DIY Rat Control? Check your traps often or this happens.....

DIY Rodent Control..Is it for you?

A new customer told me that he checked the rat traps all the time and kept them fresh so he would catch other rat's that entered his attic. The problem is, he still had rat's!

"Looks like its been awhile since he checked his traps, lol"

If your going to Do It Yourself, check your traps or let a professional do it!

Common House Ants Form Supercolonies, Prosper in Urban Settings

(Mar. 31, 2010) — One of the most common house ant species might have been built for living in some of the smallest spaces in a forest, but the ants have found ways to take advantage of the comforts of city living.

Grzegorz Buczkowski discovered odorous house ants living in supercolonies, creating complex networks entomologists have never seen with the species before now. (Credit: Purdue Agricultural Communication photo/Tom Campbell)

Grzegorz Buczkowski, a Purdue University research assistant professor of entomology, found that odorous house ant colonies become larger and more complex as they move from forest to city and act somewhat like an invasive species. The ants live about 50 to a colony with one queen in forest settings but explode into supercolonies with more than 6 million workers and 50,000 queens in urban areas.

"This is a native species that's doing this," said Buczkowski, whose results are published in the early online version of the journal Biological Invasions. "Native ants are not supposed to become invasive. We don't know of any other native ants that are outcompeting other species of native ants like these."

Odorous house ants live in hollow acorn shells in the forest. They're called odorous because they have a coconut- or rum-like smell when crushed. They're considered one of the most common house ants.

In semi-natural areas that are a cross of forest and urban areas, such as a park, Buczkowski said he observed colonies of about 500 workers with a single queen. He said it's possible that as the ants get closer to urban areas they have easier access to food, shelter and other resources.

"In the forest, they have to compete for food and nesting sites," Buczkowski said. "In the cities, they don't have that competition. People give them a place to nest, a place to eat."

Buczkowski observed the ants in three different settings on and around the Purdue campus. He said it might be expected that if the odorous house ants were able to multiply into complex colonies, other ants would do the same.

But Buczkowski found no evidence that other ants had adapted to new environments and evolved into larger groups as the odorous house ants have. He said it's possible that odorous house ants are better adapted to city environments than other ant species or that they had somehow outcompeted or dominated other species.

"This raises a lot of questions we'd like to answer," he said.

Buczkowski said understanding why the supercolonies form could lead to better control of the pests in homes, as well as ensuring that they don't outcompete beneficial species.

Future studies on odorous house ants will include studying the ant's genetics and trying to understand the effects of urbanization of odorous house ants.

Termites are Swarming! Here is a very basic look at what to expect.

As I impatiently sat waiting for the traffic light to turn green, I noticed a cloud of swarming subterranean termites “flutter” by and not much longer, the telephones were ringing off the hook with people screaming in panic,” Termites!”

It’s that time off year folks to start checking the window sills for the wings and bodies of subterranean termites. Those nasty little cellulose eaters are out in force.

Things to look for:

Subterranean Termite Swarmers: When the subterranean colonies of termites become large enough, it will contain swarmers. The swarmers are the future kings and queens of the next subterranean termite colony.
 
Once they have left their "homes" they attempt to locate a new place to live. They locate a mate, shed their wings and then "get busy".
 
What you may see is quite a few "fluttering" insects, usually black in color with milky white wings or you just may see the wings in your windowsills. Termites will head for a light source.
 

Mud Tubes: Subterranean termites for many reasons, travel through mud tubes such as the one pictured to the left.
 
If you nudge it alittle, it will easily break open and live subterranean termites will usually spill out.
 
What does a subterranean termite look like? Next picture.....
 
 
 
 

Subterranean Termites: Here is a picture of the subterrameam termite "soldiers", notice the large mandibles on these guys!
The workers are slighty smaller and without those huge chompers.
 
In comparison, they look like grains of rice with legs.
 
Whats the difference between a flying termite and a flying ant?  Next picture...
 
 
 

Termites vs Ants

 

For more information, go to our website at Beucher & Son Termite and Pest Control

 

 

 

 

Religious snail mucus makes people sick

Devotees of a man claiming to practice a traditional African religion said they had to ingest the mucus of a Giant African Snail that sickened them.
US authorities in January raided the Miami man's home after receiving complaints.

The man has not been criminally charged, but prosecutors and state and federal wildlife agencies are investigating.

The Giant African Snail is prohibited in the US without special approval.

Experts said it devastates new ecosystems. The snail grows up to 10 inches long, can reproduce on its own and even can even eat plaster.


The man said he meant no harm, and his religion uses the snails in healing ceremonies.

Followers said they got violently ill, losing weight and developing strange lumps in their stomachs.

State & Federal Agencies Work Together To Stop Destructive Snail

They are asking the public for help.
Thursday March 11th, 2010

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have joined together in a cooperative effort to prevent giant African snails (GAS) from making their way into Florida and are asking the public for help.

Giant African snails are considered a serious plant pest and potential threat to public health because of their ability to destroy plants, damage ornamental plants and spread disease. Giant African snails are illegal to import into the United States without a permit, and currently no permits have been issued.

Because of vigilant federal and state inspections and public education efforts, Florida has been successful in keeping these dangerous mollusks from becoming established again in Florida. Once established, this pest can create a giant swath of destruction and an alert public can prevent that from happening.

For the last several decades, there was no known giant African snail in Florida. However, the state is no stranger to this massive mollusk. In 1966, a boy smuggled three snails into Miami as pets and his grandmother subsequently released them into her garden. Seven years later, more than 18,000 snails were found. It took almost 10 years and more than $1 million to eradicate this pest from Florida. This is the only known successful giant African snail eradication program on record.

Scientists consider the GAS to be one of the most damaging snails in the world because it is known to consume at least 500 different types of plants. The snails can also cause structural damage to buildings; they consume plaster, stucco and other calcareous materials needed to grow their shells. In large numbers, GAS can cause extensive damage.

Public health concerns also surround this and other types of snails because they can carry parasites. Because of these health concerns, it is recommended to use gloves when handling snails and to wash hands thoroughly afterward.

The giant African snail, Achatina fulica, is one of the largest land snails in the world growing up to 8 inches in length and 4.5 inches in diameter. When full grown, the shell consists of seven to nine whorls (spirals), with a long and greatly swollen body whorl. The brownish shell covers at least half the length of the snail. Each snail can live as long as nine years and contains both female and male reproductive organs. After a single mating session, each snail can produce 100 to 400 eggs. In a typical year, every mated adult lays about 1,200 eggs.

Achatina fulica is originally from East Africa and has established itself throughout the Indo-Pacific Basin, including the Hawaiian Islands. This pest has also been introduced into the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe with recent detections in Saint Lucia and Barbados.

The Cooperative Agriculture Pest Survey (CAPS), a USDA grant-funded program which is managed by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, has stepped up inspections following a recent GAS interception but no additional giant African snails were found.

Anyone who thinks they have seen a giant African snail, or may have information on illegal snail smuggling or import activity, is asked to please call the Department's toll-free helpline at 1-888-397-1517. Please do not release them or give them away. The cooperation of the public in identifying any of these pests will be greatly appreciated and will help prevent the establishment of a destructive creature.

For information on invasive snail species, visit http://www.fl-dpi.com/

Watch that "S" Car Go!

                                                            
 

Plotting and Treachery in Ant Royal Families

(Mar. 11, 2010) — Social insects -- ants in particular -- are usually thought of as selfless entities willing to sacrifice everything for their comrades. However, new research suggests that ant queens are also prepared to compromise the welfare of the entire colony in order to retain the throne.

Queen ant and her retinue. (Credit: University of Copenhagen)

A team from the University of Copenhagen, led by postdoc Luke Holman of the Center for Social Evolution, describes in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, published on the 24 February 2010, that ant queens are much more devious than previously thought.

Often, an ant colony has more than one queen. Multiple queens can produce a larger initial workforce in incipient colonies, increasing the chance the colony will survive the hazardous first year. But queens do not happily cohabit forever; soon after the young workers hatch, they begin to slaughter surplus queens until only one remains.

Ant queens were found to cleverly adjust how many new workers they produce for the colony. Queens produce fewer workers when sharing the colony with other queens, especially if the colony already has many developing workers. Queens therefore seem to know when they can expect a showdown for the throne, and conserve energy accordingly.

Such strategic investment in worker production is complemented by sophisticated chemical communication by queens. Ants have been called "walking chemical factories," because they produce many different odours for tasks such as recognising friends and enemies and signalling their status and role within the colony. Olfactory cues also indicate whether a queen is healthy and fertile. The Copenhagen team found that queens which were fertile had stronger chemical signals, and were also more likely to be spared execution by workers. Workers therefore appear to be selecting the fertile queen as their ruler based on smell.

"Execution of the most selfish ant queens by workers would increase the incentive for queens to be team-players that work hard to help the colony. This rudimentary "legal system" could have helped ants to evolve their highly advanced societies, just as in humans ," says lead author Luke Holman. Co-authors of the study were Patrizia d'Ettorre (now a professor at Paris University) and Stephanie Dreier, who have studied the evolution of social insect behaviour, communication and survival strategies for several years.

Emerging Tick-Borne Disease

(Mar. 11, 2010) — Stories of environmental damage and their consequences always seem to take place far away and in another country, usually a tropical one with lush rainforests and poison dart frogs.

In fact, similar stories starring familiar animals are unfolding all the time in our own backyards -- including gripping tales of diseases jumping from animal hosts to people when ecosystems are disrupted.

STARI, a disease carried by lone star ticks, resembles Lyme disease in that it is characterized by a bulls-eye rash, but it is caused by a different bacterium and seems to be less virulent. (Credit: Wunderling/Creative Commons)

This time we're not talking hemorrhagic fever and the rainforest. We're talking tick-borne diseases and the Missouri Ozarks.

And the crucial environmental disruption is not the construction of roads in the rainforest, it is the explosion of white-tailed deer populations.

An interdisciplinary team at Washington University in St. Louis has been keeping a wary eye on emerging tick-borne diseases in Missouri for the past 20 years. Team members include ecologists Brian F. Allan and Jonathan M. Chase, molecular biologists Robert E. Thach and Lisa S. Goessling, and physician Gregory A. Storch.

The team recently developed a sophisticated DNA assay, described in the March 2010 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, that allows them to identify which animal hosts are transmitting pathogens to ticks.

"This new technology is going to be the key to understanding the transmission of diseases from wildlife to humans by ticks," Allan says.

Three new tick-borne diseases

Missouri has three common species of ticks. The black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) that carries Lyme disease is found here, but is far less common than in other regions of the country.

Missouri also has American dog ticks (Dermacentor variabilis), which carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, but again this is a less frequently encountered species.

The most common tick is Amblyomma americanum, called the lone star tick because the adult female has a white splotch on her back. It is a woodland species originally found in the southeastern United States whose range now extends northward as far as Maine.

Until recently, this tick, which is an aggressive and indiscriminate biter, was considered a nuisance species, not one that played a role in human disease.

Then in 1986 a physician noticed bacterial clusters called morulae in a blood smear from a critically ill man that looked like those formed by bacteria in the genus Ehrlichia (named for the German microbiologist Paul Ehrlich). At the time Ehrlichia were thought to cause disease only in animals.

The bacterium was later identified as a new species, Ehrlichia chaffeensis, and the disease was named human ehrlichiosis. In 1993 E. chaffeensis DNA was found in lone star ticks collected from several states.

Ehrlichiosis typically begins with vague symptoms that mimic those of other bacterial illnesses. In a few patients, however, it progresses rapidly to affect the liver, and may cause death unless treated with antibiotics.

In 1999, a second Ehrlichia species was identified as an agent of human disease. The DNA of the newly identified bacterium was also found in lone star ticks.

Gregory A. Storch, M.D., the Ruth L. Siteman Professor of Pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, led the team that identified the second Ehrlichia species. The discovery was described in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1999.

Blood samples from patients in the St. Louis area who might have a tick-borne disease are still sent to Storch's lab for analysis.

But the erhlichioses weren't the only emerging diseases the tick was carrying. In the 1980s, reports had started to trickle in from Missouri, North Carolina and Maryland of an illness accompanied by a bulls-eye rash. Called STARI, for southern tick-associated rash illness, it resembled Lyme disease but didn't seem to be as severe.

The lone star tick was also incriminated in these cases. STARI is thought to be caused by a bacterium named Borrelia lonestari, after its tick vector.

The question

"The question," says Thach, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and of biochemistry and molecular biophysics in the School of Medicine, "is where do infectious diseases come from?"

"Most seem to come from nature -- they exist in other animals -- and then make the leap from animals to people, Thach says."

Assuming this model applies to the lone star tick diseases, what is their animal reservoir and why are they jumping?

Lone star ticks need blood meals to power their metamorphoses (they go through three stages: larva, nymph and adult) and egg laying.

They sometimes bite coyotes, foxes and other animals, but their favorite hosts are wild turkey and white-tailed deer.

Especially white-tailed deer, which seem to be playing a major role in maintaining large lone star tick populations and setting the stage for tick diseases to jump to people.

Suspicion grows

Fieldwork conducted by Allan, Ph.D., a post-doctoral research fellow at Washington University's Tyson Research Center in the oak-history forests that grace the rolling hills of the Missouri Ozarks, was reinforcing the team's suspicions about deer.

In forests managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation and by the Nature Conservancy, Allan was looking at the effect on tick numbers of management practices such as selective logging and prescribed burns.

Allan's results show that management practices sometimes have counterintuitive effects on tick numbers. For example, he reported in the Journal of Medical Entomology in September 2009 that prescribed burns increase tick numbers and human risk of exposure to lone star tick diseases.

To make sense of this counterintuitive result all you need to do is follow the deer. A prescribed burn leads to a flush of new plant growth. Deer, which are selective browsers, are attracted by the tender greenery. They flood into the burn sites, and drop blood-sated ticks as they browse.

Getting blood from a tick

Although deer were looking shady, the case against them was still largely circumstantial. Could the scientists get definitive evidence?

Allan found a way. He read about an assay that had been developed in Jeremy Gray's lab at University College Dublin to identify animal reservoirs of Lyme disease. ("There are twice as many cases of Lyme disease in Western Europe as there are in the United States," says Thach, "and there is a lot of Lyme research being done there.")

Allan asked Thach whether his lab would be willing to develop a similar assay for the lone star tick diseases.

"With my colleague Lisa Goessling," Thach says, "we developed the technique here and used it to analyze the ticks Brian brought in from the woods."

"The technology for identifying mosquito blood meals has existed for some time," Allan says, "because they take many blood meals over a short period of time, so the blood is usually still fresh when you capture them. And they keep coming back for another meal, so it's very easy to capture them.

It's much harder to get blood from a tick, which usually takes only one blood meal per life stage," Allan continues. "By the time we capture the tick eight months to a year may have elapsed. The tick has had a long time to digest that blood, so there may be only a tiny amount of DNA left -- if there's any."

The team does two assays on the tick DNA: one to identify pathogenic bacteria and the other to identify the animal that provided the blood and with it the bacteria.

Analyzing DNA in the blood

The first step in the assay is to pulverize the ticks to release the DNA, which is then amplified using a procedure called the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. This provides enough DNA for identification.

Following amplification is a step called reverse line blot hybridization. Probes, which are short sequences of DNA unique to a bacterium or to a host animal, are deposited in lines on a membrane. The membrane is then rotated, and the products of the PCR step -- tagged with a chemiluminescent (light-generating) dye -- are laid down in lines perpendicular to the probe lines.

Wherever two lines cross, DNA from the tick sample mixes with probes for either bacterial or animal DNA. If the two match, the molecules will bond, or hybridize. When the membrane is later washed, tick-sample DNA that has not hybridized washes off. DNA that has hybridized sticks and shows up as a chemiluminescent spot on the membrane. Reading the spots, tells the scientists which bacteria the tick was carrying and which animal provided its last blood meal.

Assay results showed that most of the nymphal lone star ticks infected with E. chaffeensis fed upon a white-tailed deer in the larval life stage. "So deer are definitely a primary reservoir for this bacterium," says Thach. "But we also found some kind of squirrel -- which we have more recently identified as the common gray squirrel -- and what appears to be some kind of rabbit."

In general, the results suggest deer are probably "weakly competent reservoirs" for the tick diseases, meaning that ticks that bit deer stood only a small chance of picking up one of the pathogens. On the other hand, deer have huge "reservoir potential," because there are so many of them.

The bottom line: a sprinkling of deer is ok; crowds of deer are a problem.

Too many deer

Are the bacteria that cause the new tick-borne diseases truly new or have they existed for a long time in wildlife reservoirs like the white-tailed deer without causing human disease?

"We don't know the answer," says Allan, " but my guess is these tick-borne diseases are probably being unleashed by human-mediated environmental change."

By human-mediated environmental change he means deer protection, the human behaviors that have led to an explosion in white-tailed deer populations.

"Some state agencies plant food plots for deer, we've created deer forage in the form of crop fields and suburban plantings, and we've taken away almost all of their predators -- except cars," Allan says.

To be sure, white-tailed deer were once nearly eliminated from the state. In 1925 there were thought to be only 395, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. The hunting season was closed that year and again from 1938 through 1944, and deer were re-located to help reestablish them in the state.

In 2009, Lonnie Hanson of the Missouri Department of Conservation estimated the herd at 1.4 million. Nationwide the pattern is similar. Nobody is sure how many deer there are, but estimates range from 8 to 30 million, levels everyone agrees are excessive.

"If you had to point to one factor that led to the emergence of tick-borne diseases in the eastern United States, it would have to be these unnaturally large populations of deer," Allan says.

Month long Florida Python-Hunt Begins

Open Season On Invasive Species of Snakes and Other Reptiles in the Everglades

Shawn Heflick, left, shows a Burmese python to hunters during a news conference, Feb. 22, 2010 in the Florida Everglades. (AP)

From Monday until April 17, anyone with a hunting license who pays for the $26 permit can take them on state-managed lands around the Everglades in South Florida.

Florida officials have taken a more aggressive stance against the invasive species in the past year, creating the python hunting season and issuing broader permits to experts to kill as many as possible.

The state has even held workshops for those inexperienced with pythons on how to identify, stalk and capture the reptiles.

Pythons Invade The Everglades

In addition to Burmese, Indian and African rock pythons, hunters can also take green anacondas and Nile monitor lizards.

As for the dead snakes, local tanners say they will pay $5 to $10 per foot.

"It's definitely a hot item. Hermes, Gucci, Prada, all the top manufacturers use python skins," said Brian Wood of All American Gator in Hallandale Beach told CBS News 4 in Miami. "And we have it right in our backyard."

Hunters must report each kill to the wildlife commission.

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Brown Recluse Spider Is Sometimes to Blame When Anemia Strikes

 (Feb. 28, 2010) — As spring approaches and people return to outdoor activities, caution should be taken in areas of the country that are home to Loxosceles reclusa, also called the brown recluse spider. A new study from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital found that when patients present with sudden anemia, but the cause is elusive, the brown recluse spider should be part of the differential diagnosis, at least in parts of the nation where the spider is regularly found.

In a recent issue of The Journal of Pediatrics, St. Jude hematologists reported on six previously healthy adolescents hospitalized for treatment of acute, symptomatic anemia. The illnesses were linked to red blood cell destruction known as hemolytic anemia that was eventually traced to brown recluse spider bites. All six patients fully recovered, but four needed blood transfusions and three spent time in the intensive care unit.

Only three of the six patients recalled recent spider bites, and Jenny McDade, D.O., an assistant member in the St. Jude Hematology department, said the other wounds were only found after head-to-toe skin checks. McDade, the study's lead author, said one bite was hidden by a bra strap and initially went unnoticed.

"The bite is often painless, and it is frequently missed," she said, which is one reason St. Jude investigators decided to review hospital records to gauge the scope of the problem.

Although most people bitten by brown recluse spiders do not seek medical attention, the researchers noted that the spiders' venom triggers a widespread reaction in about 30 percent of children. Although the exact mechanism is not completely understood, the most common systemic reaction is hemolytic anemia. Less commonly, kidney failure and clotting problems develop. Children seem to be more likely than adults to develop systemic complications, especially anemia. In rare cases, the researchers reported the bite has been linked to multi-organ failure and death.

Several times a year, St. Jude hematologists are consulted regarding patients who develop sudden, unexplained hemolytic anemia. This study focused on patients hospitalized for severe anemia who required hematology consultation during a one-year period at a general children's hospital near the St. Jude campus in Memphis, Tenn.

Determining the cause of acute anemia is important to ensure the appropriate treatment, McDade said. For example, steroids may be used to treat some types of anemia, but are unproven when the cause is a brown recluse bite. "In the United States, the standard of care for treatment of brown recluse bites is supportive care and treatment of the wound," she said.

McDade said most Americans should not worry about this spider, which carries a violin-shaped mark on its head and a preference for a quiet life lived in dry wood piles, under rocks or in corners of dark closets or attics. The spiders are found in parts of the Midwest and southern United States and are a regional problem. Although brown recluse bites are not a widespread cause of anemia, McDade said the diagnosis should be considered in patients with unexplained anemia who live in areas the spiders call home. Other St. Jude authors are Banu Aygun, M.D., and Russell Ware, M.D., Ph.D., St. Jude Hematology department chair and senior author.

The research was supported in by the National Cancer Institute and ALSAC.

 Go here to play with a spider

'Zen' Bats Hit Their Target by Not Aiming at It

(Feb. 5, 2010) — New research conducted at the University of Maryland's bat lab shows Egyptian fruit bats find a target by NOT aiming their guiding sonar directly at it. Instead, they alternately point the sound beam to either side of the target. The new findings by researchers from Maryland and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel suggest that this strategy optimizes the bats' ability to pinpoint the location of a target, but also makes it harder for them to detect a target in the first place.

Researchers have found that a type of fruit bat finds its target by NOT aiming their guiding sonar directly at it. Instead, it alternately point the sound beam to either side of the target.

"We think that this tradeoff between detecting a object and determining its location is fundamental to any process that involves tracking an object whether done by a bat, a dog or a human, and whether accomplished through hearing, smell or sight," said coauthor Cynthia Moss, a University of Maryland professor of psychology, who directs interdisciplinary bat echolocation research in the university's Auditory Neuroethology Lab, better known as the bat lab.

Moss, colleagues Nachum Ulanovsky and Yossi Yovel of the Weizmann Institute, and Ben Falk, a graduate student of Moss's in Maryland's Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, published their findings in the journal Science. Ulanovsky, the paper's corresponding author, was a Maryland postdoctoral student under Moss.

For this research, Ulanovsky and Yossi trained fruit bats to land on a spherical target while relying exclusively on their sonar. Trained in Israel, the bats were then brought to Maryland to be studied in Moss's specialized lab. High speed infrared cameras recorded the bats movement in flight while the shape and direction of their sonar beam patterns was measured with a sensitive arrangement of 20 microphones positioned around the large room. These bats emit paired clicking sounds and the researchers found that the sonar beam created by each click alternated to the left and right of a target. This alternating pattern effectively directed the inside edge, or maximum slope, of each sonar beam onto the target. As a result, any change in the relative position of the target to the bat reflected that large sonar edge back at the bat, delivering the largest possible change in echo intensity.

However, as the researchers note, there is a cost to this approach: less sound is reflected back to the bat from the object than if the sound beam were aimed more directly toward the object. Thus the fruit bat's strategy of using the steepest edge of a sonar beam (which intuitively follows a mathematical optimization formula) sacrifices a little target-detection for pinpoint accuracy in tracking.

Detecting vs. Tracking

By changing the conditions of their experiments in the bat lab the researchers were able to show that the fruit bats will sometimes change their echolocation strategy based on the situation. To do this, a reflecting board was positioned behind the target, creating "noise" echoes that competed with those from the target, potentially making detection of the target more difficult. In trials under these conditions, some bats altered their sound beam directional strategy. These bats started off with the wide side to side pointing that maximizes determining location, but once they got closer, switched to point the beams from both clicks almost directly at the target.
Moss, who has been researching bat echolocation for 20 years, notes that even among different bat species there are different approaches to tracking objects. Much of the research she and her students have conducted in the bat lab has looked at big brown bats, which are common in the United States. Big brown bars generate sound with their vocal cords and aim the resulting sound beam directly at their targets, an approach that maximizes their ability to detect the mosquitoes and other small, fast moving insects that serve as food.

"The difference in sonar beam directing strategies between the Egyptian Fruit bats and Big Brown bats may be related to the differences between their sound production mechanisms (tongue clicks vs. vocalizations), echo processing systems, behavioral requirements in nature, or other species differences," said Moss, a former director of the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, who also holds an appointment in the university's Institute for Systems Research.
The researchers suggest other animals reflect similar approaches to the detection versus tracking tradeoff. Their paper gives the example of a hound dog following an odor trail using a similar localization approach to that used by the tongue clicking Egyptian fruit bats.

"People without sight use echolocation, in some cases also generating sound by tongue clicking," said Moss. One such person, she noted, is Daniel Kish, Executive Director of World Access for the Blind. Totally blind from birth, Kish uses tongue clicking for sonar that allows him to "see" his enviroment at a very high level, even allowing him to safely ride a bike in a city street. Kish is "the first totally blind, national certified Orientation & Mobility Specialist," according to the website for World Access for the Blind. Check out this YouTube video about Kish and his work educating others to use echolocation.

"There are no measurements of the directionality of the sound beams used by blind echolocators like Kish," Moss said. "But looking at head movements in echo locating blind individuals, it seems that some may show a similar strategy [to that of fruit bats]."

A new high-tech suction device could allow humans to walk on walls like Spider-Man or create adhesive devices that could be turned on and off with the flick of a switch.

The contraption, inspired by a beetle that can hold on to a leaf with a force 100 times its weight, uses the surface tension of water to make an adhesive bond, but it does so with a creative twist. It could be used to create sticky shoes or gloves, researchers said today.

The device consists of a flat top plate riddled with tiny holes, each just a few hundred microns (a millionth of a meter) wide. A bottom plate holds water. In between is a porous layer. A 9-volt battery powers an electric field that forces water to squeeze through the tiny holes in the top layer.

The surface tension of the exposed droplets makes the device grip another surface — much the way two pieces of wet glass stick together. Turn the electricity off, and the bond breaks.

"In our every day experience, these forces are relatively weak," explained Paul Steen, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell University. "But if you make a lot of them and can control them, like the beetle does, you can get strong adhesion forces."

More work is needed to create a version of the device that would hold a human to the side of a building, however. One prototype has 1,000 holes and can hold about 30 grams, or roughly 70 paperclips. But tests showed that with more and smaller holes, a 1-inch square device could hold 15 pounds.

Another possible use would be covering the droplets with thin membranes, making the device exert outward pressure.

"You can think about making a credit card-sized device that you can put in a rock fissure or a door, and break it open with very little voltage," Steen said. "It's a fun thing to think about."

The device is detailed online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Science Foundation.

3 of 8 great bug-eating videos from around the world

Large Crunchy Cockroaches - Thailand


These guys went looking for the "Bug Carts" in Bangkok. I'm not sure that'd be my first stop.


Eating Bugs In Bangkok - Funny bloopers are a click away