We all know the tale of the boy that cried wolf; it was told to me by my parents the first time I faked a stomach ache to avoid a test at school. Well, in a recent paper by Jonathan Storm and Steven Lima, it seems that cricket moms-to-be are "telling" their offspring the ways to avoid predation by wolf spiders. Moms who are exposed to non-deadly attacks from spiders have offspring that are born avoiding spider silk, feces and stay hidden longer than offspring from cricket moms not exposed to any such non-lethal spider attacks. Although a mechanism for this transgenerational informational exchange is unclear, the authors believe it must be hormonally controlled - no chirping necessary.
Maybe "saving all of humanity" would be a stretch - but it's certainly possible that they will help keep many from getting ill this coming flu season. A Meriden, Connecticut company is using cells from caterpillar ovaries in the creation of a vaccine for H1N1 flu (stop calling it Swine flu!!) and other influenza viruses. "FluBlok" is the name of the antibiotic-free, thimerisol-free cell-culture vaccine being created in quantity for the late 2009/2010 flu season. This technology replaces the use of chicken embryos to grow the virus. To be specific it isn't the chick embryo itself, but the chrorioallantoic membrane that is used. Umm, yeah what is that? It's just the "skin" surrounding the yolk thats full of vascular tissue. 
But why the change in technology? The downside of growing viruses with chicken embryos is almost obvious: you have to grow a ton of eggs, make sure each has a developing embryo that was injected with the virus in question, then harvested in 11-days. The membrane with grown virus is then processed and eventually injected into your arm. Vaccines made this way have to include preservatives and antibiotics to keep the nutrient-rich compound from growing anything else, like bacteria.
The cell-based culture for viruses is not new. A study published way back in 1946 in the "Journal of Immunology" compared the use of chicken embryo and cells from mouse brains. In 1999, another comparative study was conducted on the two growing methods for the "Fowl Pox" vaccine. Of course, there have been scores of studies and research but until now, the funding for creating a vaccine from caterpillar gonads has been limited. The ovarian cells are used presumably because these cells grow rapidly (so do ours - that's you have to wear that giant lead apron over your gonads when going for a non-groin region x-ray). The rapid growth of the cells, ease in which they are obtained, cultured and our insatiable need for flu vaccine will likely propel this technology forward. I think I smell an investment - or perhaps that's just aerosolized swine flu? Okay, that was bad.
An email from Ecology and Evolutionary Biology's Department Head Kentwood Wells:
"I am very sorry to report that our friend and colleague, Carl Rettenmeyer, passed away last Thursday night, April 9, after a long illness.
Carl was born in Meriden, Connecticut in 1931. He graduated from Swarthmore College and received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1962. He was on the faculty of Kansas State University for about 11 years before joining the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1971 as a Professor. He served as Head of the Section of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology from 1980 to 1983, and then as Executive Officer of the Biological Sciences Group from 1983 to 1985. During his career at Kansas State and later at UConn, he became a world-famous expert on the biology of army ants, and was the leading expert on the huge array of insects and other invertebrates that live in association with army ant colonies. He did extensive field work in Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands, Kenya, and Tanzania. He also was known as an expert photographer, and his photographs grace the pages of scores of books on ants and tropical rain forests. He also worked tirelessly to document the lives of army ants on film and video.
Carl was the Founding Director of the Connecticut Museum of Natural History, which he transformed from a mostly virtual museum headquartered in his lab in Torrey Life Sciences in 1982 to a full-fledged museum that has continued to inspire generations of Connecticut naturalists. It was through Carl's persistent efforts that the Museum became a major focus of public outreach beyond the boundaries of the University.
For those of us who arrived here as young Assistant Professors, what we will remember most about Carl are his efforts to make new faculty members immediately feel welcome in the department, and the warm hospitality shown by Carl and Marian. The annual fall picnics held at the Rettenmeyer family cabin in Bethlehem, Connecticut, served as an introduction to the social life of the department for most new faculty members, and many of us raised children who looked forward each year to swinging on the rope swing hanging from the huge tree in the yard, playing on the "nut train," and following Carl on adventurous hikes up and down the steep slopes and wooded ravines behind his property".
The first time I met Carl and his wife Marian was in the 2001 BioBlitz in Tarrywhile Park, Danbury CT. He had set up Berlese funnels and I was sorting my own material while he
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graciously passed on any mites to me. He was quiet and I was shy, but he was careful to make me feel more than welcome - more like an "expert" in my field. I remember visiting Carl's house in Storrs, CT to help him with some issues with his ant database. We took a walk around his yard as he excitely identified all of the specimens to me and offered to split them for Stacey's and my new house in Watertown. "Hi Mike, Glad to hear that you are working at Taft School. I have driven past it hundreds of times but never went inside any building. I hope they don't work you too hard. I forgot what your wife does and where she works. I understand you own a house in Watertown. Seems like nice town. Plants are still available if you ever visit."
Our last email conversation I asked him if he would be attending the 2007 BioBlitz. He replied
"I think I am coming to BioBlitz. It would be great if you would come and ID mites."
Copies of the DVD are available from http://www.armyantbiology.com/
ISBN-13: 978-0-9792367-0-9
ISBN-10: 0-9792367-0-3Cost $20.00 plus $4.00 shipping & handling plus $1.20 sales tax if mailed to CT address.Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Send check or money order to
Carl Rettenmeyer - Astonishing Army Ants
ISBN-13: 978-0-9792367-0-9
ISBN-10: 0-9792367-0-3Cost $20.00 plus $4.00 shipping & handling plus $1.20 sales tax if mailed to CT address.Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Send check or money order to
Carl Rettenmeyer - Astonishing Army Ants
EEB, UCONN 3043,
Storrs, CT 06269-3043
Storrs, CT 06269-3043
Stores get 40% discount and can be be invoiced.
And as typical of Carl's generous nature, the images on his site are free to use for educational purposes. He will be sorely missed in the scientific community and as a colleague and friend to many.
No, not another shot of Michael Phelps inhaling, but caterpillars from Bong, Liberia have swarmed and are destroying acres of cocoa and coffee crops in that country. The caterpillars are Achaea catocaloides rena and normally live in the forests, but heavy rains are blamed on their surging wave across the plantations, affecting the economy of an already war-torn nation. Though not as severe, I am old enough to recall the early 1980s wave of Lymantria dyspar in the northeast US, commonly known as the gypsy moth caterpillar. The gypsy moths were imported into the US from Europe in the 1860s. Sources have claimed it was an accidental introduction, but an investigation into the taxonomic history of this species may indicate otherwise. Not unusual for caterpillars the gypsy moth has a long thread of silk in which it spins to swing from tree to tree facilitating it's movement. This moth was incorrectly assigned to the genus Bombyx, the same genus to which the true silk worm Bombyx mori belongs. An overzealous entrepreneurial spirit led someone to think "Let's use Gypsy moth caterpillar silk to make ties and scarves" but failed, given that the silk is not at all like that of the true silk worm. I can imagine in a fit of angry disappointment the investors smashing the windows to the gypsy moth silk factory, lobbing handfuls of the worms out the broken windows at the fleeing would-be silk producers.
Many years later, the gypsies still appear in swarms every 25 years or so. Back in the 80s I remember riding my bike through a patch of long-hanging willow branches covered with the munching worms. I was covered with what seemed like hundreds of them, hanging onto me with their little crochet hooked-legs, spikes and gnashing jaws. I soon had my revenge when I made the caterpillars walk across the storm drain grates - those that made it across were free; those that didn't tumbled into the abyss. My colleague in insecticide, Nader, termed this the Caterpillar Crossing Challenge. Perhaps some Liberian pre-teens need to be employed to start cleaning some of the cocoa and coffee crops...
The Olympics are over, but that doesn't mean we can't still keep the spirit of competition and record-breaking alive.
Arthropods are the gold medalists for the most successful life forms, in numbers, biomass and diversity. In fact, 90% of all animals are arthropods. They have proven themselves for over 550 million years on earth. The aftermath of the Cambrian explosion gave rise to some
amazing creatures such as the diverse trilobites (17,000 species!), the 7 foot long sea scorpions (euryptigids) and others. The diagram below shows one of these non-stinging but still get-out-of-the-water scorpions along side an adult male human. That's the one with the claws and thick body, furthest away from the man (as it should be).
Next to the man, another ancient arthropod called Arthropluera was a gargantuan terrestrial millipede of sorts, larger than one meter in length and up to 30 inches wide - this thing actually made forest trails that have recently been found in the fossil record!
The other one is a Japanese spider crab. This one? It's still around. Yep. You can go to the Pacific side of Japan and take a dip with an 13 footer. I'll leave it to you to come up with the spicy Rémoulade jokes.
As far as more living species, there are a few more runners up - here with an honorable mention.
Lineus longissimus is a species of ribbon worm. Normally these living spaghetti are only a few inches long. However one individual was found on the coast of Scotland that measured 55 meters - that's over 180 feet - making it the longest animal in the world.
In comparison the largest giant squid only measures up to 13 m but can weigh in at 275kg (600lbs)! Oh, what a chance for a calamari pun.
Then there's the Lion's Mane Jellyfish - a semi-transparent mass of potential pain that has a bell diameter of 7.5 feet making it larger than some city apartments.
Those are some of the records for largest and heaviest, but not perhaps not the most frightening. In my opinion fear is the factor when considering the champs. Now onto the medal winners.
BRONZE: goes to hookworms. The adults live in your intestine where they mate and release eggs in feces. The eggs hatch in moist soil and the microscopic larvae await a tender foot to wriggle into. Once inside the skin the larvae find their way into the circulatory system. In the lungs they wriggle into the airway where they are coughed up then swallowed - a three system tour into your intestines where the whole cycle starts again.
Next winning the SILVER for sickening would be the the bot fly Dermatobia humanus. This little bug really gets under your skin. The female fly catches a mosquito, lays an egg on the mosquito's mouth parts and flies off. The mosquito zooms in for a human blood meal the warmth stimulates the egg to hatch as a little maggot squirms into the microscopic would left by the mosquito's beak. The little worm gets bigger and bigger until a boil forms. The breathing apparatus can be seen from a hole at the top of the boil as this immature worm rolls around as comfy as a bug in a rug. Secreting an anesthetic to dull the pain and an antibiotic to selfishly keep from being overrun with bacteria the larva eventually forms a pupa and drops out of your skin to become an adult.
So, now, without further ado - the most disgusting arthropod I know and clearly a GOLD-medal winner is a parasitic marine isopod called Cymothoa exigua. We've all seen isopods in our garden or under leaves - the cute ones are called rolly-pollies or pill bugs. Imagine one of those - but swimming in the ocean with sharp claws and a taste for blood. Fish are attacked when the isopod enters its oral cavity through its gills then digs into the flesh at the base of the fish's tongue. The circulation to the tongue is cut off and it shrivels - but don't worry - the parasite is still there, allowing the fish to stay alive by replacing the tongue with its body. Guess this arthropod's got the rest licked (sorry).
Diagram modified from BurningHammer. Disgusting photo by Dr. Nico Smit. Good for him.
Arthropods are the gold medalists for the most successful life forms, in numbers, biomass and diversity. In fact, 90% of all animals are arthropods. They have proven themselves for over 550 million years on earth. The aftermath of the Cambrian explosion gave rise to some
amazing creatures such as the diverse trilobites (17,000 species!), the 7 foot long sea scorpions (euryptigids) and others. The diagram below shows one of these non-stinging but still get-out-of-the-water scorpions along side an adult male human. That's the one with the claws and thick body, furthest away from the man (as it should be).Next to the man, another ancient arthropod called Arthropluera was a gargantuan terrestrial millipede of sorts, larger than one meter in length and up to 30 inches wide - this thing actually made forest trails that have recently been found in the fossil record!
The other one is a Japanese spider crab. This one? It's still around. Yep. You can go to the Pacific side of Japan and take a dip with an 13 footer. I'll leave it to you to come up with the spicy Rémoulade jokes.
As far as more living species, there are a few more runners up - here with an honorable mention.
Lineus longissimus is a species of ribbon worm. Normally these living spaghetti are only a few inches long. However one individual was found on the coast of Scotland that measured 55 meters - that's over 180 feet - making it the longest animal in the world.
In comparison the largest giant squid only measures up to 13 m but can weigh in at 275kg (600lbs)! Oh, what a chance for a calamari pun.
Then there's the Lion's Mane Jellyfish - a semi-transparent mass of potential pain that has a bell diameter of 7.5 feet making it larger than some city apartments.
Those are some of the records for largest and heaviest, but not perhaps not the most frightening. In my opinion fear is the factor when considering the champs. Now onto the medal winners.
BRONZE: goes to hookworms. The adults live in your intestine where they mate and release eggs in feces. The eggs hatch in moist soil and the microscopic larvae await a tender foot to wriggle into. Once inside the skin the larvae find their way into the circulatory system. In the lungs they wriggle into the airway where they are coughed up then swallowed - a three system tour into your intestines where the whole cycle starts again.
Next winning the SILVER for sickening would be the the bot fly Dermatobia humanus. This little bug really gets under your skin. The female fly catches a mosquito, lays an egg on the mosquito's mouth parts and flies off. The mosquito zooms in for a human blood meal the warmth stimulates the egg to hatch as a little maggot squirms into the microscopic would left by the mosquito's beak. The little worm gets bigger and bigger until a boil forms. The breathing apparatus can be seen from a hole at the top of the boil as this immature worm rolls around as comfy as a bug in a rug. Secreting an anesthetic to dull the pain and an antibiotic to selfishly keep from being overrun with bacteria the larva eventually forms a pupa and drops out of your skin to become an adult.
So, now, without further ado - the most disgusting arthropod I know and clearly a GOLD-medal winner is a parasitic marine isopod called Cymothoa exigua. We've all seen isopods in our garden or under leaves - the cute ones are called rolly-pollies or pill bugs. Imagine one of those - but swimming in the ocean with sharp claws and a taste for blood. Fish are attacked when the isopod enters its oral cavity through its gills then digs into the flesh at the base of the fish's tongue. The circulation to the tongue is cut off and it shrivels - but don't worry - the parasite is still there, allowing the fish to stay alive by replacing the tongue with its body. Guess this arthropod's got the rest licked (sorry).Diagram modified from BurningHammer. Disgusting photo by Dr. Nico Smit. Good for him.
Ever since it's introduction people hailed Avon's Skin So Soft (SSS) as a natural, safe, pleasant smelling insect and tick repellent. The first time I heard of SSS was back in 1988 from a friend who was lucky enough to be hired as a nanny for The Who front man Roger Daltry. She slathered the stuff on his kids until Roger proclaimed "No, love - it just isn't natural".
Surprisingly, Avon never backed such claims of repellency - but they never refuted them, either. In a somewhat ambiguous answer about SSS's repelling properties to its customers, Avon released SSS Bug Guard Plus IR3535®.
IR3535 is well known in Europe (of course - they get all the good stuff first) but has had a slow reception State-side. It was introduced to the US in 1999, still has an unblemished safety record yet remains unpopular.
Surprisingly there have only been about 10 published papers comparing DEET to IR3535. Thankfully, a recent paper published last month in the Journal of Medical Entomology provides a look into the confusing collage of repellents.
A listing on Avon's Web site states "Repels mosquitoes that may transmit West Nile Virus for 8 hours. Provides effective protection against gnats, no-seeums, sand flies and biting midges. DEET-free, dermatologist-tested, hypoallergenic." I think we Americans are still waiting for real, "likely to cause cancer in lab animals" evidence before we will ditch the DEET. I think part of the problem is that IR3535 just doesn't roll off the tongue like DEET.
You might have read from a previous post of mine that DEET is a confusant, not a repellent. That would be the difference between looking at a pizza smelling perfume instead of cheese versus looking at a pizza and smelling poop. The smell of perfume isn't bad, it's just not tasty or what you'd expect. You should NOT want to dig in to a pizza that smells like poop - that's a repellant.
The author compared IR3535 with DEET and with Picardin (lemon eucalyptus oil). The findings left IR3535 a tad behind in performance with DEET and the oil, although there were some surprising results.
For black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) the average test subject (scientific lingo for human) who applied IR3535 in either 10% lotion or 20% pump spray was "invisible" to ticks for 11 hours! No test subjects were bitten by mosquitoes in over 7 hours! These weren't anemic lab-bred ticks and mosquitoes, mind you. They were full-on marsh and field bugs, hungry for blood.
Considering the safety of IR3535 (which I will still apply to clothing only, making my clothes so soft) and the fact that Avon makes an "Expedition Formula" in a hunter green bottle, I may be off of OFF! this year.
Scruffy Dan's photo of Laotian Anti-malaria poster, Laos 2006
Surprisingly, Avon never backed such claims of repellency - but they never refuted them, either. In a somewhat ambiguous answer about SSS's repelling properties to its customers, Avon released SSS Bug Guard Plus IR3535®.IR3535 is well known in Europe (of course - they get all the good stuff first) but has had a slow reception State-side. It was introduced to the US in 1999, still has an unblemished safety record yet remains unpopular.
Surprisingly there have only been about 10 published papers comparing DEET to IR3535. Thankfully, a recent paper published last month in the Journal of Medical Entomology provides a look into the confusing collage of repellents.
A listing on Avon's Web site states "Repels mosquitoes that may transmit West Nile Virus for 8 hours. Provides effective protection against gnats, no-seeums, sand flies and biting midges. DEET-free, dermatologist-tested, hypoallergenic." I think we Americans are still waiting for real, "likely to cause cancer in lab animals" evidence before we will ditch the DEET. I think part of the problem is that IR3535 just doesn't roll off the tongue like DEET.
You might have read from a previous post of mine that DEET is a confusant, not a repellent. That would be the difference between looking at a pizza smelling perfume instead of cheese versus looking at a pizza and smelling poop. The smell of perfume isn't bad, it's just not tasty or what you'd expect. You should NOT want to dig in to a pizza that smells like poop - that's a repellant.
The author compared IR3535 with DEET and with Picardin (lemon eucalyptus oil). The findings left IR3535 a tad behind in performance with DEET and the oil, although there were some surprising results.
For black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) the average test subject (scientific lingo for human) who applied IR3535 in either 10% lotion or 20% pump spray was "invisible" to ticks for 11 hours! No test subjects were bitten by mosquitoes in over 7 hours! These weren't anemic lab-bred ticks and mosquitoes, mind you. They were full-on marsh and field bugs, hungry for blood.
Considering the safety of IR3535 (which I will still apply to clothing only, making my clothes so soft) and the fact that Avon makes an "Expedition Formula" in a hunter green bottle, I may be off of OFF! this year.
Scruffy Dan's photo of Laotian Anti-malaria poster, Laos 2006
Most people would cringe at the thought of a little blood-sucking parasite, quite literally crawling out from the woodwork to feed on you while you sleep. But the bed bug is probably the most innocuous hematophage this side of your duvet.
Getting bitten by bed bugs is nothing new - they have a long evolutionary association with humans. One bug was found during an excavation in an ancient Egyptian village dated 3,500 years old - but the love/hate relationship probably goes back much further than that. Yes, even before the Milton Bradley board game.
Bed bugs are also found in nesting birds and mammals, especially bats. It's in these climate-controlled quarters where the bed bugs are assured free room and board. The bugs live in cracks in rocks and mud, squeeze between sticks, grass, etc. and await their big home-town buffet of hosts to settle in for a sleep. Humans too made (and still make) nests in caves or fashioned dwellings that would have plenty of hiding places for the little vampires.
Bed bugs feed on humans at night when we sleep. They are found everywhere humans are, including hotels. As stated in the National Geographic video below the bugs secrete an anticoagulant for obvious reasons and an anesthetic so as not to not wake you. Using heat-seeking sensors in their antennae, they find a blood vessel close to the skin surface and feed with a beak that swings out from under their thorax. Sometimes they try to tap into a few different locations - but always in a straight line. This is a sign that you've been bitten by a bed bug: looks like a series of mosquito bites arranged like Orion's Belt. And yes, I have been bitten.
The scientific name of the bed bug that relies on human hospitality is Cimex lectularius. This was named by Linnaeus way back in the 1700s and was probably a bit more common household inhabitant back then as it is now - or at least we'd like to think so. The name "bug" originates from the description of this creature's nocturnal behaviors. A "Bugbear" or "Bugger" for example are old English terms used to describe and unseen someone or something that silently creeps in our bedrooms to violate you in some way - a much more frightening or awful act than the actual creature that just takes a few drops of blood before disappearing into the floorboards.
So why is the bite of the bed bug the best bite you can possibly ask for? They are the only known blood feeder that does not transmit any diseases. That's right ticks, mosquitoes, black flies, stable flies, horse and tse tse flies, other true bugs, etc., etc. all feed on blood and all transmit or themselves cause traumatic or deadly diseases. Scientists aren't quite sure why they don't. But one thing is clear - although feared especially by children of Victorian England the bed bug should perhaps be the most desired unwanted pest of all the little jointed-legged Nosferati.
Getting bitten by bed bugs is nothing new - they have a long evolutionary association with humans. One bug was found during an excavation in an ancient Egyptian village dated 3,500 years old - but the love/hate relationship probably goes back much further than that. Yes, even before the Milton Bradley board game.
Bed bugs are also found in nesting birds and mammals, especially bats. It's in these climate-controlled quarters where the bed bugs are assured free room and board. The bugs live in cracks in rocks and mud, squeeze between sticks, grass, etc. and await their big home-town buffet of hosts to settle in for a sleep. Humans too made (and still make) nests in caves or fashioned dwellings that would have plenty of hiding places for the little vampires.
Bed bugs feed on humans at night when we sleep. They are found everywhere humans are, including hotels. As stated in the National Geographic video below the bugs secrete an anticoagulant for obvious reasons and an anesthetic so as not to not wake you. Using heat-seeking sensors in their antennae, they find a blood vessel close to the skin surface and feed with a beak that swings out from under their thorax. Sometimes they try to tap into a few different locations - but always in a straight line. This is a sign that you've been bitten by a bed bug: looks like a series of mosquito bites arranged like Orion's Belt. And yes, I have been bitten.
The scientific name of the bed bug that relies on human hospitality is Cimex lectularius. This was named by Linnaeus way back in the 1700s and was probably a bit more common household inhabitant back then as it is now - or at least we'd like to think so. The name "bug" originates from the description of this creature's nocturnal behaviors. A "Bugbear" or "Bugger" for example are old English terms used to describe and unseen someone or something that silently creeps in our bedrooms to violate you in some way - a much more frightening or awful act than the actual creature that just takes a few drops of blood before disappearing into the floorboards.
So why is the bite of the bed bug the best bite you can possibly ask for? They are the only known blood feeder that does not transmit any diseases. That's right ticks, mosquitoes, black flies, stable flies, horse and tse tse flies, other true bugs, etc., etc. all feed on blood and all transmit or themselves cause traumatic or deadly diseases. Scientists aren't quite sure why they don't. But one thing is clear - although feared especially by children of Victorian England the bed bug should perhaps be the most desired unwanted pest of all the little jointed-legged Nosferati.
Can insects be used to flush out Bin Laden? A seemingly satirical question but one recently asked in a recent ABC News Report featuring a couple brainstorming scientists and a lineup of unsuspecting anti-terrorist arthropods.
A few years ago At the University of Kansas, Sonny Ramaswamy, Entomology Department Chair and a colleague trivially discussed the possibility of unleashing blood-thirsty stable flies
impregnated with anthrax to bite and subsequently infect military targets such as Osama Bin Laden and his horde hiding out in the mountainous expanses of the Afghan-Pakistan border. Turns out they might have been on to something.
Stable flies, like ticks and other blood feeders track their much larger "prey" by following trails of CO2, body heat and other irresistible odors emanating from our (and other warm-blooded animal) bodies. Thousands of infected flies could be released into the mountains, feed on Al-Qaeda operatives and infecting them with deadly anthrax bacteria.
Insects as agents for Homeland Security is not necessarily a new idea or even practice. Several years ago I visited the lab of Dr. Joe Lewis at the University of Georgia, Tifton. He was using the natural food-smell associations of tiny, almost microscopic wasps to detect volatile compounds such as gunpowder or explosives. The wasps are fed sugar water as the scientists waft over a singular scent such as gunpowder or even illegal drugs at as little as 4 parts per billion (that's a really, really small amount). Like tiny, winged Pavlov dogs the wasps associate a reward with a particular smell and when released will aggregate on a suitcase or box that might be contain explosives or some china white.
But the use of the little self-armored terrors goes back even further than this. During World War II Japan attempted to drop plague-infested fleas on China and even the United States. While successfully establishing a plague epidemic in Manchuria, the attacks on US cities were called off after ethical consideration of some Japanese War Strategists. Still, plague occurs naturally and is maintained in rodent populations in California.
A few years ago At the University of Kansas, Sonny Ramaswamy, Entomology Department Chair and a colleague trivially discussed the possibility of unleashing blood-thirsty stable flies
impregnated with anthrax to bite and subsequently infect military targets such as Osama Bin Laden and his horde hiding out in the mountainous expanses of the Afghan-Pakistan border. Turns out they might have been on to something.Stable flies, like ticks and other blood feeders track their much larger "prey" by following trails of CO2, body heat and other irresistible odors emanating from our (and other warm-blooded animal) bodies. Thousands of infected flies could be released into the mountains, feed on Al-Qaeda operatives and infecting them with deadly anthrax bacteria.
Insects as agents for Homeland Security is not necessarily a new idea or even practice. Several years ago I visited the lab of Dr. Joe Lewis at the University of Georgia, Tifton. He was using the natural food-smell associations of tiny, almost microscopic wasps to detect volatile compounds such as gunpowder or explosives. The wasps are fed sugar water as the scientists waft over a singular scent such as gunpowder or even illegal drugs at as little as 4 parts per billion (that's a really, really small amount). Like tiny, winged Pavlov dogs the wasps associate a reward with a particular smell and when released will aggregate on a suitcase or box that might be contain explosives or some china white.
But the use of the little self-armored terrors goes back even further than this. During World War II Japan attempted to drop plague-infested fleas on China and even the United States. While successfully establishing a plague epidemic in Manchuria, the attacks on US cities were called off after ethical consideration of some Japanese War Strategists. Still, plague occurs naturally and is maintained in rodent populations in California.
As stated in a previous post, I will discuss a how-to for the naming of species. While waiting for my promised post, I think you'll find this one a welcome interlude. You may name a species after a loved-one, colleague, historical figure, hero or in this case, famous and very funny person. I hope Jon Stewart won't be too envious.
Ever wonder why they do it? Night flying insects like moths, beetles, caddisflies and others are always hanging around your porch light like ticketless tweens outside a Hannah Montana concert. Well, scientists aren't too sure either, but they have some good theories.
When you're taking a walk or riding in the car at night where you can see the moon, it seems to travel alongside of you no matter where you go - but it also remains a point of reference in the sky. That is, if you are walking with your left side to the moon and turn around, the moon is then on your right side. Duh.
This is how moths (and other night flyers) do it; they use the moon to navigate, keeping the bright moon just over one wing or the other. If the moth got to point A with the moon over its right wing it knows to go back from where it came by flying with the moon over its left wing. So the rule of the game is to keep the moon to one side and you know you're flying (or walking in our case) in a straight line.
So what does this have to do with porch lights? Why are they flying into them? If you took a walk by a porch light or streetlight with the light to your right and started to walk eventually you would have the light behind you. Since the rules are to keep the light along side of you,
you'll need to turn slightly so that the light is once again by your shoulder. But yes, you're right - now you've moved off of your straight course. Keep doing this over and over and you will be moving in a circle around the artificial light. Shorten the distance of each circle and you will find yourself face to face with the soft glow of a Westinghouse.
Scientists use this behavior to their advantage: it's one good way to collect insects that normally are hiding during the day. In many cases two kinds of lights are used: a mercury vapor or a black light (yes, same one your roommate used to light up the velvet poster of Jim Morrison). Hang one of these in front of a white sheet and the glow will be irresistible for the nighttime navigators.
A number of years ago when I was in graduate school at Georgia Southern University I was enrolled in an entomology class with the amazing Dr. Frank French. One of our assignments was to create an insect collection. A few days before the due date I found myself a bit short of the required number of specimens. Well, later that night I wandered over to the lights used to illuminate a billboard at the intersection of highways 301 and 25. Jackpot - there were literally layers upon layers of insects; living, dead, confused, preying on others - it was sweet madness. Needless to say thanks to the bright lights I finished my collection that night.
What's good for collectors is ultimately not good for the moths - not that the act of collecting itself is doing much of any harm but the prevalence of high-powered mercury vapor and sodium lights attracts moths away from the forests and shelter and into the mouths of birds who are up just before the sun shines.
When you're taking a walk or riding in the car at night where you can see the moon, it seems to travel alongside of you no matter where you go - but it also remains a point of reference in the sky. That is, if you are walking with your left side to the moon and turn around, the moon is then on your right side. Duh.
This is how moths (and other night flyers) do it; they use the moon to navigate, keeping the bright moon just over one wing or the other. If the moth got to point A with the moon over its right wing it knows to go back from where it came by flying with the moon over its left wing. So the rule of the game is to keep the moon to one side and you know you're flying (or walking in our case) in a straight line.
So what does this have to do with porch lights? Why are they flying into them? If you took a walk by a porch light or streetlight with the light to your right and started to walk eventually you would have the light behind you. Since the rules are to keep the light along side of you,
you'll need to turn slightly so that the light is once again by your shoulder. But yes, you're right - now you've moved off of your straight course. Keep doing this over and over and you will be moving in a circle around the artificial light. Shorten the distance of each circle and you will find yourself face to face with the soft glow of a Westinghouse.Scientists use this behavior to their advantage: it's one good way to collect insects that normally are hiding during the day. In many cases two kinds of lights are used: a mercury vapor or a black light (yes, same one your roommate used to light up the velvet poster of Jim Morrison). Hang one of these in front of a white sheet and the glow will be irresistible for the nighttime navigators.
A number of years ago when I was in graduate school at Georgia Southern University I was enrolled in an entomology class with the amazing Dr. Frank French. One of our assignments was to create an insect collection. A few days before the due date I found myself a bit short of the required number of specimens. Well, later that night I wandered over to the lights used to illuminate a billboard at the intersection of highways 301 and 25. Jackpot - there were literally layers upon layers of insects; living, dead, confused, preying on others - it was sweet madness. Needless to say thanks to the bright lights I finished my collection that night.
What's good for collectors is ultimately not good for the moths - not that the act of collecting itself is doing much of any harm but the prevalence of high-powered mercury vapor and sodium lights attracts moths away from the forests and shelter and into the mouths of birds who are up just before the sun shines. 
