Using insects to test for drug safety

Insects, such as some moths and fruit flies, react to microbial infection in the same way as mammals and so can be used to test the efficiency of new drugs, thereby reducing the need for animal testing. Dr Kevin Kavanagh ...

For ant pupae, status means being heard

caught between larva and adulthood—status is all about being heard. The findings, reported online on February 7 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, add to evidence that ants can communicate abstract information ...

Fly larvae clean bee-eater's nest

Bird nests are home not only to the bird parents and their offspring but also to other inhabitants, such as insect larvae, which take advantage of the favourable climatic conditions and abundant supply of food in the nests. ...

Variety in diet can hamper microbial diversity in the gut

Scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and five other institutions have discovered that the more diverse the diet of a fish, the less diverse are the microbes living in its gut. If the effect is confirmed in humans, ...

Decades-old puzzle of the ecology of soil animals solved

An international research team led by the University of Göttingen has deciphered the defence mechanism of filamentous fungi. Moulds are a preferred food source for small animals. As fungi cannot escape predation by running ...

Green leaf volatiles increase plant fitness via biocontrol

To solve the acute, global problem of securing food resources for a continuously growing population, we must work constantly to increase the sustainability and effectiveness of modern agricultural techniques. These efforts ...

New information on tropical parasitoid insects revealed

The diversity and ecology of African parasitoid wasps was studied for over a year during a project run by the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku in Finland. Parasitoid wasps are one of the animal groups that are ...

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