Collaborate Disseminate
A team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside is studying a species of “vulture bee” that has swapped a vegetarian diet for carrion meat by developing an extra tooth and gut bacteria similar to that found in vultures and hyenas.Contin… Continue reading Carrion-eater gut bacteria help vulture bees ditch nectar for meat
If farmers know what sort of pest insects are present in their crops – and in what numbers – they can avoid excessive use of pesticides. The FarmSense system was created to provide that information, via a network of Smart Traps.Continue ReadingCategory… Continue reading FarmSense trap tech counts and identifies crop-killing insects
Although pest insects may decimate crops, the use of traditional pesticides can definitely harm the environment. Spanish scientists have now developed a possible alternative to those chemicals, in the form of plants that produce insect-confusing pherom… Continue reading Modified plants designed to save crops by producing insect pheromones
You may think that water strider insects move across the water’s surface simply by wiggling their legs, but they actually utilize what is known as the Maragoni effect. Scientists have now utilized the phenomenon in a tiny, silent, water-striding robot…. Continue reading Robotic water strider is propelled by surface tension – and alcohol
Because both bats and moths are nocturnal, bats use echolocation to zero in on the insects when hunting them in the dark. A new study, however, suggests that some moths have evolved special wingtips to avoid becoming a meal.Continue ReadingCategory: Bi… Continue reading Study finds that moth wingtips serve as bat-foiling “acoustic decoys”
Why do ants and other small creatures have such sharp bites? According to scientists from the University of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the answer lies in their ability to uniformly add zinc atoms to their teeth.Continu… Continue reading Zinc-atom coating turns ant teeth into tough, sharp tools
After years of lengthy court battles the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced it will ban agricultural uses of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide suspected of causing neurodevelopmental problems in children. The ban comes into effect in six … Continue reading EPA finally bans common food pesticide after years of court battles
Our sense of smell seems to be the most complicated, and as such it’s the least understood. To help shed some light on the system, researchers at Rockefeller University have taken the first cryo-electron microscope images of an olfactory receptor at wo… Continue reading Science of smell: The first molecular images of odor receptors at work
No matter how good a design humans have come up with, chances are nature has beaten us to it, and done a better job to boot. The latest innovation to join that list is lubricant, with researchers discovering that beetles naturally lubricate their knees… Continue reading Natural beetle juice outperforms Teflon as a lubricant
Engineers at University of California, Berkeley have created an insect-like robot that can scamper along quickly and turn on a dime – perhaps literally. The bot owes its fancy footwork to… well, its fancy feet, which use varying voltages to alternate s… Continue reading Fleet-footed insect robot can turn on a dime (literally)