Club soda: Fine for cocktails and stain removal, not for killing ants

State entomologists have been trying to stomp the club-soda-kills-fire-ants myth for years, and they say they're having about as much success as, well, using club soda on fire ants.

“This information has been floating around on the Internet since 2007, but seemed to regain momentum starting in December of last year,” said Wizzie Brown, a Texas AgriLife Extension Service integrated pest management program specialist in Travis County.

The pitch in the widely circulated e-mail is that club soda, a popular kitchen-cabinet stain remover, is an “environmentally friendly” way to kill a fire ant mound. All it takes is two cups and the ants are gone, the theory being that carbon dioxide from the club soda displaces oxygen and suffocates the bugs.

“What it doesn't say is that the treatment is ineffective, unless you happen to drown a few fire ants in the process,” said Brown, who has tested club soda among other fire ant home remedies.

“Long story short, it didn't work,” she said. “Observations and statistics from the trial showed no evidence of any type of control as a result. Pouring club soda onto a fire ant mound did not lead to the ants dying a horrendous death; it did, however, produce lots of impressive bubbling action.”

"Knowing the pest control industry like I do..If club soda really worked, a new pest product would be created and marketed as something like "Ant-Away CS" (Club Soda). It would be in all of the major hardware type stores and have an expensive price tag. By the way, grits do not work either!  ~  Jim

FDA finds roaches too numerous to count at airline caterer's kitchen

Maybe it's a good thing that most airline flights no longer include meals? The FDA found live and dead roaches as well as listeria bacteria during a recent inspection of the LSG Sky Chefs airline food preparation facility by the Denver airport. The company was warned by the federal agency that they could be barred from providing food to airlines in Denver if they didn't quickly correct the situation.

LSG is owned by German airline Lufthansa and has 43 airline catering kitchen around the United States, including one at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. The company provides in-flight meals to 300 airlines worldwide including Delta, American, US Airways, Icelandair and United at MSP. Continental is only major U.S. to still provide meals to all passengers on select meal-time flights. LSG is not contracted to provide meals to Continental's passengers. LSG, in addition to providing first and business class meals, prepares meals that are sold in-flight by cabin attendants.

The general manager and executive chef in Denver were fired and LSG has taken the findings very seriously. The FDA letter to LSG noted that inspectors found live and dead roaches "too numerous to count" in several kitchen locations. They also reported that at least 40 live insects were found in the silverware station. To make matters even worse, the FDA inspectors found kitchen staff handling food with their bare hands and dirty gloves.

LSG's spokesperson said they haven't received any reports of ill airline passengers but are taking very aggressive action to ensure that they pass the follow-up FDA inspection this coming week.

In recent months there have been other reports of dirty kitchen facilities at airline terminals as well. The best suggestions? Eat at home before you head to the airport, bring food with you that you know comes from a clean environment or eat after you arrive at your destination. Considering that airport food is over-priced and not very good, avoidance may just be the best course to follow.

Be prepared for the next low budget cinematic block buster, "Roaches On The Plane" ~ Jim

New Primitive Dinosaur Used Claws to Hunt Termites

Sometime in 2004, the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China provided experts with the fossilized remains of a dinosaur that could not be cataloged. At that time, experts who had seen it had proposed that the creature was part of a new species, and their predictions eventually turned out to be true. The animal was named Haplocheirus sollers (“simple, skillful hand”), and its major traits were subject to rigorous analysis. As this was done, experts learned a great deal about this small lizard.

For one, its body was covered in feathers, but its teeth were long and serrated. According to the investigators, it may be that the animals also used their claws to basically hunt termites out of their nests, which would make it one of the first animals ever to do so. The fossil, which endured for more than 160 million years, is believed to have belonged to an individual that was at least 7 feet long (2 meters) and weighed roughly 33 pounds (15 kg). The team investigating these bones also concluded that the creature was a member of the peculiar-looking, feathered dinosaur group Alvarezsauridae.

George Washington University investigator Jonah Choiniere, who was a researcher on the new study, says that the earliest proof that Alvarezsauridae existed came from fossils that were “only” 85 million years old. One of the defining traits for these animals was their short, stubby arms, and also the fact that they only had a single large claw on their hands, flanked by several that were considerably smaller “Haplocheirus is a transitional fossil, because it shows an early evolutionary step in how the bizarre hands of later alvarezsaurs evolved from earlier predatory dinosaurs,” Choiniere explains, quoted by LiveScience.

It is additionally believed that these animals were proficient termite eaters. One of the things that lead scientists to believe that is the shape and size of the animals' teeth, which seem very similar to those of modern anteaters. “When the alvarezsauroids were initially discovered only about 15 years ago the prevailing hypothesis was that they were birds – a lineage within birds that had lost flight ability. And so what Haplocheirus shows is really that alvarezsauroids are not birds, but it pushes them further down the evolutionary tree,” the expert concludes.

Rats In Plumbing Cause Home Damage

Large rodents are causing high-dollar damage to homes. Three times in the month of December, rats chewed through three different water pipes in Lois Stevenson’s Yuba City home.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have known that rats where, like, in my attic having a great time,” said Lois Stevenson.

Stevenson said she had major water leaks in the ceilings and walls of her home. The damage was so extensive Stevenson had to stay in a hotel while her home was fixed.

The problem is not isolated to her house.

“I have seen them chew through the black PVC drain line,” said Sarah McNelly, with Rainbow International Restoration and Cleaning service.

This winter, McNelly said she has had four times the number of phone calls about water damage from rats chewing through pipes. According to McNelly, wet weather is forcing rats out of their homes and into yours.

“The shelter they typical find is an attic. They are not bothered by people up there and there is a ready water source for them,” McNelly said.

Repairs for this kind of damage usually runs into the thousands. At the Stevenson home in Yuba City, it has taken more than a month for repairs to be made and for life to get back to normal.

Stevenson said she hopes she won’t have this problem again.

“I have not had any problems since we caught the little sucker,” Stevenson said with a smile.

Rice Paddy Art

Ok, this has nothing to do with pest control, I just stimbled across this and its just pretty cool. I hope you enjoy!

Some people have way to much time on their hands

Just for Laughs - Rodent Scare Girls!

How To Catch a Rodent With a Paper Towel Roll

Monarch Butterflies Reveal a Novel Way in Which Animals Sense Earth's Magnetic Field

(Jan. 27, 2010) — Building on prior investigation into the biological mechanisms through which monarch butterflies are able to migrate up to 2,000 miles from eastern North America to a particular forest in Mexico each year, neurobiologists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) have linked two related photoreceptor proteins found in butterflies to animal navigation using the Earth's magnetic field.

Monarch butterflies resting in a tree. (Credit: iStockphoto/Paul Tessier)

The work by Steven Reppert, MD, professor and chair of neurobiology at UMMS; Robert Gegear, PhD, research assistant professor of neurobiology; Lauren Foley, BS; and Amy Casselman, PhD, was recently described in the journal Nature.
The research team used fruit flies engineered to lack their own Cryptochrome (Cry1) molecule, a UV/blue-light photoreceptor already known to be involved in the insects' light-dependent magnetic sense. By inserting into those deficient flies butterfly Cry1, a homolog of the fly protein, or the related butterfly protein Cry2, the researchers found that either form can restore the flies' magnetic sense in a light-dependent manner, illustrating a role for both Cry types in magnetoreception. "Because the butterfly Cry2 protein is closely related to the one in vertebrates, like that found in birds which use the Earth's magnetic field to aid migration," states Dr. Reppert, "the finding provides the first genetic evidence that a vertebrate-like Cry can function as a magnetoreceptor."

An interesting feature of the team's work disproved a widely held view about how these proteins can chemically sense a magnetic field. "These findings suggest that there is an unknown photochemical mechanism that the Crys use instead," says Dr. Gegear, lead author on the paper, "one that we are hotly pursuing."

One of the most exciting aspects of the work was showing that each of the two forms of butterfly Cry have the molecular capability to sense magnetic fields. Reppert's group is now developing behavioral assays to show that monarchs can actually use geomagnetic fields during their spectacular fall migration. "We believe we are on the trail of an important directional cue for migrating monarchs," states Reppert, "in addition to their well-defined use of a sun compass."
Reppert, who is also the Higgins Family Professor of Neuroscience at UMMS, has been a pioneering force in the effort to understand monarch butterfly navigation and migration. Earlier this year, he and colleagues demonstrated that a key mechanism of the sun compass that helps steer the butterflies to their ultimate destination resides not in the insects' brains, as previously thought, but in their antennae, a surprising discovery that provided an entirely new perspective of the antenna's role in insect migration.

Bat Echolocation: 3-D Imaging Differentiates How Various Bats Generate Biosonar Signals

(Jan. 25, 2010) — Researchers at The University of Western Ontario (Western) led an international and multi-disciplinary study that sheds new light on the way that bats echolocate. With echolocation, animals emit sounds and then listen to the reflected echoes of those sounds to form images of their surroundings in their brains.
Example of the three-dimensional micro-CT image data that was used to examine the anatomy of intact bat specimens. The stylohyal bone (shown in blue) connects the larynx with the bone that surrounds the eardrum (yellow) in bats that use laryngeal echolocation. In this non-echolocating species, the stylohyal passes interior to the bone surrounding the eardrum, without contacting it. (Credit: Robarts Research Institute)
The team used state-of-the-art micro-computed tomography systems at the Robarts Research Institute in London, Ontario to collect detailed 3D scans of the internal anatomy of 26 different bats, representing 11 different evolutionary lineages. This non-destructive technique allowed researchers to identify a bone that connects the larynx to the bones that surround and support the eardrum in bats. Some bats use their larynx to generate echolocation (biosonar) signals, allowing them to operate at night; other bats use tongue clicks to achieve the same purpose.
The research team discovered that the connection between the larynx and the ear via the stylohyal bone in the hyoid chain was unique to bats that used laryngeal echolocation. This observation makes it possible to distinguish bats that produce echolocation signals with their larynx from bats that do not echolocate and those that use tongue clicks.
The discovery adds new information to the ongoing debate about the timing and origin of flight and echolocation in the early evolution of bats. "This discovery may change the way that researchers interpret previous observations from the fossil record of bats," says Brock Fenton, the Western biologist who led the study. "These new results give researchers working with fresh or fossil material an independent anatomical characteristic to distinguish laryngeally-echolocating bats from all other bats."
The investigation was made possible because of a unique multi-disciplinary and international collaboration between imaging scientists, biophysicists, biologists, physiologists, and neuroscientists at five different institutions. "The micro-imaging equipment used in this study was developed in London, Ontario for use in medical research," says Robarts' imaging scientist David Holdsworth, "but it was very exciting to see it used so effectively in basic biological research."

3D micro-imaging allowed the team to investigate the internal anatomy of a diverse collection of bat specimens that were provided by Judith Eger, senior curator of mammalogy at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Students played a major role in the study, highlighting the important link between teaching and research. The joint first authors, Nina Veselka and David McErlain, are both Western students; co-author Kirsty Brain is a student at the University of Cambridge.
The original idea for the innovative study came from a radiologist, Dr. Rethy Chhem, who brought together biologists and imaging scientists at Western to apply non-destructive imaging to a basic biological research question. Scientists Matthew Mason at the University of Cambridge and Paul Faure at McMaster University provided the additional expertise in mammalian physiology and neurobiology needed to carry out the research. "This work is an important step forward in echolocation research because for years, scientists have been searching for a mechanism that would allow echolocating animals to a have a neural representation of their outgoing biosonar sounds for future comparison with reflected echoes of the sounds, and this anatomical discovery may be that mechanism," says Faure.
The small-animal micro-CT used in the study also has implications for clinicians and biophysicists working with animal models to identify and correct hearing impairments in humans. The results reported in the Nature article also are important because they emphasize the value of detailed, 3D computerized analysis of extensive existing animal museum collections. In the future, this type of "virtual dissection" could be used to study the micro-anatomy of many other species of small animals or insects. The resulting three-dimensional computer display of internal structures is likely to lead to the next generation of "virtual museum" or "online museum," where researchers can study internal anatomy remotely and without dissecting the specimen. Additional non-destructive micro-CT studies of bat anatomy are already underway at Western, including detailed studies of the larynx and cochlea.

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Nolan's Cheese

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Tobacco Plant Thwarts Caterpillar Onslaught by Opening Flowers in the Morning

(Jan. 25, 2010) — Butterflies and moths are welcome visitors to many plant species. Plants attract insect pollinators with the colors, forms, nectars and scents of their flowers to ensure fertilization and reproduction. However, female moths are also threatening to the plant: Once attracted by the flower's scent, they lay their eggs on the green leaves, and shortly voracious young caterpillars hatch. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have now discovered how tobacco plants successfully solve this dilemma.

Wild tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata), native in North America, is flowering during the nighttime and attracts night-active moths as pollinators by emitting the attractant benzyl acetone. However, as soon as female moths start laying their eggs on the plant and the young caterpillars become a serious danger, the plant postpones the opening time of the flowers by 12 hours to dawn and additionally stops producing benzyl acetone. Moths stay away and hummingbirds take over pollination. (Credit: Danny Kessler, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany)


The researchers found that herbivory changed the opening time of the flower buds from dusk to dawn. In addition the emission of flower scents was dramatically reduced. This change in flower timing was elicited by specific molecules in the oral secretions of the larvae, and required the jasmonate signaling cascade, which is known to elicit a host of other defense responses in plants. Instead of night-active moths, these morning-opening flowers attract day-active hummingbirds which are also able to transfer pollen -- without threatening the plant's life.

Outbreak of tomato hornworms

During field experiments performed by PhD students of the Department of Molecular Ecology headed by Prof. Ian T. Baldwin in the Great Basin Desert of Utah (USA) in summer 2007, a massive outbreak of tomato hornworms (Manduca quinquemaculata) occurred. Almost every tobacco plant of the native species Nicotiana attenuata on the field site was attacked by these herbivores which prefer plants of the nightshade family. Danny Kessler intensively studied the infested plants and noticed that these plants had many flowers that opened after sunrise -- although tobacco is typically a night-flowering plant and usually opens its flower buds after sunset. This finding resulted in experiments conducted in the following two years that showed that the flowering time postponed by 12 hours was directly related to herbivory.

Pollination wanted, but no oviposition

Ecologists had already noticed that female moths attracted for pollination laid their eggs, and shortly leaf-eating larvae hatched to feed on the same plant. The scientists considered whether plants would actually submit without reserve to this life-threatening disadvantage -- just for pollination. They intensively studied the remarkable morning-opening flowers (MoF) which were only produced by plants that had been attacked by insect larvae and compared them to the usually occurring night-opening flowers (NoF). The first experiment already revealed an astounding result: MoF did not emit the attractant benzyl acetone anymore (see also Kessler et al., Science 321, 2008) and also the sugar concentration in the floral nectar was considerably reduced. Furthermore, it was striking that the petals of MoF only opened to a third of the size of NoF. All in all, the MoF were rendered literally unnoticeable by the moths -- however, they may become interesting for different pollinators living nearby the field station: hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds visit the morning-opening flowers and serve as pollinators

To find out whether moths or birds successfully transferred pollen from flower to flower, the scientists determined the outcrossing rate of plants visited by moths or hummingbirds in field experiments. They removed the anthers from young flower buds to rule out self-pollination. Then an unattacked and an insect-attacked tobacco plant were covered with a mesh-covered wire cage until the morning of the next day to exclude night-active pollinators. A second pair of plants remained uncovered and thereby accessible to night-active pollinators. Before dawn the cages were exchanged, so that the plants that had been uncovered during the night were now covered and the plants that had been covered at night became accessible to pollinators during the day. In the evening all experimental plants were covered and the plants remained so until seed capsules were produced. Counting of the capsules revealed that a significant majority of capsules on plants that had not been attacked by caterpillars originated from flowers that were pollinated during the night between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., whereas in caterpillar-infested plants successful pollination had occurred in majority during the day between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., therefore by hummingbirds.

The scientists verified the assumption that actually hummingbirds visit the MoFs and drink their nectar by directly observing and counting out more than 1000 flowering wild tobacco plants. 18 humming bird visitations were intensively studied which showed hummingbirds visiting larvae-infested plants. As a matter of fact, more than 90% of the birds preferred the MoF compared to NoF, even if only a few MoF were on a plant. "It is likely that the hummingbirds can recognize the special shape of the partially open corollas of the MoF in the morning and associate these characteristics with the reliable quality and quantity of the nectar in these flowers," says Celia Diezel, co-author of the study.

Experiments using larval oral secretions and transgenic tobacco plants

In further experiments the scientists studied how attacked plants recognize herbivory and subsequently change the developmental program of the flowers to favor hummingbirds. Instead of infesting the plant by putting caterpillars on the leaves, the researchers mechanically wounded a leaf with a pattern wheel and applied oral secretions from hornworm larvae on the wounds. The plant reacted as after direct insect attack: After approximately 3 days more morning-opening flowers compared to non-induced plants were produced.

"Maybe the fatty acid amino acid conjugates present in the oral secretions of the larvae elicit this reaction. We already know that they switch on the plant's defense against herbivory, for instance by producing toxic substances to fend off the attacker," Danny Kessler, PhD student at the institute, explains. In an additional experiment he used genetically modified tobacco, in which the signaling pathway between the messenger molecule in the oral secretion and the defense reaction was interrupted; these plants were unable to produce jasmonate, a plant hormone initiating plant defense responses. In fact, the transgenic jasmonate-deficient plants used in the field experiment did not produce MoF after spit induction, but could if the plants were sprayed with jasmonate, which showed that the reprogramming of the flower production is actually related to the pathway that switches on defense mechanisms.

Why do plants risk attracting tomato hornworm moths as pollinators, although the insects' larvae feed on the plants? "We cannot answer this question from the perspective of one single plant, but, if at all, from an evolutionary and ecological background," says Ian Baldwin.

Wild tobacco populations grow on vast areas after fires, comparable to synchronized monocultures with thousands of widespread plants. Hummingbirds may not be the most reliable pollination service the plant species needs for outcrossing and reproduction. Using volatiles, the plants can attract moths from large distances, whereas hummingbirds are only available, if their nests are accidentally in the vicinity of the tobacco populations. Moreover, looking at the special mode of hummingbird pollination, it is more likely that flowers of one single plant are pollinated with pollen from the same plant than from flowers of different plants. This can decrease the genetic variability of the seeds produced. Moths may move more frequently among plants and this behavior may results in greater genetic variability for the seed produced from their pollination services. [JWK/AO]

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Insect Colonies Operate as 'Superorganisms', New Research Finds

 (Jan. 22, 2010) — New A team of researchers including scientists from the University of Florida has shown insect colonies follow some of the same biological "rules" as individuals, a finding that suggests insect societies operate like a single "superorganism" in terms of their physiology and life cycle.

By analyzing data from 168 different social insect species including ants, termites, bees and wasps, researchers found that the lifespan, growth rates and rates of reproduction of whole colonies when considered as superorganisms were nearly indistinguishable from individual organisms. (Credit: iStockphoto/Juan Manuel Garcia Lopez)

For more than a century, biologists have marveled at the highly cooperative nature of ants, bees and other social insects that work together to determine the survival and growth of a colony.
The social interactions are much like cells working together in a single body, hence the term "superorganism" -- an organism comprised of many organisms, according to James Gillooly, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of biology at UF's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Now, researchers from UF, the University of Oklahoma and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have taken the same mathematical models that predict lifespan, growth and reproduction in individual organisms and used them to predict these features in whole colonies.

By analyzing data from 168 different social insect species including ants, termites, bees and wasps, the authors found that the lifespan, growth rates and rates of reproduction of whole colonies when considered as superorganisms were nearly indistinguishable from individual organisms.

The findings will be published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Early Edition).
"This PNAS paper regarding the energetic basis of colonial living in social insects is notable for its originality and also for its importance," said Edward O. Wilson, a professor of biology at Harvard University and co-author of the book "The Super-Organism," who was not involved in the research. "The research certainly adds a new perspective to our study of how insect societies are organized and to what degree they are organized."

The study may also help scientists understand how social systems have arisen through natural selection -- the process by which evolution occurs. The evolution of social systems of insects in particular, where sterile workers live only to help the queen reproduce, has long been a mystery, Gillooly said.

"In life, two of the major evolutionary innovations have been how cells came together to function as a single organism, and how individuals joined together to function as a society," said Gillooly, who is a member of the UF Genetics Institute. "Relatively speaking, we understand a considerable amount about how the size of multicellular organisms affects the life cycle of individuals based on metabolic theory, but now we are showing this same theoretical framework helps predict the life cycle of whole societies of organisms.
Researchers note that insect societies make up a large fraction of the total biomass on Earth, and say the finding may have implications for human societies.

"Certainly one of the reasons folks have been interested in social insects and the consequences of living in groups is that it tells us about our own species," said study co-author Michael Kaspari, Ph.D., a presidential professor of zoology, ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Oklahoma and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. "There is currently a vigorous debate on how sociality evolved. We suggest that any theory of sociality be consistent with the amazing convergence in the way nonsocial and social organisms use energy."

In addition to Gillooly and Kaspari, Chen Hou from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Hannah B. Vander Zanden of the University of Florida participated in the study.

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Mice and humans with same anxiety-related gene abnormality behave similarly

 (Jan. 19, 2010) — Studying animals in behavioral experiments has been a cornerstone of psychological research, but whether the observations are relevant for human behavior has been unclear. Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have identified an alteration to the DNA of a gene that imparts similar anxiety-related behavior in both humans and mice, demonstrating that laboratory animals can be accurately used to study these human behaviors.

The findings may help researchers develop new clinical strategies to treat humans with anxiety disorders, such as phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Results from the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, are published January 15 in the journal Science.

"We found that humans and mice who had the same human genetic alteration also had greater difficulty in extinguishing an anxious-like response to adverse stimuli," explains Dr. B.J. Casey, co-senior author of the study and professor of psychology in psychiatry from The Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

The researchers observed common behavioral responses between humans and mice that possess an alteration in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene. The mice were genetically altered -- meaning that they had a human genetic variation inserted within their genome.
To make their comparison, the researchers paired a harmless stimulus with an aversive one, which elicits an anxious-like response, known as conditioned fear. Following fear learning, exposure to numerous presentations of the harmless stimulus alone, in the absence of the aversive stimulus, normally leads to subjects extinguishing this fear response. That is, a subject should eventually stop having an anxious response towards the harmless stimulus.
"But both the mice and humans found to have the alternation in the BDNF gene took significantly longer to 'get over' the innocuous stimuli and stop having a conditioned fear response," explains Dr. Fatima Soliman, lead author of the study, who is currently a Tri-Institutional MD-PhD student, and has completed her Ph.D. in the labs of Drs. B.J. Casey and Francis S. Lee.
In addition to the observational testing, the researchers also performed brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), on the human participants, to see if brain function differed between people with the abnormal BDNF gene and those with normal BDNF genes.
They found that a circuit in the brain involving the frontal cortex and amygdala -- responsible for learning about cues that signal safety and danger -- was altered in people with the abnormality, when compared with control participants who did not have the abnormality.

"Testing for this gene may one day help doctors make more informed decisions for treatment of anxiety disorders," explains Dr. Francis S. Lee, co-senior author of the study and associate professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Therapists use exposure therapy -- a type of behavior therapy in which the patient confronts a feared situation, object, thought, or memory -- to treat individuals who experience stress and anxiety due to certain situations. Sometimes, exposure therapy involves reliving a traumatic experience in a controlled, therapeutic environment and is based on principles of extinction learning. The goal is to reduce the distress, physical or emotional, felt in situations that trigger negative emotion. Exposure therapy is often used for the treatment of anxiety, phobias and PTSD.
"Exposure therapy may still work for patients with this gene abnormality, but a positive test for the BDNF genetic variant may let doctors know that exposure therapy may take longer, and that the use of newer drugs may be necessary to accelerate extinction learning," explains Dr. Soliman.
Co-authors of the study include Dr. Charles Glatt, Dr. Kevin Bath, Dr. Liat Levita, Rebecca Jones, Siobhan Pattwell, Dr. Deqiang Jing, Dr. Nim Tottenham, Dr. Dima Amso, Dr. Leah Somerville, Dr. Henning Voss, Dr. Douglas Ballon, Dr. Conor Liston, Theresa Teslovich and Tracey Van Kempen, all from Weill Cornell; and Dr. Gary Glover, from Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.

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Quick Tidbits of Weird Pest Related Info

Bug spray used to fight off grandson

Jan 09 2010 SPRING HILL — A grandmother used a can of insect spray to defend herself from her 19-year-old grandson whom she said was trashing her bedroom as he searched for her cellphone.

A Hernando County sheriff’s report states that the woman was asleep around 4 a.m. Thursday when her grandson, Quinton Conaway, came in and said he wanted to use the cell phone to call a friend.
The 67-year-old woman told deputies that when she told Conaway he could not use the phone, he became irate and started throwing things around the bedroom as he looked for the phone.
She said she grabbed a can of insect spray to defend herself, and as Conaway struggled with her to get the can, it discharged insecticide.
The woman contacted deputies, who arrested Conaway on a felony charge of assaulting a person over age 65.

Not an urban legend. They do drop from trees when it's cold

Iguanas are a non-native species that many folks have been trying to eradicate. Here at Bizarre Florida, however, we think they're worth keeping around if only because they go dormant and drop from trees when the temp gets much below about 40 degrees. How...um, cool is that?

No, it's not some kind of urban legend. It's the actual moral truth, according to Ron Magill of Miami Metrozoo, who told WPLG, "It's almost like they go to sleep." But, he warned, the vast majority of them will survive nevertheless. "Generally speaking, he said, "if it warms up afterwards, they can recover,"

Which is why Magill issued a caveat to those who regard this as a perfect opportunity to do away with whole bunches of the invasive reptiles. "I knew of a gentleman who was collecting them off the street and throwing them in the back of his station wagon, and all of a sudden these things are coming alive, crawling on his back and almost caused a wreck."

 
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Why Mice Develop 'Knots' While Exploring a New Environment

(Jan. 18, 2010) — During exploration of a new environment, mice establish "knots" -- preferred places visited sporadically and marked by the performance of twists and turns, according to a new study by Israel and Canada-based researchers. The research provides evidence that the formation of these places is increased by stress, and suggests that the tortuous movements improve the interpretation of the visual scene, enhance the memory of the place and provide the mouse with multiple views that turn the established places into navigational landmarks.

Details are published January 15 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology.
The notion of "a place" and an "itinerary" is taken for granted in everyday life but how these abstract ideas are created is a subject of much discussion and research. Using advanced computational tools the authors show how a particular type of place (knot) is formed and then used by mice. The knots, and other preferred places discovered earlier, contribute to our understanding of how the animals map the environment, and what they try to accomplish.
In an empty arena devoid of proximal cues, the rich perceptual inputs generated by the twisting and turning could improve the mouse's view of the environment and more generally enhance or even embody for the mouse the memory and significance of this place by tagging it with a place-specific perceptual signature, say the authors.
Exploration is a central component of human and animal behavior that has been studied in rodents for almost a century. It is presently one of the main models for studying the interface between behavior, genetics, drugs, and the brain. Until recently, rodents' exploration of an open field has been considered to be largely random. Lately, this behavior is being gradually deciphered, revealing reference places established and used by the animals for navigation.
Portrayal of how behavior is structured within and around knots in normal animals can later be used to study how this behavior is affected by pharmacological and genetic manipulations.

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Deadly Scorpion Provides Safe Pesticide

 (Jan. 19, 2010) — Scorpions deliver a powerful, paralyzing venom -- a complex cocktail of poisonous peptides -- that immobilize animal prey on the spot. Some of the toxins in this cocktail damage only insects, which is why a Tel Aviv University researcher is harnessing them to create a safe and ecologically sound pesticide.

Scorpions deliver a powerful, paralyzing venom -- a complex cocktail of poisonous peptides -- that immobilize animal prey on the spot. (Credit: Image courtesy of American Friends of Tel Aviv University)

Prof. Michael Gurevitz of Tel Aviv University's Department of Plant Sciences has isolated the genetic sequences for important neurotoxins in the scorpion venom. He's also developed methods to produce and manipulate toxins to restrict their toxicity in certain insects or mammals.
"Two decades ago I realized that scorpion venom is a goldmine for possible insecticidal and therapeutic agents. This raised the question of how to use them as ecologically-safe agents against insects in a farmer's fields, or in medicinal disorders," he says.
In his study of the toxins and the evolution of their genes he recently published a paper in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution that demonstrates how computational analyses at the gene sequence level leads to better understanding of how to manipulate toxin activity.

A venom factory in the lab

Rather than isolating the venom constituents of the Israeli yellow scorpion, known to be among the world's most poisonous scorpions, Prof. Gurevitz developed genetic methods for producing and manipulating the desired toxins in bacteria. He then investigated how they act against insects and mammals, paving the way for potential use in the agriculture industry.
He went in this direction because attempts to insert a certain neurotoxin gene into a plant genome hoping for the plant to produce the toxin and kill infesting insects has failed. As a peptide, the toxin was metabolized in the insect guts, which evidently seems to require that it first be engineered to be able to penetrate into the insect blood stream to have its impact on the nervous system.

Prof. Gurevitz says that some neurotoxins in the scorpion are highly active against some insects -- leaf-eating moths, locusts, flies and beetles -- but have no effect on beneficial insects like honeybees or on mammals like humans. He continues to pursue an effective mode of delivery for what could be a new insecticide.
Prof. Gurevitz is considered one of the world's pioneers in this field, having published numerous papers on this subject. He spent six years as a research fellow at Washington University in St. Louis and Michigan State University, beginning his scorpion studies while an M.Sc. student in Jerusalem 35 years ago. Since then, he's developed methods of toxin gene cloning, production and modification in his lab, paving the way for an entirely new molecular field based on the venom of the deadly insect.

A "Trojan crop" to hide a deadly poison

Since scorpion toxins must be modified to be able to penetrate the blood stream of an infesting insect, it is important to study the toxins and the way they interact with the insect nervous system. Only then would it be possible to modify them in such a way as to reach their target tissues in insects, he says. This is the direction he is working on now.
The agriculture industry already uses mostly pyrethroids, which also penetrate into insects and attack their nervous systems, leading to paralysis and death. Their main drawback, however, is the lack of specificity and the danger these compounds pose to the environment, livestock and humans.
"Why not harness potent natural compounds that venomous animals developed during millions of years of evolution?" asks Prof. Gurevitz. "I am developing the science so we can learn how to use them, and to learn how to produce agents to mimic their effect yet maintain specificity to certain kinds of insects."

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Parasitic Wasps' Genomes Provides New Insights Into Pest Control, Genetics

 (Jan. 14, 2010) — Parasitic wasps kill pest insects, but their existence is largely unknown to the public. Now, scientists led by John H. Werren, professor of biology at the University of Rochester, and Stephen Richards at the Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine have sequenced the genomes of three parasitoid wasp species, revealing many features that could be useful to pest control and medicine, and to enhance our understanding of genetics and evolution.

"Parasitic wasps attack and kill pest insects, but many of them are smaller than the head of a pin, so people don't even notice them or know of their important role in keeping pest numbers down," says Werren. "There are over 600,000 species of these amazing critters, and we owe them a lot. If it weren't for parasitoids and other natural enemies, we would be knee-deep in pest insects."
Parasitoid wasps are like "smart bombs" that seek out and kill only specific kinds of insects, says Werren. "Therefore, if we can harness their full potential, they would be vastly preferable to chemical pesticides, which broadly kill or poison many organisms in the environment, including us."

Chris Desjarding and Jack Werren compare parasitic wasps (tiny insects in upper tube) to their hosts flies (in the lower tube).

The three wasp genomes Werren and Richards sequenced are in the wasp genus Nasonia, which is considered the "lab rat" of parasitoid insects. Among the future applications of the Nasonia genomes that could be of use in pest control is identification of genes that determine which insects a parasitoid will attack, identification of dietary needs of parasitoids to assist in economical, large-scale rearing of parasitoids, and identification of parasitoid venoms that could be used in pest control. Because parasitoid venoms manipulate cell physiology in diverse ways, they also may provide an unexpected source for new drug development.

In addition to being useful for controlling pests and offering promising venoms, the wasps could act as a new genetic system with a number of unique advantages. Fruit flies have been the standard model for genetic studies for decades, largely because they are small, can be grown easily in a laboratory, and reproduce quickly. Nasonia share these traits, but male Nasonia have only one set of chromosomes, instead of two sets like fruit flies and people. "A single set of chromosomes, which is more commonly found in lower single-celled organisms such as yeast, is a handy genetic tool, particularly for studying how genes interact with each other," says Werren. Unlike fruit flies, these wasps also modify their DNA in ways similar to humans and other vertebrates -- a process called "methylation," which plays an important role in regulating how genes are turned on and off during development.
"In human genetics we are trying to understand the genetic basis for quantitative differences between people such as height, drug interactions and susceptibility to disease," says Richards. "These genome sequences combined with haploid-diploid genetics of Nasonia allow us to cheaply and easily answer these important questions in an insect system, and then follow up any insights in humans."
The wasps have an additional advantage in that closely related species of Nasonia can be cross-bred, facilitating the identification of genes involved in species' differences.

"Because we have sequenced the genomes of three closely related species, we are able to study what changes have occurred during the divergence of these species from one another," says Werren. "One of the interesting findings is that DNA of mitochondria, a small organelle that 'powers' the cell in organisms as diverse as yeast and people, evolves very fast in Nasonia. Because of this, the genes of the cell's nucleus that encode proteins for the mitochondria must also evolve quickly to 'keep up.' "

It is these co-adapting gene sets that appear to cause problems in hybrids when the species mate with each other. Research groups are now busy trying to out what specific kinds of interactions go wrong in the hybrid offspring. Since mitochondria are involved in a number of human diseases, as well as fertility and aging, the rapidly evolving mitochondria of Nasonia and coadapting nuclear genes could be useful research tools to investigate these processes.
A second startling discovery is that Nasonia has been picking up and using genes from bacteria and Pox viruses (e.g. relatives of the human smallpox virus). "We don't yet know what these genes are doing in Nasonia," says Werren, "but the acquisition of genes from bacteria and viruses could be an important mechanism for evolutionary innovation in animals, and this is a striking potential example."
A companion paper to the Science study, published in PLoS Genetics, reports the first identification of the DNA responsible for a quantitative trait gene in Nasonia, and heralds Nasonia joining the ranks of model genetic systems. The study reveals that changes in "non-coding DNA," the portion that does not make proteins but can regulate expression of genes, causes a large developmental difference between closely related species of Nasonia. This finding relates to an important ongoing controversy in evolution -- whether differences between species are due mostly to protein changes or regulatory changes.
"Emerging from these genome studies are a lot of opportunities for exploiting Nasonia in topics ranging from pest control to medicine, genetics, and evolution," says Werren. "However, the community of scientists working on Nasonia is still relatively small. That is why we are hoping that more scientists will see the utility of these insects, and join in efforts to exploit their potential."

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Bees Chase Tenant From Apartment, Pest Company Finds Hives In Bedroom Wall, Tenant Says

 January 12, 2010 MESA -- A bee invasion at one Valley apartment complex got so bad, it forced a Mesa tenant to move out.
Yvonne Gaines said her bee problem started on the outside but then those pesky pests made their way in.

"There was like five or six at a time, every time," Gaines said. "They were coming through the vent and coming through the ceiling fan."

Gaines said the noise was unbearable.

"They were fighting to get in from out of the wall," Gaines said.

Gaines said she started complaining almost daily to management. She said when those complaints failed to get results, she took matters into her own hands.

"We bought a fly swatter," she said. "And we started swatting."

Yvonne and her boyfriend trapped some of the bees in a bag. Gaines said management finally called in a pest control service.
After drilling a few holes in her wall and spraying, Gaines said she got even worse news.
"They told us there had to be one or two hives within the wall of our bedroom, which could have been the span of the whole bedroom wall," Gaines said.
Gaines said that was the last straw. She moved out.
Gaines said she wants the apartment complex to pay for the rent she paid during the course of the infestation.
"I don't think we were living in a safe environment," Gaines said.
Gaines said she is considering filing a lawsuit against the complex.

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Sex Life May Hold Key To Honeybee Survival

 (Jan. 11, 2010) — The number and diversity of male partners a queen honeybee has could help to protect her children from disease, say University of Leeds scientists, who are investigating possible causes of the widespread increase in bee deaths seen around the world.
The researchers are working on the theory that the reason some colonies are wiped out while others remain healthy could be down the genetic diversities of the hives.

Dr Bill Hughes, from the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds, says: “By making sure queens mate with enough genetically variable males, we may be able to boost resistance levels and so protect our Bee populations from disease attacks like the ones we have seen hitting the US.”

One possibility is that the loss of honeybees means that the number and variety of potential mates for a queen is becoming too low to maintain genetic diversity and therefore disease resistant populations.

Says Dr Hughes: “Given the choice, queen honeybees will typically mate with up to 12 different male partners in a matter of minutes and some with over 20. The record is the giant Asian honeybee whose queens normally mate with well over 40 males - and in one case was found to have mated with over a hundred.”

The Leeds scientists will be examining the question of genetic resistance by studying honeybee reactions to a common fungus parasite called Chalkbrood, under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.

The fungus, already found in the majority of UK hives, infects and ‘eats’ larvae, giving them a chalky appearance. Individual larvae die but the parasite rarely kills the whole colony.

In 2008, US average losses of honeybee colonies were 35%, with some beekeepers losing 90% of their colonies. A contributing factor to these high levels of bee may have been a virus. However the same virus has been found in other countries yet does not seem to cause the same problems.

Dr Hughes and his team think infections by hidden parasites in genetically susceptible bees may be combining with other factors to produce a lethal ‘perfect storm’ which overwhelms their defences.

Honeybee survival is vital to the protection of our food supplies because they pollinate up to a third of the food we grow in the UK.

The project, which has received just under £500,000 in funding from the Natural Environment Research Council, is due last for three years. Collaborators include the UK Government’s National Bee Unit based near York and the University of Copenhagen.

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From Crickets to Whales, Animal Calls Have Something in Common

(Jan. 6, 2010) — Scientists who compare insect chirps with ape calls may look like they are mixing aphids and orangutans, but researchers have found common denominators in the calls of hundreds of species of insects, birds, fish, frogs, lizards and mammals that can be predicted with simple mathematical models.

Compiling data from nearly 500 species, scientists with the University of Florida and Oklahoma State University have found the calls of crickets, whales and a host of other creatures are ultimately controlled by their metabolic rates -- in other words, their uptake and use of energy.
"Very few people have compared cricket chirps to codfish sounds to the sounds made by whales and monkeys to see if there were commonalities in the key features of acoustic signals, including the frequency, power and duration of signals," said James Gillooly, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of biology at UF's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a member of the UF Genetics Institute. "Our results indicate that, for all species, basic features of acoustic communication are primarily controlled by individual metabolism, which in turn varies predictably with body size and temperature. So, when the calls are adjusted for an animal's size and temperature, they even sound alike."
The finding, reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, will help scientists understand how acoustic communication evolved across species, uniting a field of study that has long focused on the calls of particular groups of animals, such as birds.
The results also provide insights regarding common energetic and neuromuscular constraints on sound production, and the ecological and evolutionary consequences of producing these sounds.
"Acoustic signals are used to transfer information among species that is required for survival, growth and reproduction," Gillooly said. "This work suggests that this information exchange is ultimately governed by the rate at which an animal takes up and uses energy."
Animal communication is a long-studied area of biology, going back at least to the days of Aristotle. But generally the studies were species-specific, made in the context of courting calls or parental care of a certain type of animal -- nothing to relate an animal call across a variety of species.
"From my perspective this is one of the first true attempts to provide a general theoretical framework for acoustic communication," said Alexander G. Ophir, Ph.D., an assistant professor of zoology at Oklahoma State, who began the painstaking process of compiling data on animal calls in hundreds of different species while a postdoctoral student at UF. "This seems to provide unifying principles for acoustic communication that can be applied to virtually all species. In terms of producing sounds, we use vocal cords, but other mechanisms of sound production exist, such as insects that rub their legs together. Until now, these sounds have been treated differently. But by providing a general mathematical framework -- a baseline -- we have a reference point to compare those differences.
"So if we say one animal's call is loud, we can provide a predictive reference point to say whether it is truly loud when compared with other animal sounds," he said.
That common reference point can even predict what animals long extinct -- think of Tyrannosaurus rex of "Jurassic Park" fame -- may have truly sounded like.
"These findings say if you give me information about an animal of a certain body size and the mechanisms it uses to make sounds, I can give you a rough idea of what it sounds like," said Jeffrey Podos, Ph.D., an associate professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who did not participate in the study. "It allows us to imagine where the evolution of acoustic signals might go, and where it might have come from. Further study will probably put these principles in a more explicit evolutionary framework, but this is an interesting idea and presented with such a broad view. I can't think of anyone in at least 30 years who has tied together data from such a diversity of species. These authors are really trying to see the forest instead of the trees."

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