In what started out as a middle school science project scientists discovered that erythritol the main ingredient in the artificial sweetener Truvia is toxic to fruit flies.
and would not act as a pollutant the researchers said. 10 of the Most Polluted Places On earth Not only does the sweetener kill the flies
But on a small scale in places where insects will come to a bait consume it and die this could be huge.
The father-son team first tested the method on fruit flies raised in small vials in their home.
They divided the flies into groups and fed them food mixed with the artificial sweeteners Truvia Splenda Equal Sweet'N Low or Pure Via.
The flies that were raised on food containing Truvia had much shorter life spans than flies raised on the other sweeteners.
Flies that ate food without Truvia lived between 38 and 51 days. But the average life span of flies raised on food with Truvia was only 5. 8 days.
Marenda realized it was time to move the experiment out of the house and into the lab and he brought in O'Donnell for help.
Flies that consumed food with either Truvia or erythritol were dead within a week. The other flies lived for two weeks before the researchers discontinued their observation.
The flies consumed more than twice as much erythritol as sucrose when given the choice between the two suggesting that the files preferred the former.
Because of this scientists think erythritol could successfully be used to bait flies and act as an effective insecticide.
The researchers also wanted to know how much erythritol it would take to kill off the flies. Flies that were given food with low levels of erythritol (about 0. 1 grams in 10 milliliters of water) showed no difference in life span than flies raised on food without any erythritol.
But flies that were given food with high levels of erythritol (2. 4 grams in 10 milliliters of water) were dead within two days.
The researchers don't know exactly how erythritol killed the flies but other studies have shown that it can inhibit an insect's ability to absorb nutrients
and water and their ability to move around. More studies are needed to determine if erythritol is toxic to any other insects.
The study is published today (June 4) in the journal PLOS ONE. Follow Kelly Dickerson on Twitter.
When platypuses find something interesting like shellfish insects larvae or worms they scoop it up in their bills store it in their cheek pouches and swim to the surface.
With respect to pollinators such as bees it was up to 50%more. However the magnitude of the effect varies between different types of organism and between fields growing different crops.
those crop calories that don t end up in human mouths probably end up in the mouths of other mammals insects and birds.
#Bumblebees Can Fly Higher Than Mount everest Alpine bumblebees have the ability to fly at elevations greater than Mt everest scientists have found.
Bumblebees cannot survive the freezing conditions of Mt everest's peak. But researchers based at the University of California Berkley simulated the low oxygen
and low air density conditions of such high elevations to determine the limits of the bumblebee's flight capacity
The team traveled to a mountain range in western China and collected six male bumblebees of the species Bombus impetuosus at about 10660 feet (3250 meters.
Gallery of Colorful Insect Wings The researchers placed the bees in clear sealed boxes and experimentally adjusted the oxygen levels
The findings suggest that bumblebees are limited not by flying capacity when searching for places to settle their colonies
This could bode well for alpine bumblebees in the future Dillon said as climate change may force animals up to higher elevations than they once inhabited due to warming conditions at lower elevations.
It is given important a lot of recent literature suggesting that many insects are moving up mountains in response to changing climates Dillon said.
In the case of the bumblebees they are not going to have much trouble with changes in oxygen.
or if this is an adaptation particular to alpine bumblebees. Follow Laura Poppick on Twitter. Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.
#7 Insects You'll Be Eating in the future<p>As the human population continues to inch closer to 8 billion people feeding all those hungry mouths will become increasingly difficult.
but to consume insects.</</p><p>As if to underscore that claim a group of students from Mcgill University in Montreal has won the 2013 Hult Prize for producing a protein-rich flour made from insects.
The prize gives the students $1 million in seed money to begin creating what they call Power Flour. "
team captain Mohammed Ashour told<a href=http://abcnews. go. com/Lifestyle/flour-made-insects-feed-underfed-populations/story?
Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security. " The document details the health and environmental benefits derived from a diet supplemented by insects a diet also known as "
entomophagy. " Gleaned from the FAO document and other sources here' s a list of seven<a href=http://www. livescience. com/12922-eating-insects-global-warming-greenhouse-gases. html>edible insects</a>you may soon find on your dinner plate.<
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/11377-7-perfect-survival-foods. html>Eat This! 7 Perfect Survival Foods</a p><p>Mopane caterpillars —
the larval stage of the emperor moth(<em>Imbrasia belina</em>)— are common throughout the southern part of Africa.
Harvesting of mopane caterpillars is a multi-million dollar industry in the region where women
and children generally do the work of gathering the plump little insects.</</p><p>The caterpillars are boiled traditionally in salted water then sun-dried;
the dried form can last for several months without refrigeration making them an important source of nutrition in lean times.
And few bugs are more nutritious: Whereas the iron content of<a href=http://www. livescience. com/3904-free-beef-proposed. html>beef</a is 6 mg per 100 grams of dry weight
mopane caterpillars pack a whopping 31 mg of iron per 100 grams. They' re also a good source of potassium sodium calcium phosphorous magnesium zinc manganese and copper according to the FAO.</
</p><p>Want to get rid of the<a href=http://www. livescience. com/38738-termite-distress-signal-head-banging. html>termites</a>gnawing at your floorboards?
Just do like they do in South america and Africa: Take advantage of the rich nutritional quality of these insects by frying sun-drying smoking or steaming termites in banana leaves.</
</p><p>Termites generally consist of up to 38 percent protein and one particular Venezuelan species<em>Syntermes aculeosus</em>is 64 percent protein.
Termites are also rich in<a href=http://www. livescience. com/29263-iron. html>iron</a>calcium essential fatty acids and amino acids such as tryptophan.</
</p><p>Among the aboriginal people of Australia the witchetty grub is a dietary staple.
</p><p>Though people often refer to the larvae of several different moths as witchetty grubs some sources specify the larval stage of the cossid moth(<em>Endoxyla leucomochla</em>)as the true witchetty grub.
</p><p>Chapulines are grasshoppers of the genus<em>Sphenarium</em >and are eaten widely throughout southern Mexico.
The grasshoppers are known as rich sources of protein; some claim that the insects are more than 70 percent protein.</
</p><p>Researchers have noted that the gathering of<em>Sphenarium</em>grasshoppers is an attractive alternative to spraying pesticides in fields of alfalfa and other crops.
Not only does this eliminate the environmental hazards associated with<a href=http://www. livescience. com/13839-pesticide-babies-intelligence-iq-scores. html>pesticide sprays</a>it also gives the local people an extra source of nutrition
and income from the sale of grasshoppers.<<a href=http://www. livescience. com/15626-gallery-dazzling-photos-dew-covered-insects. html>Gallery:
Dazzling Photos of Dew-Covered Insects</a p><p>A delicacy among many African tribes the palm weevil(<em>Rhychophorus phoenicis</em>)is collected off the trunks of palm trees.
About 4 inches (10 centimeters) long and two inches (5 cm) wide the weevils are fried easily pan
because their bodies are full of fats though they' re also eaten raw.</</p><p>A 2011 report from the Journal of Insect Science found that the African palm weevil is an excellent source of several nutrients such as potassium zinc iron and phosphorous as well as several
amino acids and healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids.</</p><p>Their name certainly doesn' t lend itself to culinary appeal
but stink bugs (Hemiptera order) are consumed throughout Asia South america and Africa. The insects are a rich source of important nutrients including protein iron potassium
and phosphorus.</p><p>Because stink bugs release a noxious scent they are eaten not usually raw
can then be used as a pesticide to keep termites away from houses.</</p><p>The larvae of the mealworm beetle(<em>Tenebrio molitor</em>)is one of the only insects consumed in the Western world:
They are raised in The netherlands for human consumption (as well as for animal feed) partly because they thrive in a temperate climate.</
</p><p>The nutritional value of mealworms is hard to beat: They' re rich in<a href=http://www. livescience. com/29377-copper. html>copper</a>sodium potassium iron zinc and selenium.
Mealworms are also comparable to beef in terms of protein content but have a greater number of healthy polyunsaturated fats.</
The bacteria are spread from tree to tree by a tiny insect called the Asian citrus psyllid.
When they aren't snacking on bigger prey they will eat snakes insects fruit and grass.
Caffeine is habit-forming in some pollinators just as it is in humans. Albert pointed to a study published last year in the journal Science
which found that honeybees get a boost from caffeine found in plant nectar. This memory boost makes them more likely to remember flowers that contain this habit-forming substance and return there for nectar.
Caffeine habituates pollinators. Probably in the same way that it habituates us. It keeps them coming back for more Albert said.
Watch a Tick Bite in Action 1. Repel the bugs Insecticides can be used to repel ticks said Thomas Mather a public health entomologist at the University of Rhode island and the director of tickencounter. org.
Permethrin the insecticide found in antimalarial bed nets kills adult ticks as well as those in their larval stage called nymphs which are the likeliest to harbor Lyme disease.
By contrast evidence suggests that the more common bug spray chemical NN-Diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET) isn't useful against ticks.
when they come in he said. 3. Stay in the sun Tick nymphs have leaky cuticles
As a result nymphs congregate in leaf piles in shady humid environments so sticking to sunny areas can reduce tick exposure he said. 4. Change the landscape Most ticks around homes stay within a few yards of the interface between the yard
Though American dog ticks don't usually harbor diseases that sicken people the lone star tick can often hitchhike on a pet into the home so pet owners should check pets for the bugs as soon as they come indoors.
if they are hunting the insects that are congregating around lights. Bats do us a great service in eating insects like mosquitoes and agricultural pests.
They are an important part of our environment. See more photos of bats People also fear bats
MP cz Shutterstock. com) Camel Crickets These basement-dwelling insects also known as cave crickets or sprickets often startle homeowners with their spiky legs and frenzied jumping.
Although hard evidence is lacking they are probably beneficial in removing organic debris (including dead bodies of other insects) that accumulate in our houses.
and other creatures their diet consists primarily of insects. Photo credit: B & T Media Group Inc. Shutterstock. com) Cockroach No list of unnerving animals would be complete without cockroaches
which manage to terrify people despite the fact that they don't pack lethal bites or stings. There are more than 4500 known species of cockroach
and they can be found on every continent including Antarctica (where they were introduced inadvertently presumably by researchers).
But the cockroaches most people in the United states are familiar with are the American and German cockroaches.
They don't do anything that directly harms us said Dominic Evangelista a doctoral student at Rutgers University who studies cockroaches.
Though Evangelista notes that cockroaches can give off allergens that may trigger asthma attacks in some people
so they aren't as harmless as camel crickets or aye-ayes. Still Evangelista argues that American
and German cockroaches give all of the other cockroaches a bad rap. Cockroaches come in all colors of the rainbow blue red green orange a whole array of colors Evangelista said.
And because they are so abundant and they'll eat almost anything they play an important role in the ecosystem they clean up after everything else.
and Canada and is popular partly because of its resistance to insects and diseases according to the U s. Forest Service.
The only natural migrating population that still exists is a flock that spends its summers in Canada and flies down to the Texas Gulf Coast for the winter.
which is usually a small insect. That is why a single tropical tree may have hundreds of distinct chemical compounds in its defence arsenal against herbivores which makes the analysis harder.
if it were a random process in other words the Red Queen seems to be in action.
#Extreme Cold Could Halt Invasive Insect Air so cold it makes your nose hair crackle could be a good thing for the country's nearly one billion ash trees according to the U s. Department of agriculture.
The record cold snap sweeping much of the United states blasted states hit hard by the emerald ash borer an invasive beetle that was detected first in 2002.
and reproduction of the insect Frelich told MPR. Read more: MPR Email Becky Oskin or follow her@beckyoskin. Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google
True bugs with mouthparts modified for piercing and sucking plant materials evolved during the Permian. Other new groups included the cicadas and beetles.
Two important groups of animals dominated the Permian landscape: Synapsids and Sauropsids. Synapsids had skulls with a single temporal opening
In the tropics in June the sun is low casting long shadows when the MODIS or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensors that fly aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites snap images
Oh just a butterfly he said dismissively. I just smiled to myself because unlike him
I knew that this wasn't just any butterfly it was a monarch butterfly. Yes it is beautiful
so heartbreaking to hear that the number of monarch butterflies that migrate across the United states each year
Although the number of butterflies varies from year to year this estimate is a precipitous drop from a high of 1 billion in 1997 and down from a long-term average of 350 million over the last 15 years.
It signals a species in crisis. The decline of monarch butterflies over the last decade or more has coincided with the wide-scale adoption of genetically modified crops that are resistant to the weed-killer glyphosate also known as Round up.
The problem is that monarch butterflies are milkweed dependent on. It's the only type of plant that they use for laying their eggs.
This explains why the loss of butterflies from a specific region could have such a large impact on the overall population size.
Drought particularly in Texas is believed to also be posing a threat to these butterflies as they try to make their way from Mexico across the United states to Southern Canada and back in the span of a year.
And deforestation of the butterflies'wintering habitat continues to be a concern. However given that the widespread adoption of Round up Ready crops has eliminated largely the monarch's most essential habitat by removing milkweeds from the landscape it's time to reconsider
Besides its beautiful appearance and usefulness as a pollinator the monarch's long-distance round-trip journey is a unique phenomenon that scientists still don't fully understand.
So much more than'just a butterfly.''This Op-Ed was adapted from Monarch butterfly population hits a new low on the NRDC blog Switchboard.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.
Grasshoppers with a Side of Fungi (Op-Ed) Doug Turnbull is a hard-science-fiction writer.
Mars settlers could also turn to grasshoppers as an additional food resource. While not popular in most European countries and the Anglo-sphere grasshoppers are a major source of animal protein in Asia Africa and South america.
They have a tremendous advantage over many other meat sources because of their extremely efficient conversion of vegetable matter into insect protein.
Grasshoppers are twice as efficient when converting vegetable mass into protein as pigs and five times as efficient as cattle.
In addition the husbandry associated with raising grasshoppers is compared relatively simple to that needed for cattle chickens
Finally it would be much easier to transport insects to Mars than to send large animals.
The insects could become part of the Mars culture too. Future settlers on the Red planet would likely come from all over the world
and many would not suffer from the Eeeew factor many Westerners associate with eating insects.
So grasshoppers may become a meat staple for Mars residents. Of course this would depend upon the guaranteed reliability of grasshopper containment systems.
Mars settlers certainly would not fare well with the grasshopper equivalent of Star trek's tribbles.
Speaking of Star trek a version of its food replicator is in the process of moving from science fiction to science fact.
The grasshoppers would make a better dessert if dipped in the 3d printed chocolate. Perhaps in the future the list of 3d printed proteins will include fish.
hidden from the sun###oeno sylvan nymphs Here found a home nor Pan but savage rites And barbarous worship altars horrible On massive stones upreared;
When they found this latter bug on the cucumbers they thought they had found the culprit.
New bugs will always make life difficult for scientists. The German outbreak also pointed to another unavoidable issue:
And I have observed medicine men in the northeastern Amazon using insects to treat arthritis and bacterial infections indicating that local wisdom regarding the healing potential of plants
and a pint-sized tapir are the first mammals ever found at a fossil site in British columbia known for exquisitely preserved plants insects and fish.
but bats are actually very helpful in controlling the population of crop-destroying insects. There are more than 900 species of bats in the world.
It weighs 5 to 6. 7 ounces (145 to 190 g). The smallest bat is the bumblebee bat according to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
Gallery of Spooky Bats Most bats eat flowers small insects fruits nectar pollen and leaves though it depends on the type of bat.
and microbats generally eat insects. The Malayan flying fox has a big appetite. It can eat half its body weight every day.
The brown bat can eat up to 1000 small insects in an hour according to the Defenders of Wildlife organization.
and pluck insects from spider webs according to the BBC. An anticoagulant in vampire bat saliva has been adapted for use in increasing blood flow in patients with stroke or heart disease
and the physical features of the bee pupae (stage of development where the bee transforms into an adult from a larva within the leafy nests
and cross-referencing their data with environmental niche models that predict the geographic distribution of species the scientists determined their Ice age specimens belonged to Megachile gentilis a bee species that still exists today.
Dazzling Photos of Dew-Covered Insects Based on what we know about them today and the identification of fossilized leaf fragments we know that their habitat at the Tar pits was at a much lower elevation during the Ice age said Anna Holden an entomologist at the Natural history Museum of Los angeles County (NHM)
Leafcutter bees Unlike honeybees and other colony-dwelling bees leafcutter bees are solitary. To reproduce females build small cylindrical nest cells made of carefully chosen leaves and sometimes flower petals.
or in self-dug burrows or those dug by other insects. In 1970 when scientists first excavated the two nest cells analyzed in the new study the cells together known as LACMRLP 388e were connected with an additional layer of leaves.
and their colleagues concluded that the pupae had to be Megachile gentilis a species that currently lives mostly in the southeastern U s. and northern Mexico.
and birds insect fossils can provide valuable clues to ancient environments and climates Holden said.
Whenyou find small organisms like insects you know that's where they lived; that was their habitat she said.
Further research into insect fossils at the La Brea Tar pits will help scientists gain an even better understanding of the past environment in the region which could provide insight into what the environment will be like in the coming years.
and is home to native species such as the<a href=http://www. livescience. com/33926-hungry-tiger-salamander-eats-cockroaches-strange-snapshots. html>tiger salamander</a p><p>San
or if you experience a rash hives or breathing difficulties you should seek a medical help immediately.
Red wolves eat smaller prey such as rodents insects and rabbits. They aren't afraid of going outside their carnivorous diet
As Superbugs Rise New Studies Point To Factory Farms (Op-Ed) We will work with our suppliers to establish action plans to address these practices
and 100000 insect species. These have been a great source for the discovery of new medicines with at least 120 approved for use.
but only in response to the noises of angry bees likely to knock any insects away from their face.
Wild hamsters also eat insects frogs lizards and other small animals. A captive hamster's diet should be at least 16 percent protein and 5 percent fat according to Canadian Federation of Humane Societies.
Plants and insects did not go through any extensive evolutionary advances during the Triassic. Due to the dry climate the interior of Pangaea was mostly desert.
Spiders scorpions millipedes and centipedes survived as well as the newer groups of beetles. The only new insect group of the Triassic was the grasshoppers.
The Mesozoic era is often known as the Age of reptiles. Two groups of animals survived the Permian Extinction:
Fruit-eating animals everything from primates and other mammals to insects and reptiles began to use the scent of ethanol as a cue to find ripe fruit.
</p><p>The tiny endangered Madagascar-based<em>Adetomyrma</em>ant has a strange way to show love to its kiddos.
The ants practice something known as " non-destructive cannibalism. " When the colony' s queen gives birth to ant larvae she
and her workers chew holes in the tiny babies to feed on their haemolymph – their circulatory system fluid (which would be blood in mammals.
t say exactly why these ants do this ants have a social behavior of transferring fluids to each other
The baby ants don' t die but sucking blood from the young is a weird way to show vampire affection.</
when measured by body size even the humble cockroach beats the cheetah on that measure. But a simple biomechanical model applying the appropriate scaling laws would suggest that all animals should be able to run at the same absolute speed not the same relative speed.
Studying the Bugs in Bees This Behind the Scenes article was provided to Live Science in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
and now live on top of a building on campus where their main forage might be drops of soda on discarded cans around campus says Moran who for many years studied the maternally transmitted symbionts of aphids
and other sap-feeding insects but has expanded in recent years to bees. Symbionts are organisms that coexist
but also love insects and insect biology she says. So this is a system that has both.
and function of the gut microbiota in honeybees and bumblebees emphasizing genomic approaches not unlike the current research interest in the human microbiome.
In insects this doesn't always appear to be true many seem to have selected a set of bacteria taken up from the environment
But in honeybees and bumblebees the gut is dominated by a small number of tightly related groups she adds.
Apis mellifera the honeybee has a distinctive set of about eight symbiotic bacterial species some of which occur in other Apis species and in the related Genus bombus bumblebees.
Bees of course are critically important ecologically and economically particularly in agriculture where honeybees pollinate an estimated $15 billion worth of agricultural products in the United states including more than 130 fruits according to the U s. Department of agriculture.
In recent years however there has been increasing concern over rampant bee colony losses dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder and the overall health of bees in general.
and function in the bee gut microbial community system some bumblebees are becoming rare and have shrunken ranges.
Are problems with gut microbiota part of the problem of honeybee health or could microbiota be preserved in a way that helps bees thrive?
and possibly nesting sites in the case of bumblebees she adds. But exposure to toxins and to diseases also play a part based on numerous studies.
Antibiotic resistance Moran's research has revealed that bacteria in the guts of honeybees are highly resistant to the preventive antibiotic tetracycline probably the result of decades of exposure to it because of its use by beekeepers to prevent bacterial diseases.
Moran's team identified eight different tetracycline resistance genes among U s. honeybees that were exposed to the antibiotic
And the gut microbiota of U s. honeybees is a treasure trove of tetracycline resistance genes that have been transferred horizontally from other bacteria.
Snodgrassella alvi Gilliamella apical and Frischella perrara named after three biologists who made major contributions in honeybee biology Robert Snodgrass Martha Gilliam and Karl von Frisch.
These three live together in one part of the honeybee ileum (part of the digestive tract) and two of them also live in bumblebees she says.
Another postdoctoral fellow in her lab Hauke Koch was the first to find that gut symbionts of bumblebees protect against protozoan parasites
if the same is true in honeybees and also to extend the findings in bumblebees she says.
She and her collaborators also conducted a survey of gut symbionts in three bumblebee species to determine whether environmental factors especially agricultural management or geographic location affected symbiont communities.
And it turns out that different bumblebee species all have some of the same symbionts particularly Snodgrassella
and Gilliamella but one bumble bee species seemed to sometimes miss being inoculated she says. The'right'symbionts are simply absent from some individuals.
This is very different from honeybees where every worker bee has the main symbionts and we think it might relate to their different life cycles and social lives.
This work provides a baseline for understanding how the gut microbiota of honeybees and bumblebees varies among colonies
and how this variation might affect colony health. By establishing methods for culturing and type strains that can be studied by different laboratories we can start to untangle the mechanistic basis for colonizing hosts she says.
when the hive is opened and don't line up in an aggressive manner preparing to attack she says.
One can approach the hives without alarming them she says. Feisty bees are touchy and prone to attack
when someone just gets close to the hive. We had some Texas bees but they were a bit feisty perhaps they did not like being plopped down in New england before she moved to Austin.
In the lab we mostly work with young worker bees which do not sting much plus we have contained them.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011