Ants, termites boost wheat yields

(PhysOrg.com) -- In an exciting experiment with major implications for food production under climate change, CSIRO and University of Sydney scientists have found allowing ants and termites to flourish increased a wheat crop's ...

Useful lessons in ventilation provided by insects' mounds

While some power companies scour the globe for steady winds to drive giant turbines, a biologist is turning to lowly termites and their lofty mounds to understand how to harness far more common intermittent breezes, seeking ...

Termites foretell climate change in Africa's savannas

Using sophisticated airborne imaging and structural analysis, scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology mapped more than 40,000 termite mounds over 192 square miles in the African savanna. They ...

It Takes 'Guts' to Explore the Next Proteomics Frontier

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the quest to find new sources of biofuel, researchers are studying one of the most efficient bioreactors on earth: the termite. The same insect that causes distress to homeowners with its wood-consuming ...

Insect research gives humans six legs up

(PhysOrg.com) -- You could say that Bert Hölldobler's career began during a childhood walk in the Bavarian woods with his father. The elder Holldobler turned over a rock out in the forest, exposing a colony of carpenter ...

New assay helps track termites and other insects

An Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-developed method to safely and reliably mark termites and other insects over vast acreage so their movements can be tracked is just as effective as the previous method -- and more affordable.

Termite creates sustainable monoculture fungus-farming

(PhysOrg.com) -- Food production of modern human societies is mostly based on large-scale monoculture crops, but it now appears that advanced insect societies have the same practice. Our societies took just ten thousand years ...

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