6,813 results
6,813 results for: Insects
- Math
Computing on a Cellular Scale
The behavior of leaf pores resembles that of mathematical systems known as cellular automata.
- Animals
Retaking Flight: Some insects that didn’t use it didn’t lose it
Stick insects may have done what biologists once thought was impossible: lose something as complicated as a wing in the course of evolution but recover it millions of years later.
- Earth
Bt corn pollen can hurt monarchs
A second test of a strain of corn genetically engineered to make its own insecticide finds potential for harm to monarch butterfly caterpillars.
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Leggy beetles show how insects lost limbs
Inactivating two genes in red flour beetles causes grubs to grow lots of legs—and provides clues to the puzzle of the evolution of the six-legged body plan.
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19233
Good grief, I can’t believe this is a surprise that dinosaurs were cannibals. Frogs eat frogs. Rabbits eat their young. We can go on for quite a time enumerating mammals (including people), reptiles, birds, and insects that eat their own. The surprise is finding ones that aren’t cannibals. Barbara BennettPreston, Md.
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Why is that wasp helping?
Researchers have found nests of a social insect with helpers that are neither close kin nor slaves.
- Earth
High-Flying Science, with Strings Attached
In the hands of scientists, kites do serious data gathering.
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19205
The nocturnal singing of coquies is beloved in Puerto Rico, especially after several years of unexplained population decline. Is there any chance that the little coquies can be returned from Hawaii? Mario A. LoyolaMayaguez, Puerto Rico The Coqui Hawaiian Integration and Reeducation Project (CHIRP) is applying for an export license for coquies .—J. Raloff Your […]
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Spying on Plant Defenses: Insects monitor toxin ramp-up
A common caterpillar can sense when a plant is gearing up to manufacture insecticidal toxins and respond by starting up its own detoxification system.
- Health & Medicine
Ephedra Finale
Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced that the Food and Drug Administration would soon outlaw U.S. sales of diet products containing stimulants derived from the Ephedra sinica plant. He timed the pronouncement to anticipate the start of the perennial diet season: New Year’s Day. Ephedra plant. Univ. of Calif., Davis […]
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19169
In this article you mention that Lyme disease is the most common “insect-borne” disease in the United States. Since Lyme disease is spread by ticks, and ticks have eight legs and are arachnids, Lyme disease is not insect-borne. Anne Van Aller Woodbine, Md.
- Animals
Vampire bats don’t learn from bad lunch
For the first time, a mammal has flunked a controlled test for developing a food aversion after getting sick just once, and that unusual creature is the common vampire bat.
