News tagged with insect biology

Unique adaptations to a symbiotic lifestyle reveal novel targets for aphid insecticides

Aphids are pests that cause millions of pounds of damage to crops in the UK, but new research led by biologists at the University of York reveals potential new targets for aphid-specific insecticides.

Biology / Biotechnology

created Apr 18, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Researcher tracks agricultural overuse of bug-killing technology

High corn prices are leading many growers to plant corn every year and to overuse pesticides and other bug-killing technology to maximize yields, researchers report. In many instances, pesticides are applied ...

Biology / Ecology

created Feb 29, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

An eye for the tsetse fly

(PhysOrg.com) -- Geoffrey M. Attardo was one of those little boys who made pets of the spiders outside his bedroom window, feeding them and watching as they spun intricate webs. Age has not diminished his ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 10, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

How the zebra got its stripes

If there was a 'Just So' story for how the zebra got its stripes, I'm sure that Rudyard Kipling would have come up with an amusing and entertaining camouflage explanation. But would he have come up with the explanation that ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Scientists refute Greenpeace claim that genetically modified corn caused new insect pest

An article in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Integrated Pest Management (JIPM) refutes claims by Greenpeace Germany that the western bean cutworm (WBC), Striacosta albicosta (Smith), is "a new plant pest" that wa ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jan 06, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 4

Blood-sucking mosquitoes keep their cool

No one likes being bitten by whining mosquitoes, but have you ever considered what the experience is like for them as their cold-blooded bodies fill with our warm blood? Now researchers reporting online on ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 15, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

A new model for understanding biodiversity

(PhysOrg.com) -- Animals like foxes and raccoons are highly adaptable. They move around and eat everything from insects to eggs. They and other "generalist feeders" like them may also be crucial to sustaining ...

Biology / Ecology

created Nov 21, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

A new role is hatched for female fruit flies

A team of New York University biologists has uncovered a previously unknown role for a set of cells within the female reproductive tract of fruit flies that affects the functioning of sperm and hence fertility. Their discovery, ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 08, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Research team clarifies mechanics of first new cell cycle to be described in more than 20 years

An international team of researchers led by investigators in the U.S. and Germany has shed light on the inner workings of the endocycle, a common cell cycle that fuels growth in plants, animals and some human tissues and ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Oct 30, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

How Wolbachia bacteria controls vectors of deadly diseases

Researchers at Boston University have made discoveries that provide the foundation towards novel approaches to control insects that transmit deadly diseases such as dengue fever and malaria through their study of the Wolbachia bacter ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Oct 20, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers identify insect host species of a famous Tibetan medicinal fungus

A team of researchers from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Xiao-Liang Wang and Yi-Jian Yao), summarized all the available information on the insect species associated with the Tibetan ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Sep 08, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Sexless for a million years, stick bugs elude extinction

(PhysOrg.com) -- Simon Fraser University biologists say a species of stick insect found to be celibate for 1.5 million years raises questions about why these particular lineages have escaped extinction thus ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 19, 2011 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (7) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

Entomologists launch the 5,000 Insect Genome Project (i5k)

It's been called "the Manhattan Project of Entomology," an undertaking that has the potential to revolutionize the way we think about insects.

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jun 15, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

The diving bell and the water spider: How spiders breathe under water

Water spiders spend their entire lives under water, only venturing to the surface to replenish their diving bell air supply. Yet no one knew how long the spiders could remain submerged until Roger Seymour ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jun 09, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

New endemic beetles discovered in Iberian Peninsula

A European research team, with Spanish participation, has described two new beetle species measuring two millimetres in length. The coleoptera (beetles) were found in streams in the Pyrenees and Pre-Pyrenees ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 31, 2011 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 0