Search Results for: Butterfly
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From the June 11, 1932, issue
BUTTERFLIES, “WINGED JEWELS,” ARE GEMS AT START OF LIFE Butterflies have been called “winged jewels” so often that the conceit can hardly be considered poetic any longer. Yet the appropriateness of the old metaphor receives new confirmation when we look at the egg of a butterfly, which represents the humblest beginning of its career of […]
By Science News -
Agriculture
Bt corn variety OK for black swallowtails
The first published field study of butterflies and genetically altered corn finds no harm to black swallowtail caterpillars from a common corn variety.
By Susan Milius -
Earth
Treaty is Imminent for Genetically Engineered Foods
The Republic of Palau–a 9-year-old confederation of some 300 Pacific islands–has fewer than 20,000 inhabitants and a land area only about 2.5 times the size of Washington, D.C. Yet this tiny nation southeast of the Philippines made big history last week when its government became the 50th to ratify the United Nations’ Cartagena Protocol, a […]
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
When Genes Escape
The focus of the debate over transgenic crops has changed from whether genes will escape to what difference it will make when they do.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Sniff . . . Pow! Wasps use chemicals to start ant brawls
Wasps sneak around in ant colonies thanks to chemicals that send the ants into a distracting frenzy of fighting among themselves.
By Susan Milius -
Earth
Greenhouse Gassed
Scientists are discovering that more carbon dioxide in the air could spell disaster for plants and the animals that love to eat them.
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Alarming Butterflies and Go-Getter Fish
Recent studies suggest that there may be more ways to create new species than Darwin imagined.
By Susan Milius -
Plants
Emergency Gardening
High-tech tissue culture is helping some ultrarare plants finally have sprouts of their own.
By Susan Milius -
Ecosystems
Cultivating Weeds
Some formerly mild-mannered plants turn into horticultural bullies when planted far outside their native range.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Bt Corn Risk to Monarchs Is ‘Negligible’
A much-anticipated report states that the most commonly planted forms of genetically engineered Bt corn pose only a "negligible" risk to monarch butterfly populations.
By Susan Milius -
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In grad school, I read and learned from Ernst Mayr’s Populations, Species, and Evolution (1963, 1970, Harvard University Press). I think that “Alarming butterflies and go-getter fish” extremely simplifies Mayr’s position on speciation. The article says that Mayr focuses solely on geographic separation, “allopathic speciation.” This ignores the fact that Mayr discussed a variety of […]
By Science News -
Evolutionary Upstarts
Theories of the evolution of the human mind are evolving, with some researchers now presenting alternatives to the dominant notion that genetic competition for survival during the Stone Age yielded brains stocked with a bevy of instincts for specific types of thinking.
By Bruce Bower