmented Forest, Fragmented Food
...employ a "sit and wait" foraging tactic to capture insects and small lizards on the ground by pouncing on the...ng PVC piping and alcohol, the researchers trapped insects and small skink lizards in forest fragments of differing sizes. The team also spent time observing...Bt corn variety found to be safe to Illinois butterfly
...ly attributed to predation by spiders, carnivorous insects and other environmental factors, the researchers said. Black swallowtail females can lay up to 800 eggs during their two-week lifetime; overall life expectancies for caterpillars in the field invariably are low. "We also measured the weights of the...Can a deadly spider replace chemical pesticides?
...nto insect tissues, yet have no effect if eaten by insects or other animals (Nature Structural Biology, vol 7...wever, most of the scorpion toxin made in infected insects fails to fold into the correct shape, says King. By contrast, tests in bacteria suggest that almost ...Double crops, cut the acreage by 2010, predicts plant scientist
...osses each year -- more, in fact, than losses from insects and weeds. Bressan says scientists have always assumed that the ability to thrive through stress was a genetically complex trait, and so researchers assumed that it would be a waste of time to try to create such crop varieties. But recent discoveries...Saving the whales -- how scientists measure success
... said Gerber. "Every year, populations of plants, insects and even microbes reach the brink of extinction, virtually unnoticed," state the authors. "In the meantime, the threat of large-mammal extinctions arouses public passions, attention and, ultimately, money. It is here, at the intersection of sentiment...Desktop biofactories? New microrobots might manipulate single cells, Science authors report
...vices featuring rods and levers, artificial flying insects made of polysilicon, and a walking silicon microrobot. But, "none of these operate in water, and would not be suitable as microactuators for the manipulation of cells," Jager notes. Whenever pure silicon is exposed, he explains, it oxidizes and stops...Fruit fly model could explain how mosquitoes carry malaria: new drugs and vaccines on the horizon
...smit it from person to person, largely because the insects are difficult to manipulate and are not conducive to laboratory studies. "Fruit flies, on the other hand, are a geneticist's best friend. There are many genetic markers, we can conduct genetic screens simply and in large numbers, and we now have the...Canadian scientists find potent antifreeze protein that equips insects to brave winter
...ce. Antifreeze proteins are found in some fish, insects and plants. They bind to ice crystals and prevent them from growing to a size where they would damage the host. The Queen's research involves the isolation and characterization of antifreeze proteins from different sources, and the cloning and expres...Pigs at sea reveal latest clues in homicide research
...ence." Anderson's earlier research -- targeting insects on pig carcasses buried or dropped on land at site... the creation of the first provincial data base of insects and their activity. She is now working on a national data base of bug-colonization patterns to help ...Researchers decipher fundamental signal for maleness
...ent in a wide range of multicellular animals, from insects and worms to fish and mice. In the male fruit fly, mutations in this new signal lead to a female pattern of some parts of the nervous system and bisexual orientation. The human protein was found to bind to a genetic control element in a fruit fly gen...Soybean pest native to China detected in U.S. for first time
...ecies, he says. To the UW-Madison researchers, the insects looked like cotton/melon aphids, a common aphid th...le, Md. On Aug. 15, the experts confirmed that the insects are indeed soybean aphids (Aphis glycines), and not cotton/melon aphids. The two species look so muc...Canine leishmaniasis cases are confirmed in 21 states
...would pose a far smaller risk than transmission by insects like sand flies or ticks. That mode of transmission, Breitschwerdt says, could create a public health concern. Leishmaniasis is a parasitic infection and most often occurs in rural areas of the tropics and subtropics, where the most common speci......s that protect the plant against predators such as insects or fungus or attract insects or birds for pollination may help prevent disease in humans. The editorial suggests that more resea...Conservation under the shade coffee canopy: ant-bird interactions in Panama croplands
...irds feed not on the ants themselves, but on other insects which are flushed from the leaf litter by the raiding ants. The swarms provide a unique opportunity to assess how different levels of disturbance may affect different forest bird species, because a wide variety of species typically use the swarms to ...Scientists discover gene required for testis development
...known to be involved in male sexual development in insects and worms. Therefore, Dmrt1 is the first evidence of molecular conservation in the dramatically divergent pathways of sex determination between vertebrates and invertebrates....New species arise more quickly than previously believed, UMass researcher finds
...,000 years. Even the fastest examples are for some insects over 200-400 generations. In these cases, we know reproductive isolation evolved sometime in the past, but we don't know how quickly." In contrast, Hendry's team found evolutionary adaptations and reproductive isolation in salmon after only 12-...Insect defenses point the way to defeating bacterial antibiotic resistance
...ntibiotic molecules used by flies, bees, and other insects to defend themselves against infection. In the current study, we identified the receptor for one of these molecules, which is potentially much more significant. With knowledge of the receptor, the doors are open to developing strain-specific antibiot...ORNL instrument could spell doom for Asian beetles
...uish the Asian Longhorned Beetle larvae from other insects and identify the larvae at different stages of mat...hering vibration data from these beetles and other insects as they feed. Researchers are analyzing the information and developing algorithms mathematical solu......ating roots of specific plants like Boerhavia, and insects and grubs that live in the base of Hop Bush (Dodonaea viscosa). They are even killing some of the bushes through digging at their bases till they fall over," she said. The release of the bilbies at Easter was symbolic. The Foundation for Rabbit-Free ...