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FOLLOW US ON
Insects
A new Odyssey
Issue Date: Mar 15, 1999
the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster ( D melanogaster ) is the mad scientist's ultimate dream. Toying around with some of its genes can lead to bizarre physiological changes. Mutations in these genes, called homeotic genes as homeosis means "replacement of one body part by another", can cause legs to grow where the eyes are supposed to be, or perhaps, balancers in place of wings. Scientists have known the existence of these genes in D melanogaster for years.
Muscled out?
Issue Date: Feb 15, 1999
Locusts might become
endangered
following the recent
approval of
the world's first
bioinsecticide
against the insects.
Named Green
Muscle, the fungal
pesticide spray,
made by South Africa
(SA)-based
Biological Control
Products has
been cleared for sale
in the country.
The spray contains
spores of
Metarhizium
anisopliae, a fungus
that invades and
kills locusts and
grasshoppers but is
harmless to
beneficial insects.
It kills nine out of
every 10 locusts
within 21 days of its
spraying, says
researcher David
Dent, who helped
develop Green
Muscle (New
Scientist, Vol 160,
No 2162).
Lord of the fIies
Issue Date: Dec 15, 1998
Save the killers
Issue Date: Dec 15, 1998
THEY may be bad, but they are worth saving too. That is the message from a team of British biologists who say the millions of viruses, bacteria and fungi that kill or blight plant life across the planet should be conserved with the same urgency as other species.
Killer genes, green beards. . .
Issue Date: Nov 30, 1998
ONE peek at genetic behaviour and the microscopic world of cellular biology seems no less dramatic than the larger socio-political ethos of human societies. A team of two researchers has recently come up with some eye-opening findings following research on ants. The findings indicate that the interplay of cooperation and conflict is to be found at all levels of biological organisation, from genes to societies.
The roachmobile
Issue Date: Sep 15, 1998
AT FIRST glance, nothing seems wrong or extraordinary about the toy car that zips around Jeff Bloomquist's lab at University of Washington, USA. But when you look closer, you find the oddity: tied to a small bloom that juts like a bowsprit from the front of the car is a cockroach. Bloomquist, an insect neurophysiologist at Virginia Tech, and Steven Bathiche, a bioengineering graduate student at the University of Washington, are trying to harness the neuromascular reactions of insects to model cars. Interesting, but to what end?
Chainsaw and beetles
Issue Date: Aug 31, 1998
The Asian longhorn beetle has been spotted in the northern areas of Chicago in the US. The state and the federal governments are planning to fell a substantial number of hardwood trees in order to contain the spread of the tree-devouring Chinese beetle. The beetle was found only once before in the US. In 1996, an infestation in New York state was controlled by cutting hundreds of trees from neighbourhoods in Brooklyn and Amityville. Scientists say that the beetle cannot be controlled by pesticides.
Who will play Cupid?
Issue Date: Aug 15, 1998
The Broken Arrows
The relationships between plants and pollinators took thousands of years to develop. Human intervention has destroyed them in a very short period. Pollinator decline is also affecting the harvest. Therefore, it is vital to conserve them, but research in this field is lacking in India
Top of the world
Issue Date: Jul 31, 1998
welcome to the eighth continent -- the thin-but-extremely-rich layer of life known better to the rest of the world as the rainforest canopy. Most of the world's species can be found here, in this tropical treetop environment. This is because the majority of species are insects, and the majority of these insects are found in the rainforest.
Dye death
Issue Date: May 15, 1998
A red dye normally used in lipsticks will kill fruit flies if they eat it and are then exposed to ultraviolet light. The Agricultural Research Service of the US department of agriculture has found a novel way to induce these flies to eat the dye, by mixing it with a combination of sugars, proteins and some enigmatic "other ingredients". Beneficial insects such as bees ignore the mixture. In tests conducted so far in Texas and Hawaii, the dye killed almost all the fruit flies preying on citrus, mango and other fruit crops ( New Scientist , Vol 157, No 2126).
