Apart from their nasty stings, army ant colonies are often known for their stunning, intricate architectural feats using their own bodies. When worker ant hunting parties encounter obstacles such as fallen tree branches, gaps in foliage, or small streams, the tiny insects will join forces to create a bridge for the remaining ant brethren to traverse. It’s as impressive as it is somewhat disconcerting—these are living, crawling buildings, after all. But one research team isn’t studying the coordination between miniscule bugs to benefit future construction projects; they are looking into how army ant teamwork could be mimicked by robots.

“Army ants create structures using decentralized collective intelligence processes,” Isabella Muratore, a postdoctoral researcher at the New Jersey Institute of Technology specializing in army ant building techniques, explains to PopSci over email. “This means that each ant follows a set of rules about how to behave based on sensory input and this leads to the creation of architectural forms without the need for any prior planning or commands from a leader.”

[Related: These robots reached a team consensus like a swarm of bees.]

Along with engineers from NJIT and Northwestern University, Muratore and her entomologist colleagues developed a series of tests meant to gauge army ant workers’ reactions and logistical responses to environmental impediments. After placing obstacles in the ants’ forest paths, Muratore filmed and later analyzed the herds’ subsequent adaptations to continue along their routes. Utilizing prior modeling work, the team also tested whether the ant bridges could withstand sudden, small changes in obstacle length using an adjustable spacing device.

Muratore and others recently presented their findings at this year’s annual Entomological Society of America conference. According to their observations, army ants generally choose to construct bridges in the most efficient locations—places wide enough to necessitate a building project while simultaneously using the least number of ants possible. The number of bridges needed during a sojourn also influences the ants’ collective decisions on resource allocation.

David Hu, a Georgia Institute of Technology engineering professor focused on fire ant raft constructions during flooding, recently likened the insects to neurons in one big, creepy-crawly brain while speaking to NPR on the subject. Instead of individual ants determining bridge dimensions and locations, each ant contributes to the decisions in their own small way.

[Related: Robot jellyfish swarms could soon help clean the oceans of plastic.]

Muratore and her collaborators believe an army ant’s collaborative capabilities could soon help engineers program swarms of robots based on the insect’s behavior principles and brains. Ants vary across species, but they still can pack a surprising amount of information within their roughly 1.1 microliter volume brains.

Replicating that brainpower requires relatively low energy costs. Scaling it across a multitude of robots could remain comparatively cheap, while exponentially increasing their functionality. This could allow them to “flexibly adapt to a variety of challenges, such as linking together to form bridges over gaps of different lengths in the most efficient manner possible,” Muratore writes to PopSci.
Robotic teamwork is crucial to implement the machines across a number of industries and scenarios, from outer space exploration, to ocean cleanup projects, to search-and-rescue efforts in areas too dangerous for humans to access. In these instances, coordinating quickly and efficiently not only saves time and energy, it could save lives.

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Adding liquid soap can boost the potency of some of the pesticides used on malaria-carrying mosquitoes. The discovery is detailed in a study published November 17 in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases and offers a tool in the fight against the disease.

[Related: New four-dose malaria vaccine is up to 80 percent effective.]

Malaria is most prevalent in Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa and is caused by several species of parasites that are transmitted by the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. It causes severe fatigue, fever, headaches, and chills and can be fatal. When it is treated with the right medication, such as artemether-lumefantrine, it can be cured and the malaria parasites can be completely cleared from the body. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there were 241 million cases of malaria worldwide and 627,000 deaths in 2020. 

While the first malaria vaccines were approved and recommended in 2021, the mosquitoes that carry malaria are becoming more resistant to insecticides. 

“Over the past two decades, mosquitoes have become strongly resistant to most insecticides,” study co-author and University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) evolutionary biologist Colince Kamdem said in a statement. “It’s a race now to develop alternative compounds with new modes of action.”

Before coming to UTEP, Kamdem worked at Cameroon’s Centre for Research in Infectious Diseases, where he first saw soap’s potential potency during some routine insecticide testing. A special class of insecticide called neonicotinoids have shown to be a potential alternative that targets the mosquito populations that show resistance to current insecticides. However, they can have negative effects on bees if not used carefully and neonicotinoids do not kill some mosquito species unless their potency is boosted. 

World Health Organization protocols recommend adding a seed-oil based product to insecticides to test a mosquito’s susceptibility. When the compound was added, Kamdem noticed that it was more effective than when the insecticide was used on its own.

“That compound belongs to the same class of substances as kitchen soap,” Kamdem said. “We thought, ‘Why don’t we test products that have same properties?’”

The team selected three inexpensive, linseed-oil based soaps that are readily available in sub-Saharan African countries. They added the soaps to four different neonicotinoids. In every case, the potency was increased. 

[Related: Mosquitoes are becoming resistant to our best defenses.]

“All three brands of soap increase mortality from 30 percent to 100 percent compared to when the insecticides were used on their own,” study co-author Ashu Fred said in a statement. Fred is a PhD student at the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon. 

They also tested a class of insecticides called pyrethroids. This class did not see the added benefits of the boost from soap. They hope to conduct additional testing to see exactly how much soap is needed to enhance insecticides. 

“We would love to make a soap-insecticide formulation that can be used indoors in Africa and be healthy for users,” Kamdem said. “There are unknowns as to whether such a formulation will stick to materials like mosquito nets, but the challenge is both promising and very exciting.”

Malaria was once endemic in the US, but was eradicated by the 1970s. However, the CDC issued a health advisory in June after at least four people in Florida and one in Texas contracted homegrown cases of malaria. The disease is most common in warm climates and some scientists worry that as global temperatures continue to rise, more regions will be affected by malaria. A 2022 study published in Nature found that climate change can exacerbate a full 58 percent of the infectious diseases that humans come in contact with worldwide.

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Researchers in Denmark have discovered six new species of beetle, including one with some eye-opening genitalia. Loncovilius carlsbergi has a penis shaped like a bottle opener. The top looks like the protruding longer part of a bottle opener that latches onto the bottle cap, and the bottom resembles the pincer that holds the bottle in place. The specimen is described in a study published October 28 in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

[Related: Acrobatic beetle bots could inspire the latest ‘leap’ in agriculture.]

While the team from the Natural History Museum of Denmark still not sure why Loncovilius carlsbergi evolved this uniquely shaped penis, studying them can reveal the role that the genitals play in the bugs’ daily lives. 

“Genitalia are the organs in insects that evolve to be different in every species. As such, they are often the best way to identify a species,” study co-author and biologist Aslak Kappel Hansen said in a statement. “That’s why entomologists like us are always quick to examine insect genitalia when describing a species. The unique shape of each species’ genitals ensures that it can only reproduce with the same species.”

Aslak and his colleagues found and named six new species in the rove beetle genus Loncovilius that had been hidden within the insect collections at the museum. Loncovilius carlsbergi was named for the Carlsberg Foundation, which has funded research at the museum for years. Carlsberg is a popular 176-year-old Danish beer company.

Loncovilius beetles are only found in Chile and Argentina and entomologists don’t know too much about them. They are less than an inch long and all of their legs have sticky bristles on them, while other predatory rove beetles only have sticky front legs. 

Where Loncovilius beetles live make them special among this family of beetles. Most predatory rove beetles live on the ground, among dead leaves, fungi, and bark. Loncovilius beetles live on flowers. The authors believe that their sticky legs helped them adapt the ability to climb flowers and vegetation.

“We suspect that they play an important role in the ecosystem. So, it’s worrying that nearly nothing is known about this type of beetles, especially when they’re so easy to spot–and some of them are even quite beautiful,” study co-author and systematic entomologist Josh Jenkins Shaw said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we can easily lose species like these before they’re ever discovered.”

The forces of climate change, pollution, and habitat loss is exacerbating the Earth’s biodiversity crisis. These combined forces have threatened over one million plant and animal species with extinction, a rate of loss that is 1,000 times greater than previously expected. The team believes that this crisis will likely affect these newly discovered beetles as well.

[Related: A pocketful of bacteria helps these beetles through their most dramatic life changes.]

“Loncovilius populations are likely to change in coming decades. Our simulations demonstrate that at least three of the Loncovilius species are at risk because the rapidly changing climate strongly alters more than half of their habitat area by 2060,” study co-author and PhD student José L. Reyes-Hernández said in a statement. “It is important to stress that many more species will be affected by this change, but we don’t know how because only for four species we had enough data for our analysis.” 

The planet’s species are also going extinct faster than scientists can fully name and describe them. Some estimates place the number of species lost from the Earth every day at upwards of 150. According to Jenkins Shaw, as many as 85 percent of all species on the planet are still not formally named or described. 

“A taxonomic name is important because nature conservation relies on knowledge about species in particular areas. Without such a description, species are often left out of conservation efforts,” said Jenkins Shaw.

The authors hope that Loncovilius carlsbergi’s attention-grabbing genitals could spark broader interest in insects. They are also working on producing an actual bottle opener shaped like this beetle’s penis into production. 

“It’s important that we recognize the vast wealth of yet to be researched species around us before it’s too late. We would like for people around the world to talk about the crisis facing our planet’s species. A move towards serious learning and awareness may be sparkled by a light chat that takes place over a beer,” said Kappel Hansen.

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I’m obsessed with jumping spiders. But it wasn’t always so.

While never a spider hater or arachnophobe, I was pretty ambivalent about them for most of my life. Then I learned about jumping spiders: I’ve reported on their impressive vision (as good as a cat’s in some ways!), their surprising smarts (they make plans!) and the discovery that they have REM sleep (and may even dream!). I was hooked.

I also learned that jumping spiders may be in decline. In tropical forests, it used to be easy to find them in a matter of minutes, says behavioral biologist Ximena Nelson, who studies jumping spiders at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. But for some species, that’s changed over the last couple decades. “Now, I mean, you just can’t find them at all in some cases.”

In fact, all over the world, all sorts of spiders seem to be disappearing, says conservation biologist Pedro Cardoso of the University of Lisbon. He and a colleague polled a hundred spider experts and enthusiasts globally about the threats facing the animals. “It’s more or less unanimous that something is happening,” he says.

But there are no hard data to prove this. Why not? There are likely a number of reasons, but one possible contributor keeps coming up in my conversations with arachnologists: People really do not like spiders. Even among the least popular animals on Earth, they are especially reviled. One recent study found that people think spiders are the absolute worst combination of scary and disgusting, beating out vipers, wasps, maggots and cockroaches.

It’s obvious why this is a problem for the house spider who ends up on the receiving end of a rolled-up newspaper. But if our distaste means scientists have a hard time finding the funds to study them, as some suspect is true, it’s also a problem for spiders writ large. For most potentially endangered spiders, there aren’t enough data to consider them for protection. We can’t help spiders if we don’t know which species are in trouble, or where and why they’re disappearing. And if you don’t care about the loss of spiders for their own sake, consider that crashing spider populations are bad news for a whole host of animals—including us.

The case for why people should care about spiders is robust. First, the vast majority of spiders do not bite or harm people, despite rampant misinformation in the media that would have you believe most spiders are out to get you. In reality, a vanishingly small number of spiders are dangerous to humans. Instead, they prey on insects—including mosquitoes, cockroaches and aphids—that actually do cause harm to people in their homes, gardens and fields. Spiders are excellent natural pest controls, but they are often killed by pesticides aimed at those same insect pests. These toxic chemicals also harm people.

Spiders are important food sources for birds, fish, lizards and small mammals. And there are untapped benefits we humans could enjoy someday—if spiders don’t disappear first—such as potential pharmaceutical and pest control applications derived from compounds in their venom, and medical and engineering applications based on their incredibly strong silk.

None of this is likely to overcome the visceral aversion so many people feel. The fear and disgust is so strong and specific that some scientists have suggested spiders represent a unique cognitive category in our minds. Ask people to name a phobia, and I’ll bet arachnophobia is the first one they think of.

But there may be a way to address the animus and the data gap at the same time: We should all start counting spiders.

Changing minds

People are definitely willing to count things for science. More than half a million people participated in the annual Great Backyard Bird Count in 2023, identifying over 7,500 species over the course of four days in February. Of course, people really like birds.

But citizen, or community, science has also proven successful for small-scale projects with insects and other invertebrates, says Helen Roy, an ecologist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, and coauthor of an assessment of the potential for citizen science in the 2022 Annual Review of Entomology. It offers people the chance to be a part of science, even to become local experts. “There are still discoveries to be made on people’s doorsteps,” Roy says. “And I think that’s tremendously exciting.”

Roy recently worked with a graduate student who received nearly 3,000 applications to participate in a citizen science project on the biodiversity of slugs. Yep, slugs. The 60 lucky people who made the cut went out into their gardens at night for 30 minutes, every four weeks for a year, to collect and attempt to identify every slug and snail they could find, and then send them alive to the scientists. Not only did the slug counters enjoy the task, it corrected some of the assumptions they had about the slimy little animals. “They’re not all pests,” Roy says. “Citizen science is a really wonderful opportunity to be able to challenge people’s thinking.”

Could this work for spiders? The UK’s Natural History Museum in London has already shown that it can on a national scale, with its Fat Spider Fortnight project on iNaturalist, a popular online platform for crowdsourcing identifications of plants, animals and more. In 2021, hundreds of people in the UK contributed more than 1,250 observations of 11 relatively large spider species the project had targeted, including the green meshweaver and the flower crab spider. The entries will be added to the British Arachnological Society’s Spider Recording Scheme, which has been collecting observations since 1987.

And there is reason to believe that learning about spiders can change how people feel about them, even in extreme cases. Australian author Lynne Kelly was so afraid of spiders that just going for a hike or being in her garden had become difficult. But she managed to conquer her arachnophobia, and today she welcomes spiders into her garden and even her house. Learning made the difference, says Kelly, who’s written a book about her transformation. Being able to identify species and understand their habits made their behavior seem less erratic. She began seeing house spiders as harmless roommates and, eventually, friends. “One of the secrets was, I give them names,” she says. “Giving them names made them individuals. So it wasn’t, ‘Ack! Spider!’ It was, ‘There’s Fred.’”

Regular spider despisers may also have a change of heart after getting to know their eight-legged neighbors. This is what happened to Randy Supczak, an engineer in San Diego, after he came across a spider in his driveway in 2019.

“It kind of freaked me out a little bit,” Supczak says. So he went online, found a Facebook group dedicated to identifying spiders, and uploaded a photo: It was a noble false widow. He read that the species is nocturnal. “So I went outside that night with a flashlight, and I was shocked with what I saw,” he says. “Just everywhere, spiders.”

Something about discovering this hidden world of spiders grabbed Supczak’s curiosity. “Immediately, I was obsessed with learning about them.” Since then, he’s become a spider evangelist and started his own Facebook group where he helps San Diegans identify and learn about local spiders. He’s found that a little bit of knowledge can turn someone from a squisher to a relocator. “I consider that a big accomplishment,” he says. “I’ll take that.”

Ecologist and self-proclaimed spider ambassador Bria Marty tested whether learning about spiders can change how people feel about them for her master’s thesis project at Texas State University in San Marcos. She recruited college students to find and identify spiders using an illustrated guide and then upload photos to iNaturalist. Marty, currently a PhD student at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, surveyed participants before and after the activity, and one thing jumped out: Afterwards, people reported being far less likely to react negatively to a spider. “Doing an activity like this really does help a lot around fear,” she says.

This kind of change has been known to happen to iNaturalist users, says Tony Iwane, the platform’s outreach and support coordinator and a self-described spider lover. He pointed me to a thread on the site’s discussion forum about how contributing to iNaturalist helped people overcome their fear of spiders, with users sharing the “gateway spider” species that changed how they felt. For @mira_l_b, it was the particularly tiny Salticid (jumping spider) species Talavera minuta. “If I am finding myself confronting life-long fears and cooing sweetly to tiny Salticidae,” she wrote, “then there’s hope for us all!”

When I finally figured out how to find jumping spiders in my neighborhood, it only endeared them more to me. Sometimes they jump away before I can get a good enough look to ID them or take a photo with my phone. But other times, they stop, turn around and look right at me. Something about locking eyes with a half-centimeter-long animal so different from us is amazing to me. It also makes for some pretty cute photos.

Spiders count

If even a fraction of the number of people counting birds were willing to do the same for spiders, would that generate data that could make a meaningful difference? Dimitar Dimitrov, an arachnologist who studies the evolution of spider diversity at the University Museum of Bergen in Norway, thinks it could.

During an interview in 2021 for a story on spider cognition, Dimitrov lamented the lack of scientific attention and funding that spiders receive relative to other animals like birds: “I think there are more ornithologists than species of birds.” I asked if citizen science could help fill the gap. “Definitely, I think this is the way to go,” he said.

We know so little, and biodiversity is declining so fast, he told me, even the level of funding national governments can muster for traditional science couldn’t handle the scale and urgency of the challenge. But involving the public has the potential to make a big impact in a short time, Dimitrov said. “All these people in their free time doing something like this as a hobby, a few hours here and there, can actually contribute a huge amount of information that is probably able to change, qualitatively, what we know about nature and biological diversity.”

Of course, identifying spiders is not the same as identifying birds. Most spiders are nocturnal, and their lives can be ephemeral and seasonal, perhaps necessitating more than one count per year. And in many cases, the species can’t be identified without looking at the reproductive parts under a microscope. Don’t worry, nobody is asking you to do this: A decent photo can often yield a genus-level ID, and sometimes even the species, with the help of arachnologists and amateur spider enthusiasts like Supczak. Even just determining which family a spider is in, whether it’s an orb weaver or a trapdoor spider for example, can be useful scientific data, Dimitrov says.

The University of Lisbon’s Cardoso was enthusiastic when I asked him about the potential for a worldwide citizen science project aimed at collecting spider data. “I think it will be really, really cool,” he says. “We’ll just need to have that critical mass in different countries to start this.”

Maybe you’ll be part of that critical mass if a global spider count comes to be. In the meantime, look around your house or garden, find some spiders, upload the photos, and discover who they are.

I know spiders won’t appeal to everyone the same way birds do. They don’t have beautiful feathers, and they don’t sing beautiful songs. But they also won’t fly away while you try to take a photo, especially if they are hanging out in a web.

And if you find a jumping spider, she just might turn around and look right at the camera, ready for her close-up.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

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Reviled the world over for making our scalps itch and rapidly spreading in schools, lice have hitched their destiny to our hair follicles. They are the oldest known parasites that feed on the blood of humans, so learning more about lice can tell us quite a bit about our own species and migratory patterns. 

[Related: Ancient ivory comb shows that self-care is as old as time.]

A study published November 8 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE found that lice likely came into North America in two waves of migration. First when some humans potentially crossed a land bridge that connected Asia with present day Alaska roughly 16,000 years ago during the end of the last ice age and then again during European colonization. 

“In some ways, lice are like living fossils we carry around on our own heads,” study co-author Marina Ascunce, an evolutionary biologist with the United States Department of Agriculture, tells PopSci.  

Lice are wingless parasites that live their entire lives on their host and there are three known species that infest humans. Humans and lice have coevolved for thousands of years. The oldest louse specimen known to scientists is 10,000 years old and was found in Brazil in 2000. Since lice and humans have a very intertwined relationship, studying lice can offer clues into human migratory patterns.

“They went on this ride across the world with us. Yet, they are their own organism with some ability to move around on their own (e.g., from one head to another). It provides insight into what happened during our time together,” study co-author and mammal geneticist from the University of Florida David L. Reed tells PopSci. 

In this new study, a team of scientists from the United States, Mexico, and Argentina analyzed the genetic variation in 274 human lice uncovered from 25 geographic sites around the world. The analysis showed distinct clusters of lice that rarely interbreed and were found in different locations. Cluster I was found all over the world, while Cluster II was found in Europe and the Americas. The only lice that had ancestry from both clusters are found in the Americas. This distinct group of lice appears to be the result of a mixture between lice that were descended from populations that arrived with the people who crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America and those descended from European lice. 

Researchers found genetic evidence that head lice mirrored both the movement of people into the Americas from Asia and European colonization after Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the late 1400’s.

“Central American head lice harbored the Asian background associated with the foundation of the Americas, while South American lice had marks of the European arrival,” Ariel Toloza, a study co-author and insect toxicologist at Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnica (CONICET) in Argentina, tells PopSci. “We also detected a recent human migration from Europe to the Americas after WWII.” 

[Related: Rare parasites found in 200 million-year-old reptile poop.]

The evidence in this study supports the theory that the first people living in the Americas came from Asia between 14,000 and 16,000 years ago and moved south into Central and South America. However, other archaeological evidence like the 23,000 to 21,000 year-old White Sands footprints and Native American tradition suggests that humans were already living in the Americas before and during the last ice age. Some potentially 30,000-year-old stone tools were discovered in a cave in Central Mexico in 2020, which also questions the land bridge theory. 

The study also fills in some of lice’s evolutionary gaps and the team sequenced the louse full genome for future research. 

“The same louse DNA used for this first study was used to analyze their whole genomes and also more lice were collected, so in the next year or so, there will be new studies trying to answer our ongoing questions,” says Ascunce. 

Technological improvements can also now help scientists study include ancient DNA from lice that has been found in mummies or even from louse DNA recovered from ancient combs. The study also offers some lessons in studying animals that we may generally experience as a nuisance.

“The world is full of a lot of plants and animals that are reviled or despised,” says Reed. “You never fully [know] what role they play in the environment or what their true value might be. So, be curious and see what stories the lowliest of animals might have to tell.”

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Bees are extremely adept at communicating, even though their brains weigh just two milligrams. They’re so efficient at reaching a consensus, in fact, that researchers created a mini-robot team inspired by their ‘conversations.’

In the search for a new nesting spot, scout bees are known to conduct tiny “waggle dances” to indicate their preferred hive location—slowly winning over swarmmates to join in the process. The moves are tiny but complex, involving moving in figure-eight patterns while shaking their bodies at rapid speed. The bees with the most popular dance part earn final say on where to build. While the three centimeter-wide “kilobots” under the watch of a team at Spain’s University of Barcelona can’t shimmy and shake just yet, they do signal to one another much like bees.

[Related: Bee brains could teach robots to make split-second decisions.]

As detailed in their preprint paper submitted in late October, the team first attached a colored LED light alongside an infrared-light receiver and emitter atop each of a total of 35 kilobots. They then programmed the bots using a modified version of a previously designed mathematical model based on scout bee behavior. From there, the team placed varying numbers of kilobots within an enclosure and let them jitter through their new environment on their trio of toothpick-like legs. During over 70 tests, researchers ordered certain bot clusters to advertise their preferred nesting location “opinion” via signaling between their LED lights’ red, blue, and green hues.

Every kilobot team achieved a group consensus within roughly 30 minutes, no matter the team size or environmental density. Such reliable decision making—even in machines capable of transmitting just 9 bytes of information at a time—could one day prove invaluable across a number of industries.

[Related: Bat-like echolocation could help these robots find lost people.]

“We believe that in the near future there are going to be simple robots that will do jobs that we don’t want to do, and it will be very important that they make decisions in a decentralized, autonomous manner,” Carmen Miguel, one of the study’s co-authors, explained to New Scientist on November 7.

During invasive medical procedures, for instance, tiny robots could maneuver within a patient’s body, communicating with one another without the need for complex electronics. Similarly, cheap bots could coordinate with one another while deployed during search-and-rescue missions. In such scenarios, the environmental dangers often prevent the use of expensive robots due to risk of damage or destruction.

Above it all, however, the University of Barcelona team believes their work draws attention to often underappreciated aspects of everyday existence. The team’s paper abstract concludes: “By shedding light on this crucial layer of complexity… we emphasize the significance of factors typically overlooked but essential to living systems and life itself.”

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In Washington, D.C., a honey bee landed on a restaurant bar, creating quite a stir. But a man a few feet away, who was allergic to the insect’s sting, was not alarmed. This bee’s head and wings were metal, and its abdomen glass.

The bistro, Bresca, which means “honeycomb” in Catalan, likes to serve its riff on a Bee’s Knees cocktail in this bee-like vessel. And, to fit the theme, Bresca’s version swaps out simple syrup made of processed sugar and water for a syrup made entirely of honey and water. Unlike the sucrose-heavy simple syrups that many bartenders use in cocktails, honey is mostly fructose and glucose. Because fructose is sweeter than sucrose, honey goes a long way in a cocktail, and knowing how to use it is key to impressing your guests. 

Use different varieties of honey to your benefit

“Honey comes from thousands and thousands of varietals of plants,” says Juliana Rangel, associate professor of apiculture at Texas A&M’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Each plant has its own unique [taste] profile that’s not found in [table] sugars.”

[Related: How to build a garden that’ll have pollinators buzzin’]

When you are familiar with the varieties of honey available to you, you can choose the perfect honey to complement the other ingredients in a cocktail. “Horsemint honey,” Rangel notes, which comes from a plant that grows wildly across central Texas and other areas, “would be a great complement to a minty beverage like mojitos because the honey itself has those components.” Rangel also explains that because honey naturally contains acids, it combines well with citrus fruits often used in cocktails. 

But because of honey’s thickness, it needs to be thinned out before it goes into a cocktail. At the urban apiary on the rooftop of the Hilton hotel in McLean, Virginia, the harvest goes to the kitchen and bar, where it’s mixed with equal parts warm water. This keeps it viscous and flavorful, but loose enough to be blended easily into a cocktail of whiskey, Cointreau, and muddled lemon slices so the oils from the skin can help round out the drink.

Actually, mind your beeswax

Bees work busily, visiting flowers and converting pollen and nectar in their stomachs to remove water and produce a simple sugar. A harvesting bee then passes this nectar to another bee that stores this sugar in the honeycomb, drying it out with their wings and capping it with beeswax. As it turns out, beeswax is another useful agricultural product and has its place around alcohol.

Bresca’s bartender works much like a bee. Not only is cocktail construction a busy process, but to infuse the right flavors into the drink, the bartender must move it from vessel to vessel, aging it in beeswax for nine days before it goes into the metal and glass bee.

Storing a cocktail in a jar with a beeswax-coated interior is a lot like putting wine into an oak barrel, Gerling explains. “Alcohol is a solvent. It’s extracting properties from the beeswax.”

Hawksmoor in New York City goes as far as infusing whiskey with melted beeswax harvested from Manhattan rooftops to make their Night Nurse cocktail. After time in the refrigerator, the bartender skims off all that rises to the surface—about a quarter of the initial wax. It’s the same process as fat-washing a cocktail, and the melted beeswax imparts floral flavors and a creamy mouth-feel. Hawksmoor also acid-adjusts their honey with malic acid from apples and citric acid for a cleaner taste.

[Related: 5 ways to keep bees buzzing that don’t require a hive]

While Rangel says beeswax can add an earthy and floral taste to a cocktail, she is less keen on aging alcohol in beeswax. Alcohol will degrade the wax particles, she says, resulting in leaching. And because bees visit agricultural crops and can carry pesticides on their bodies, those chemicals get imparted into the beeswax, giving it a chemical residue.

But it’s no different than eating a salad without the organic label stamped on the bag. And it’s probably no worse than the alcohol itself.

“In urban environments,” Rangel notes, “the pesticides are actually less.”

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Bats and spiders get most of the attention for Halloween and spooky season, but October is also ladybug time in many parts of the United States. Alongside their appropriately nicknamed cousins the “Halloween beetle,” residents from Wisconsin to North Carolina to New Hampshire historically report seeing more of these insects indoors this time of year. Here’s why.

[Related: These fold-up robots fly just like ladybugs.]

Looking for warmth

Ladybugs typically spend the warmer summer months outside in gardens and grasses. As fall settles in, the insects likely begin to seek a place to hibernate indoors when the temperatures begin to drop. 

They could also be looking for a safe and warm place to lay their eggs. According to This Old House, ladybugs will often leave a trail of pheromones that tells other ladybugs in the colony, “Hey, this place is safe, warm, and perfect for egg-laying,” when they find a good spot to lay eggs. 

They are most commonly spotted by doors and windows, where it is easy for them to squeeze inside under cracks. They can also hitch a ride on potted plants and flowers brought into the home.

How to tell a ladybug from a Halloween beetle

The more well-known and common seven spotted ladybugs (Hippodamia convergens) are often confused with their cousins the Asian lady beetle aka harlequin ladybird or the Halloween beetle (Harmonia axyridis). These bugs are also red, but can also appear more orange and have more spots on their backs. It is also more typical for them to swarm houses in the fall and before the winter. Both species are members of the Coccinellidae family of beetles, but belong to a different genus. 

The easiest way to tell the two cousins apart is to look at their spots. If there are more spots, it’s a Halloween beetle. If there are only seven, it’s a ladybug. You can also look around their “neck.” Halloween beetles have different markings that look a bit like a butterfly or a black “M.” They are also generally larger than ladybugs. 

Ladybugs also typically have a rounded or oval shape. Halloween beetles also have an oval appearance, but they are slightly longer with a pointed head and snout. 

According to University of Kentucky entomologists, Asian lady beetles seem to be attracted to lit up surfaces that have a light-dark surface contrast. Homes that are partially illuminated by the sun are then attractive to the beatles. 

[Related: How many ants are there on Earth? Thousands of billions.]

“Once the beetles alight on buildings, they seek out crevices and protected places to spend the winter. They often congregate in attics, wall cavities, and other protected locations,” the entomologists told WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. “Since lady beetles are attracted to light, they are often seen around windows and light fixtures.”

Can they hurt me or my house?

Ladybugs do more good than harm. They do not carry any diseases and they are a garden’s best friend, by eating aphids and worms that can ruin spring flowers and veggies. Halloween beetles are generally more likely to infest a home. 

They are not typically aggressive to humans, but Halloween beetles can bite if they feel trapped or threatened. Like other insects, their bites can create small, red, and itchy marks. 

Halloween beetles can also harm furniture or carpets with their secretions. Some safe ways to keep them away include planting mums, lavender, bay leaves, cloves, citronella, and plants in the citrus and mint families to naturally repel ladybugs, sealing entry points to your home, and using door sweeps at the bottom of doors. 

The post Why ladybugs and ‘Halloween beetles’ are everywhere right now appeared first on Popular Science.

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When foraging, bumblebees often have a choice to make. Do they go for the nectar that is the easiest to get, or should they work harder to get nectar with a higher sugar content? A new study found that the priority for the bumblebees is getting the most calories in the shortest amount of time, even at the expense of using up more energy. This trade-off ensures an immediate energy boost for the bumblebee colony, according to a study published October 24 in the journal iScience.

[Related: Female honeybees may pass down ‘altruistic’ genes.]

The study looked at a common species in the United Kingdom called Bombus terrestris or the buff-tailed bumblebee. Bumblebees will drink nectar from flowers and regurgitate it into their nest for other bees to use. They only store a small amount of nectar in their nests, so they must make the most of every opportunity to forage. 

To make these choices, bumblebees appear to trade off the time that they spend collecting nectar with the energy content of that nectar. If the sugar content is worth it, the bees will work to collect it despite being more difficult to access. By comparison, honeybees make their foraging decisions by optimizing the amount of energy they are expelling for any nectar, likely to prolong a honeybee’s working life.  

“Bumblebees can make decisions ‘on the fly’ about which nectar sources are the most energetically economical,” study co-author and University of Oxford bee biologist Jonathan Pattrick said in a statement. “By training bumblebees to visit artificial slippery flowers and using different ‘nectars’ with high, medium or low amounts of sugar, we found that they could make a trade-off between the energy content of the nectar and how difficult it was to access.”

For the study, Patrick and a team of biologists made 60,000 observations of the bumblebee’s behavior over six months. This allowed them to precisely estimate bumblebee foraging energetics and each bumblebee in the study was observed for up to eight hours a day without a break. The team used artificial flowers that were positioned vertically and horizontally and had slippery surfaces that made it difficult for the bees to grip. 

A computer program measured the split-second timing as the bees flew between the fake flowers and foraged for nectar to see how much energy the bumblebees spent flying and how much they collected while drinking. They then identified how the bees decided whether to spend extra time and energy collecting high-sugar nectar from the slippery flowers, or take the easier option of collecting lower-sugar nectar from flowers they could land on.

Each bumblebee was then given one of three tests.

In test one, the nectar on both the vertical and horizontal artificial flowers contained the same amount of sugar. The bumblebees chose to forage from the horizontal flowers instead of spending the extra time and energy hovering around the vertical flowers.

In test two, the vertical flowers had much more sugary nectar than the horizontal flowers and the bumblebees chose to drink almost exclusively from the vertical flowers.

[Related: Bee brains could teach robots to make split-second decisions.]

In test three, the vertical flowers had slightly more sugary nectar than the horizontal flowers. This created a situation where the bumblebees had to make a tradeoff between the time and energy they spent foraging and the energy content in the nectar they were drinking. They ended up feeding from the horizontal flowers.

Based on these test results, the authors conclude that the bumblebees can choose to spend additional time and energy foraging from the more hard-to-access nectar sources, but only if the eventual reward is really worth it. Understanding how this works can help make predictions about what types of flowers the bumblebees are likely to visit and inform choices of the kinds of flowers planted to make fields more bumblebee friendly.

“It’s amazing that even with a brain smaller than a sesame seed, bumblebees can make such complex decisions,” study co-author and University of Cambridge biochemist Hamish Symington said in a statement. “It’s clear that bumblebee foraging isn’t based on a simple idea that ‘the more sugar there is in nectar, the better’ – it’s much more subtle than that. And it highlights that there’s still so much to learn about insect behavior.”

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Honeybees are a model of teamwork in nature, with their complex society and hives that generate enough energy to create an electrical charge. They also appear to be some of the rare animals that display a unique trait of altruism, which is genetically inherited. The findings were described in a study published September 25 in the journal Molecular Ecology.

[Related: Bee brains could teach robots to make split-second decisions.]

Giving it all for the queen bee

According to the American Psychological Association, humans display altruism through behaviors that benefit another individual at a cost to oneself. Some psychologists consider it a uniquely human trait and studying it in animals requires a different framework for understanding. Animals experience a different level of cognition, so what drives humans to be altruistic might be different than what influences animals like honeybees to act in ways that appear to be altruistic.

In this new study, the researchers first looked at the genetics behind retinue behavior in worker honeybees. Retinue behavior is the actions of worker bees taking care of the queen, like feeding or grooming her. It’s believed to be triggered by specific pheromones and worker bees are always female. 

After the worker bees are exposed to the queen’s mandibular pheromone (QMP), they deactivate their own ovaries. They then help spread the QMP around to the other worker bees and they only take care of the eggs that the queen bee produces. Entomologists consider this behavior ‘altruistic’ because it benefits the queen’s ability to produce offspring, while the worker bees remain sterile. 

The queen is also typically the mother of all or mostly all of the honeybees in the hive. The genes that make worker bees more receptive to the queen’s pheromone and retinue behavior can be passed down from either female or male parent. However, the genes only result in altruistic behavior when they are passed down from the female bee parent.

“People often think about different phenotypes being the result of differences in gene sequences or the environment. But what this study shows is it’s not just differences in the gene itself—it’s which parent the gene is inherited from,” study co-author and Penn State University doctoral candidate Sean Bresnahan said in a statement. “By the very nature of the insect getting the gene from its mom, regardless of what the gene sequence is, it’s possibly going to behave differently than the copy of the gene from the dad.”

A battle of genetics 

The study supports a theory called the Kinship Theory of Intragenomic Conflict. It suggests that a mothers’ and fathers’ genes are in a conflict over what behaviors to support and not support. Previous studies have shown that genes from males can support selfish behavior in mammals, plants, and honeybees. This new study is the first known research that shows females can pass altruistic behavior onto their offspring in their genes. 

[Really: What busy bees’ brains can teach us about human evolution.]

Worker bees generally have the same mother but different fathers, since the queen mates with multiple male bees. This means that the worker bees share more of their mother’s genes with each other. 

“This is why the Kinship Theory of Intragenomic Conflict predicts that genes inherited from the mother will support altruistic behavior in honeybees,” Breshnahan said. “A worker bee benefits more from helping, rather than competing with, her mother and sisters—who carry more copies of the worker’s genes than she could ever reproduce on her own. In contrast, in species where the female mates only once, it is instead the father’s genes that are predicted to support altruistic behavior.”

Pinpointing conflict networks

To look closer, the team crossbred six different lineages of honeybees. Bresnahan says that this is relatively easy to do in mammals or plants, but more difficult in insects. They used honeybee breeding expertise from co-author Juliana Rangel from Texas A&M University and Robyn Underwood at Penn State Extension to create these populations.

Once the bee populations were successfully crossed and the offspring were old enough, the team assessed the worker bees’ responsiveness to the pheromone that triggers the retinue behavior. 

“So, we could develop personalized genomes for the parents, and then map back the workers’ gene expression to each parent and find out which parent’s copy of that gene is being expressed,” Bresnahan said.

The team identified the gene regulatory networks that have this intragenomic conflict, finding that more genes that have a parental bias were expressed. These networks consisted of genes that previous research showed were related to the retinue behavior.

“Observing intragenomic conflict is very difficult, and so there are very few studies examining the role it plays in creating variation in behavior and other traits,” study co-author and Penn State entomologist Christina Grozinger said in a statement. “The fact that this is the third behavior where we have found evidence that intragenomic conflict contributes to variation in honeybees suggests that intragenomic conflict might shape many types of traits in bees and other species.”

The team hopes that this research will help provide a blueprint for more studies into intragenomic conflict in other animals and plants.

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Best overall		BLACK+DECKER Bug Zapper		SEE IT	The BLACK+DECKER is large, sturdy, and powerful.
Best budget		Ninonly Bug Zapper Light Bulb		SEE IT	Ninonly provides one of the best bug-zapping light bulbs that you can find.
Best handheld		Anne Diary Electric Bug Zapper Racket		SEE IT	With the ability to swivel the killing racket head, you can effectively cover the target insect on any surface.

When you’re ready to head outside, the last thing you want to do is get bitten or swarmed by insects, so having an outdoor bug zapper is a good idea. They make your insect-fearing companions feel more at ease and can give your uncovered food and drink a standing chance against buzzing bugs. But there are many styles to choose from that, and it can be hard to pick out which bug zapper best suits your needs. To do our part, we compiled this list of the best outdoor bug zappers.

• Best overall: BLACK+DECKER Bug Zapper
• Best cordless: BURLAN Solar Bug Zapper
• Best for mosquitoes: Elechome Bug Zapper
• Best for patio: Endbug Bug Zapper
• Best handheld: Anne Diary Electric Bug Zapper Racket
• Best indoor/outdoor: PRODCA Bug Zapper
• Best budget: Ninonly Bug Zapper Light Bulb

How we selected the best outdoor bug zappers

Bugs aren’t just pesky; they can sometimes be dangerous. When it comes to outdoor bug zappers, you want something that works, but you also want ingenuity. The location of the zapper, its shape, and its functional style all matter. And, despite being weapons of death against our exoskeleton-having foes, the best outdoor bug zappers don’t look like death themselves. As a result, the following list of the best outdoor bug zappers represents a variety of styles and forms of zappers that also happen to be attractive to the eye.

The best outdoor bug zappers: Reviews & Recommendations

Purchasing one of the following outdoor bug zappers should make your yard less insect-friendly. As most have lights, these insect repellents should also improve the visibility of your porch or patio a bit. However, we still recommend these solar deck lights for a brighter, more sustainable option for that purpose. Be sure to check over the whole list to find a style that suits your needs.

Best overall: BLACK+DECKER Bug Zapper

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: With a large size and tough exterior, this will get the job done easily.

Specs

• Form: Lantern
• Size: 32 x 12 x 32 inches
• Target species: Fly, moth, mosquito, gnat, wasp

Pros

• Can choose between hanging or putting on table
• Cleaning-free option
• Tough, waterproof exterior

Cons

• Dead bugs sometimes stick to zapping element

For a quick-killing machine with a hard, weather-resistant exterior, the BLACK+DECKER is a great choice. It can hang on your patio or sit on a table. This choice is important, too, because it’ll change how you choose to use the zapper. While on a table, you’ll want the collection tray placed in. However, if you hang the BLACK+DECKER over grass, you can leave the bottom collection tray off so bugs will fall to the ground directly, reducing cleaning. However, this is a powerful zapper, so sometimes a bug will burn directly on the element, meaning you’ll have to do a little cleaning (with the supplied brush) periodically.

Best cordless: BURLAN Solar Bug Zapper

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Why it made the cut: You’ll never need a cord if you let the sun do most of the work.

Specs

• Form: Lantern
• Size: 9.4 x 5.1 x 5.1 inches
• Target species: Fly, mosquito

Pros

• Charges via solar power or USB plug-in
• Bright lamp on top adds to the ambiance
• Quiet, 25dB zaps
• IP66 water and dustproof

Cons

• Needs consistent sun exposure

If plugging something in and dealing with cords bothers you, turn to the power of the sun. This is the best outdoor bug zapper with a solar charging panel that we could find. On a full charge—which can be achieved in 12 hours of direct sunlight—the top lantern, lighting, and mosquito killer can work for between 4 and 12 hours, depending on mode of operation.

Best for mosquitoes: Elechome Bug Zapper

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Why it made the cut: This machine puts out a ton of special mosquito-attracting light.

Specs

• Form: Lantern
• Size: 5.35 x 5.35 x 11.6 inches
• Target species: Mosquito, gnat, fly, moth, wasp, spider

Pros

• Scientifically designed for mosquito attraction
• Large killing area
• IP66 dust and water resistant

Cons

• Must USB-C charge

According to Pfizer, mosquitos kill more than 700,000 people each year. While we’re waiting for advanced mosquito control to deactivate their reproductive process, there are other things to try. While some are washing up with a soap mosquito repellent, others are turning to special wavelengths that attract mosquitos, which the Elechome Bug Zapper puts out in extreme degree. It’s also got a larger killing area than most lantern types, with its top exposed, allowing for more bug killing.

Best for patio: Endbug Bug Zapper

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: The bottom-facing light on this zapper is a plus for any patio.

Specs

• Form: Lantern
• Size: 5.7 x 5.7 x 10.6 inches
• Target species: Mosquito, gnat, fly, moth, wasp, etc.

Pros

• Includes a bright light on the bottom to light your patio
• Is IPX6 waterproof to ward off rain issues
• Excellent bug attraction ability

Cons

• Loud

The Endbug Bug Zapper is the best outdoor bug zapper for your porch or patio, as it provides excellent lighting for you and powerful killing for bugs. It’s a powerful 4,200V, so it kills quite effectively but is rather loud. Our advice is to hang it up high near the middle of your porch or patio area so you can get the maximum benefit from the provided light. However, if you do choose to put it closer to the edges, it’ll still be safe in the rain as it has IPX6 water resistance.

Best handheld: Anne Diary Electric Bug Zapper Racket

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: The racket head swivels, letting you cover the scariest bugs safely.

Specs

• Form: Racket
• Size: 17.5 x 9.7 x 1.5 inches
• Target species: Wasp, bee, fly, mosquito

Pros

• Long handle keeps you away from dangerous pests
• Auto zap mode while in stand
• Swivel head provides maximum safety
• Simple USB-C charging

Cons

• Auto zap mode depletes battery in 5 hours

If you have really scary insects like bees, wasps, or hornets, you’ll want to be more proactive in your killing. Waiting for the bug to mosey into a light just won’t cut it. That’s why you should try out the best bug-zapping racket, this one from Anne Diary. You can swivel the zapping head to be parallel with the surface the offending insect has lit on, then cover it. This method keeps you safe and gives the insect no escape. When not in active use, you can turn on a passive zapping mode as well, but we only recommend this if the Anne Diary is plugged in, as the power drains after about five hours.

Best indoor/outdoor: PRODCA Bug Zapper

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Why it made the cut: The small size of this bug zapper makes it great to tuck into a kitchen or bedroom corner, too.

Specs

• Form: Lantern
• Size: 3.8 x 3.8 x 5.5
• Target species: Mosquito, fly, gnat, bee, moth, etc.

Pros

• Small size fits anywhere
• Can be made to be discreet
• Lamp light for better outdoor vision
• IP66 water- and dust-resistant

Cons

• Not great for all indoor pests (such as fruit flies)

Though a lot of the best outdoor bug zappers could technically be used indoors, you wouldn’t necessarily want them to be there. They’re big, can’t be placed just anywhere, and scream to others that you have an insect problem. As a result, we like the more discreet nature and size of the PRODCA, which can do great work on the porch, but also be tucked away in a kitchen corner when you want it to be.

Best budget: Ninonly Bug Zapper Light Bulb

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: This is the best bug-zapping light bulb you can get.

Specs

• Form: Light bulb
• Size: 3.14 x 3.14 x 6.3 inches
• Target species: Fly, mosquito

Pros

• Small, convenient form
• Sloping trap stays clean
• Multiple modes
• Long lifespan

Cons

• Must be put into a lamp

Most of the best outdoor bug zappers cost between $35 and $60 apiece, depending on current deals available. That can be frustrating if you want many of them or aren’t ready to spend a lot on bug zapping. Light bulb-style bug zappers, then, are a great option, though they tend to have worse functionality. The Ninonly has high-quality zapping, multiple lighting modes, and a sloping inside that helps bugs fall out after death. As a result, it is one of the best cheap outdoor bug zappers… if you have a lamp available.

What to consider before buying outdoor bug zappers

Outdoor bug zappers might seem relatively straightforward, and they are, but there are still some things to consider before buying one. The most important thing to consider is the form of the zapper.

• Lantern styles are the most popular as they can be hung or placed on tables, add light and ambiance to the area, and are good passive killers that work well on porches and while camping.
• Handheld “electric fly swatters” are another style, great for targeted killing, but suffer in that they typically are made for consistent pest removal.
• Finally, light-bulb bug zappers are cheaper and simple to install, but these mini zappers typically don’t have as much killing power as the other styles.

You should also consider how easy the zapper will be to clean. The best outdoor bug zappers typically have at least one mode or feature that allows bugs to fall out of the zapping area, reducing cleaning. Powerful bug zappers may also burn insects directly to the zapping element, requiring you to clean it directly. It is highly recommended to review real customer experiences with cleaning if this is a concern for you.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best outdoor bug zappers

• Best overall: BLACK+DECKER Bug Zapper
• Best cordless: BURLAN Solar Bug Zapper
• Best for mosquitoes: Elechome Bug Zapper
• Best for patio: Endbug Bug Zapper
• Best handheld: Anne Diary Electric Bug Zapper Racket
• Best indoor/outdoor: PRODCA Bug Zapper
• Best budget: Ninonly Bug Zapper Light Bulb

The best outdoor bug zappers all have one thing in common; they will remove pests from your environment eventually. Whether you go for a powerful light source that attracts insects quickly or a handheld racket that lets you seek them out, you should feel more secure in your outdoor environment with one of the above products.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

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This article was originally featured on High Country News.

In a sunny meadow just beyond Portland, Oregon’s western sprawl, mounds of white lupine buzzed in the late June heat. From bloom to bloom, bumblebees moved up and around the stalks of fading petals. A yellow-faced bumblebee—Bombus vosnesenskii, or “voz” for short—hugged the edges of one slipper-shaped bloom and bumped pollen dust onto its belly. On a nearby stalk, a giant B. nevadensis did the same. The B-52 bomber of bumbles—its yellow and black body half the size of a human thumb—rose and dropped on the breeze. 

Kevin Schafer swung at the bomber, tenting his insect net over the lupine. On his bucket hat and vest pocket, two enamel bumblebee pins glinted in the sun. In his net, two real bees crawled upward. He looked closely at the hint of a rust-colored patch on one, and said, excited, “I think it’s a brown-belted!” It would be the only Bombus griseocollis he’d caught all morning; they’re not common in this area. He nudged each bee and a lupine bloom into a plastic tube, and dropped them, buzzing, into his pocket. “Let’s ask the maestro.”

For six summers, Schafer—a retired photographer—and hundreds of volunteers like him have wandered through meadows and mountains across the Northwest, documenting wild bumblebees and the plants they’re foraging for the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas. A quarter of North America’s almost 50 bumblebee species are at risk of extinction due to human-caused habitat loss and climate change, and most of them live in the Northwest. Unlike honeybees, they buzz when they pollinate plants — a pollen-releasing method that some plants require, making it essential for whole ecosystems to function. Beyond that, scientists know very little about them.

“The data that we had prior to this project, it’s basically just a bunch of collectors that have gone out and collected insects, killed them, and put them on pins,” said Rich Hatfield, Schafer’s bee “maestro” and the biologist who started the Atlas program at the nonprofit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Dead specimens reveal few of the details that matter for conservation: What do they eat? Where do queens spend the winter? Why is this meadow full of voz and nevadensis, and yet the once-ubiquitous Western bumblebee—Bombus occidentalis—hasn’t been seen here in two decades? There aren’t enough scientists to capture the data, Hatfield said. Volunteers like Schafer help fill the gaps.

This year, the Atlas program hit a milestone: Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife used its data to adopt a conservation strategy covering eight at-risk species in the state, including occidentalis, which many expect the federal government will add to the U.S. endangered species list next year. Washington is one of the few states that can prioritize wild bees: Unlike most, the state’s laws allow officials to manage insects as wildlife, not just as pests.

“We collectively saw (those species) as a shared priority and wanted to identify things we could do,” said Taylor Cotten, who manages conservation assessments for the state wildlife department and partnered with the Xerces Society and federal agencies to develop the strategy. The resulting document outlines regions of high priority for conservation—a horseshoe around the Columbia Plateau; the swath of lowlands from Portland to Puget Sound. It also outlines protective measures, like timing mowing and prescribed burns around nesting periods and planting the specific flowers that bees need.

Julie Combs, a state wildlife employee whose job is to prevent pollinator extinction, called the new conservation plan foundational. “I can’t emphasize enough how many questions I get about: OK, now we know where the bees are, we know they’re in decline, but what do we do?”

This year, when state officials sit down to hash out plans for burning and planting vegetation at any of their conservation sites, she’ll come armed with more than 200 pages of best practices to help bees.

“OK, now we know where the bees are, we know they’re in decline, but what do we do?”

At the edge of the meadow, Hatfield unzipped a cooler half full of ice. He and Schafer pulled tubes from every bulging pocket, then pushed each into the ice to daze the bees, waiting until they were still enough to handle. Then, one by one, Hatfield gently prodded and photographed each motionless bee, examining its fur pattern and jaw length to confirm its ID while Schafer scratched tally marks and plant names onto a worksheet.

Voz on spirea, nevadensis on lupine, voz on wild rose: Between the two men, they’d netted 31 bees, including, Hatfield confirmed, Schafer’s single griseocollis. Carefully placed on the table beside petal fragments and other dazed bees, the griseocollis slowly shivered back to life. For Hatfield, this program is about more than just the data. “We’re building a community of people that now see these animals in a totally different way,” he said: As beautiful, important, fragile.

The bee bobbed its rust-belted abdomen up and down, up and down, then stretched its wings, rubbed its pollen-laden legs against its body, and flew away.

The post To protect wild bumblebees, people have to find them first appeared first on Popular Science.

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The natural circles that pop up on the soil in the planet’s arid regions are an enduring scientific debate and mystery. These “fairy circles” are circular patterns of bare soil surrounded by plants and vegetation. Until very recently, the unique phenomena have only been described in the vast Namib desert and the Australian outback. While their origins and distribution are hotly debated, a study with satellite imagery published on September 25 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) indicates that fairy circles may be more common than once realized. They are potentially found in 15 countries across three continents and in 263 different sites. 

[Related: A new study explains the origin of mysterious ‘fairy circles’ in the desert.]

These soil shapes occur in arid areas of the Earth, where nutrients and water are generally scarce. Their signature circular pattern and hexagonal shape is believed to be the best way that the plants have found to survive in that landscape. Ecologist Ken Tinsly observed the circles in Namibia in 1971, and the story goes that he borrowed the name fairy circles from a naturally occurring ring of mushrooms that are generally found in Europe.

By 2017, Australian researchers found the debated western desert fairy circles, and proposed that the mechanisms of biological self-organization and pattern formation proposed by mathematician Alan Turing were behind them. In the same year, Aboriginal knowledge linked those fairy circles to a species of termites. This “termite theory” of fairy circle origin continues to be a focus of research—a team from the University of Hamburg in Germany published a study seeming to confirm that termites are behind these circles in July.

In this new study, a team of researchers from Spain used artificial intelligence-based models to look at the fairy circles from Australia and Namibia and directed it to look for similar patterns. The AI scoured the images for months and expanded the areas where these fairy circles could exist. These locations include the circles in Namibia, Western Australia, the western Sahara Desert, the Sahel region that separates the African savanna from the Sahara Desert, the Horn of Africa to the East, the island of Madagascar, southwestern Asia, and Central Australia.

The team then crossed-checked the results of the AI system with a different AI program trained to study the environments and ecology of arid areas to find out what factors govern the appearance of these circular patterns. 

“Our study provides evidence that fairy-circle[s] are far more common than previously thought, which has allowed us, for the first time, to globally understand the factors affecting their distribution,” study co-author and Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville soil ecologist Manuel Delgado Baquerizo said in a statement. 

[Related: The scientific explanation behind underwater ‘Fairy Circles.’]

According to the team, these circles generally appear in arid regions where the soil is mainly sandy, there is water scarcity, annual rainfall is between 4 to 12 inches, and low nutrient continent in the soil.

“Analyzing their effects on the functioning of ecosystems and discovering the environmental factors that determine their distribution is essential to better understand the causes of the formation of these vegetation patterns and their ecological importance,” study co-author and  University of Alicante data scientist Emilio Guirado said in a statement. 

More research is needed to determine the role of insects like termites in fairy circle formation, but Guirado told El País that “their global importance is low,” and that they may play an important role in local cases like those in Namibia, “but there are other factors that are even more important.”

The images are now included in a global atlas of fairy circles and a database that could help determine if these patterns demonstrate resilience to climate change. 

“We hope that the unpublished data will be useful for those interested in comparing the dynamic behavior of these patterns with others present in arid areas around the world,” said Guirado.

The post Mysterious ‘fairy circles’ may appear on three different continents appeared first on Popular Science.

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Researchers have coaxed common silkworms to spin a more durable, eco-friendlier spider silk—all it took was a few genetic modifications and hundreds of thousands of silkworm egg microinjections.

Synthetic commercial fabrics like nylon are notoriously harmful to the environment because of the carbon footprint from their production processes, as well as their tendency to shed microplastics during wash cycles. Although natural alternatives such as spider silk are incredibly attractive, farming spiders at an industrial scale is difficult given their comparatively low production rates, as well as their tendency to eat one another.

But what if another creature could produce ostensibly the same material in bulk, without all the cannibalism? Junpeng Mi’s team at Donghua University in Chinadid are moving towards that outcome using a combination of CRISPR gene editing and guided egg alterations, creating silkworms that spin silk identical to arachnids. As detailed in their paper recently published in Matter, the team’s breakthroughs have produced fibers which scientists claim are already six times tougher than bulletproof Kevlar.

[Related: A new kind of Kevlar aims to stop bullets with less material.]

In recent years, researchers have improved upon traditional silk’s durability, as well as created artificial spider silk. Even so, the latter’s manufacturing procedures weren’t great at applying a vital surface layer of lipids and glycoproteins to help the silk hold up to sunlight and humidity.

Mi’s team is the first to create silkworms whose excretions are ostensibly identical to spiders’ web material.

“Spider silk stands as a strategic resource in urgent need of exploration,” Mi said in a September 20 statement. “The exceptionally high mechanical performance of the fibers produced in this study holds significant promise in this field. This type of fiber can be utilized as surgical sutures, addressing a global demand exceeding 300 million procedures annually.”

[Related: Silkworm-inspired weaving techniques can produce better nanofibers.]

To create their silkworm-spider fibers, Mi and their fellow researchers first implanted spider silk protein genes from Araneus ventricosus, an East Asian orb-weaving spider, into silkworm DNA. From there, the team further modified the genetic makeup to ensure the transplanted proteins cooperated with silkworm glands to produce properly spun fibers.

The results went above and beyond the team’s hopes, offering a mix of high tensile strength and toughness alongside far more flexibility than anticipated. According to Mi’s team, the new silk manufacturing methods could boost advancements in biomedical engineering, aerospace technology, military capabilities, and other smart materials.

“This concept of ‘localization,’ introduced in this thesis, along with the proposed minimal structural model, represents a significant departure from previous research,” Mi said in their statement. “We are confident that large-scale commercialization is on the horizon.”

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Just in time for spooky season, scientists have learned more about how a tiny parasitic flatworm called the lancet liver fluke infects and controls the brains of ants. With their complex four-step cycle, the flukes could be cunningly adjusting to daily changes in air temperatures to infect more hosts. The findings were recently published in the journal Behavioral Ecology.

[Related: Mind-controlling ‘zombie’ parasites are real.]

Step 1: The Zombie Ant

The parasite hijacks an ant’s brain after an ant eats a ball of snail mucus infested with fluke larvae. The larvae then mature inside the brain, where the parasite can make the ant climb up a blade of grass and clamp down on the blade. This strategic height makes it easier for the parasite’s next potential host—a cow, sheep, deer, or other grazer—to eat the flukes and offer it another place to live and breed. This new study found that the liver fluke can even get the ant to crawl back down the blade of grass when it gets too hot.

“Getting the ants high up in the grass for when cattle or deer graze during the cool morning and evening hours, and then down again to avoid the sun’s deadly rays, is quite smart. Our discovery reveals a parasite that is more sophisticated than we originally believed it to be,” University of Copenhagen biologist and study co-author Brian Lund Fredensborg said in a statement. Fredensborg conducted the research with his former graduate student Simone Nordstrand Gasque, now a PhD student at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

In their study, the team tagged several hundred infected ants in the Bidstrup Forests near Roskilde, Denmark. “It took some dexterity to glue colors and numbers onto the rear segments of the ants, but it allowed us to keep track of them for longer periods of time,” said Fredensborg.

The team observed how the infected ants behaved to humidity, light, time of day, and temperature and it was clear that temperature has an effect on their behavior. During cooler temperatures, the ants were more likely to be attached to the top of a blade of grass. When the temperature rose, the ants let go of the grass and crawled back down. 

“We found a clear correlation between temperature and ant behavior,” said Fredensborg. “We joked about having found the ants’ zombie switch,’”

Step 2: The Grazer

Once the liver fluke infects the ant, several hundred parasites invade the insect’s body. Only one of these parasites will make it to the brain where it then influences the ant’s behavior. The remaining liver flukes conceal themselves in the ant’s abdomen inside of its intestine. There, the liver flukes find their way through the bile ducts and into the liver, where they suck blood and develop into adult flukes that begin to lay eggs. 

[Related: ‘Brainwashing’ parasites inherit a strange genetic gap.]

“Here, there can be hundreds of liver flukes waiting for the ant to get them into their next host. They are wrapped in a capsule which protects them from the consequent host’s stomach acid, while the liver fluke that took control of the ant, dies. You could say that it sacrifices itself for the others,” said Fredensborg. 

The eggs are then excreted in the host animal’s feces.

Step 3: The Snail

Once the fluke eggs have been excreted, they remain on the ground waiting for a snail to crawl by and eat the feces. When the eggs are inside the snail, the eggs develop into larval flukes that reproduce asexually and can multiply into several thousand. 

“Historically, parasites have never really been focused on that much, despite there being scientific sources which say that parasitism is the most widespread life form,” said Fredensborg. “This is in part due to the fact that parasites are quite difficult to study.”

Step 4: The Slime Ball

To exit the snail and move on to their next host, the larval flukes make the snail cough. The flukes are then expelled from the snail in a lump of mucus. The ants are attracted to this moist ball, eat it, and unwittingly ingest more fluke larvae and the cycle begins all over again.

The tiny liver fluke is widespread in Denmark and other temperate regions around the world and researchers are still trying to understand more of the mechanisms behind how they take over a host’s brain. 

“We now know that temperature determines when the parasite will take over an ant’s brain. But we still need to figure out which cocktail of chemical substances the parasite uses to turn ants into zombies,” Fredensborg said. “Nevertheless, the hidden world of parasites forms a significant part of biodiversity, and by changing the host’s behavior, they can help determine who eats what in nature. That’s why they’re important for us to understand.”

The post This parasite deploys mucus slime balls to make ‘zombie ants’ appeared first on Popular Science.

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A multi-legged robot inspired by everyday bugs could soon come to your aid in a literal and figurative pinch. In a new study published via Advanced Intelligent Systems, University of Colorado Boulder researchers recently unveiled their Compliant Legged Articulated Robotic Insect, aka CLARI. The cute, modular bot is lighter than a ping pong ball and small enough that multiple units can fit in your hand. But don’t let its size and weight fool you—CLARI is optimized to squeeze into tight spaces via an extremely malleable body structure. The bug-like bot shows immense promise as an exploratory tool for small areas such as within jet engines, as well as even during search and rescue missions.

[Related: This bumblebee-inspired bot can bounce back after injuring a wing.]

According to assistant professor of mechanical engineering and study co-author Kaushik Jayaram, CLARI’s inspiration is owed largely to the everyday cockroach. As a graduate student, Jayaram engineered a robot capable of compressing to just half its height, much like roaches fitting through tiny crevices in buildings.

“We were able to squeeze through vertical gaps, but that got me thinking: That’s one way to compress. What are others?” said Jayaram in an August 30 statement.

Fast forward a few years to CLARI, a new iteration that builds upon previous soft robotic advancements. In its standard shape, CLARI resembles a square with four articulating legs, each controlled by its own dual actuators and circuitry. When encountering a difficult environment, however, the team’s robot can narrow from 1.3 inches wide to just 0.8 inches narrow. With more refinement, Jayaram’s team believes future CLARI robots could become even more malleable.

“What we want are general-purpose robots that can change shape and adapt to whatever the environmental conditions are,” Jayarm said. He likens the ultimate version to an amoeba “which has no well-defined shape but can change depending on whether it needs to move fast or engulf some food.”

Instead of dining opportunities, however, CLARI bots could use their unique structures and various leg configurations to traverse disaster zones in search of missing victims, or inspect the innards of machinery without needing to take apart the entire product. Right now, CLARI still requires wired connections for both power and controls, but Jayaram’s team hopes to eventually create wireless models capable of independent movement and exploration.

“Most robots today basically look like a cube,” Jayaram said. “Why should they all be the same? Animals come in all shapes and sizes.”

The post This small, squishy robot is cuter than its cockroach inspiration appeared first on Popular Science.

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A newly discovered three-eyed relative is disappointingly unrelated to the eerie three-eyed ravens of Game of Thrones. But this Cambrian-era beast is a relative of today’s insects and boasts some fearsome limbs. The unique fossilized animal was described in a study published August 28 in the journal Current Biology. 

[Related: This ancient ‘mothership’ used probing ‘fingers’ to scrape the ocean floor for prey.]

The animal, scientific name Kylinxia, was found in 520 million year old rocks in a fossil deposit called the Cambrian Chengjiang biota near the town of Chengjiang in southern China. More than 250 species of exceptionally well-preserved fossil organisms have already been described from this location, which gives scientists a glimpse of what was going on in the world’s oceans as they developed. 

Importantly, Kylinxia is filling in some evolutionary gaps in our understanding of the evolution of animals known as arthropods. This phylum of animals includes insects, crabs, shrimp, scorpions, spiders, and centipedes among others. Arthropods have an exoskeleton made of a tough material called chitin that is mineralized with calcium carbonate, as well as a body divided into segments and paired jointed appendages. They are considered some of Earth’s most successful species and over 85 percent of all known animal species are classified as arthropods.

Kylinxia was about the size of a large shrimp, had a pair of limbs that it likely used to catch prey, and a signature trio of eyes on its head. 

“Most of our theories on how the head of arthropods evolved were based on these early-branching species having fewer segments than living species,” Greg Edgecombe, a co-author of the study and arthropod evolution expert at London’s Natural History Museum, said in a statement. “Discovering two previously undetected pairs of legs in Kylinxia suggests that living arthropods inherited a six-segmented head from an ancestor at least 518 million years ago.”

After its initial discovery, Kylinxia was imaged using a CT scanner. The scan revealed that more soft parts of the animals’ anatomy were also buried in the rock. While there are plenty of species of arthropods preserved in the fossil record, most fossils only preserve the hard skeletons. 

[Related: Newly discovered fossils give a whole new meaning to jumbo shrimp.]

“The preservation of the fossil animal is amazing,” study co-author and University of Leicester PhD student Robert O’Flynn said in a statement. “After CT-scanning we can digitally turn it around and literally stare into the face of something that was alive over 500 million years ago. As we spun the animal around, we could see that its head possesses six segments, just as in many living arthropods.”

This new specimen was nearly complete, which enabled the team to identify the six segments that made up its body: the head, a second segment with its grasping limbs, and the other four segments which have a pair of jointed limbs.

“Robert and I were examining the micro-CT data as part of his doctoral thesis in the hope of refining and correcting previous interpretation of head structures in this genus, Kylinxia,” study co-author and Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology paleobiologist Yu Liu said in a statement. “Amazingly, we found that its head is composed of six segments, as in, e.g., insects.”

The post A three-eyed organism roamed the seas half a billion years ago appeared first on Popular Science.

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PopSci and MinuteEarth collaborated on this story and video. If this gets you pumped for more strength-related stories, check out PopSci’s summer 2023 issue all about muscle.

In the animal kingdom, size doesn’t always equate to strength. While large animals such as elephants and oxen can move massive objects without breaking a sweat, pound for pound, insects exhibit nature’s greatest feats of strength. 

The 1-and-a-quarter-inch dung beetle, nature’s strongest creature relative to its size, can move balls of poop 1,141 times their own body weight. If you were that strong, you could deadlift a space shuttle. Meanwhile, the largest animal on land, a male African elephant, can lift around 1,300 pounds—impressive to us, but only around 10 percent of its body weight. 

African elephants are “actually pretty weak” relative to their weight, says Andrew Schulz, an animal biomechanics researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany. While elephants are much stronger than the average human—their trunks alone can lift 700-pound objects—the pachyderms’ size actually hinders their strength. 

This is due to a mathematical principle called the square-cube law. Astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei came up with the idea 400 years ago, which states that, as a shape expands, its volume grows faster than its surface area. For example, if a human doubled in height, they would experience an eightfold increase in mass. 

[Related: You should start eating bugs. Here’s how.]  

The square-cube law helps explain why large animals are often weaker than small ones, relative to their weight. Simply put, animals greatly increase in mass as they increase in size, and more of their strength must be devoted to supporting their bulk. Because of this, making an elephant 10 times as big wouldn’t make it 10 times as strong. 

Even humans obey this principle in action. Take a look at professional athletes: In general, athletes who weigh less can run faster and do pull-ups more easily than those who are heavier, because the smaller competitors have to devote less of their strength to supporting their mass. 

Being light on your feet, however, isn’t the secret to insect-like super strength. So how do leafcutter ants, which can carry pieces of leaves 50 times their own weight, or Rhinoceros beetles, which can lift objects 80 times their own weight, do it? The answer is  an exceptional feature of these and other small insects—their exoskeletons. 

Unlike humans, who house our skeletons on the inside of our bodies, animals with exoskeletons “have their hard parts on the outside, which allows them to have more space for muscles,” says Adam Hart, an entomologist and author of the book The Deadly Balance: Predators and People in a Crowded World. “Their bodies are largely supported by their exoskeletons.” This leaves their muscles mostly free to do the hard labor that the bugs demand. 

Leafcutter ants, dung beetles, and many other small-but-mighty insects have exoskeletons made of chitin. This natural polymer is not only proportionally stronger than bone, but it also allows for more muscle attachment than bone does. Insects and other invertebrates with chitinous exoskeletons can maximize the number of muscles in their bodies. We might be able to learn something from the stuff, too: Scientists today are studying the armor-like exoskeletons possessed by nature’s strongest insects and invertebrates to help them design stronger materials for things such as containers, buildings, machinery, body armor.

Even among their peers in the insect world, leafcutter ants and dung beetles are exceptionally powerful. Not all insects and invertebrates can move objects hundreds of times their own size; the ability to do so is often the result of evolutionary pressure. For example, leafcutter ants need a large and steady supply of leaves to sustain the fungus in their nests, which they cultivate for food. While the ants can easily find leaves, getting them to their nests requires strength, which they have evolved in ample supply. 

So the next time you need some inspiration at the gym, don’t think about a bull elephant. Let a leafcutter ant or another swole insect be the muse for your gains.  

The post Is bigger better? Not when it comes to the world’s strongest animals. appeared first on Popular Science.

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This article was originally featured on High Country News.

On an early July day, Amber Betts spent the afternoon in the community rose garden in Grandview, Washington, where she lives. Several weeks earlier, invasive Japanese beetles had emerged in droves everywhere in Grandview, a town in central Washington’s Yakima Valley. The infestation had since quieted, but she still spotted a few insects: A cluster of fingernail-sized iridescent green beetles, their coppery wings shining, were devouring a rose. 

In the United States, Japanese beetles have no natural predators. Unchecked, their numbers can skyrocket, and they can do extensive damage to plants, said Betts, a public information officer at the Washington State Department of Agriculture. Cherries and hops, which collectively generate $900 million in yearly revenue for the state, are among the 300 plants the beetles are known to eat. Although a population has taken up residence in Grandview, the beetles have not yet spread throughout Washington. Greg Haubrich, acting director of the plant protection division at the department, said that officials are trying to eliminate the insect from the entire state. “We still do have a good chance of eradicating this,” he said.

Japanese beetles are native to Japan. Japanese beetles were first found in the U.S. in 1916 near Riverton, New Jersey. They have since become established in almost every state east of the Mississippi River, as well as in some states and counties in the Western U.S. They lay their eggs in the soil in July and August. The eggs morph into lumpy white grubs that remain underground throughout the winter, quietly consuming the roots of grasses and other plants. They’re nigh impossible to detect until they emerge as adults in the spring and fly toward the scent of flowers and fruit. Pesticides are the only effective way to control them on many crops.

Over the past 30 years, Western states have treated infested areas with pesticides, and most have prevented the beetle from gaining a foothold statewide. Still, officials are essentially playing a game of whack-a-mole: States will vanquish the beetles one year, only to experience a reintroduction years later. After capturing several thousand Japanese beetles in 2013, for example, Idaho reduced the infestation by nearly 90% by 2015. This year, however, 77 beetles were found in Caldwell, in Southern Idaho. Colorado detected the beetle in 2017, and now 11 counties, mainly on the Front Range, are trying to control its spread.

Officials first detected Japanese beetles in Grandview in 2020, in one of several dozen monitor traps scattered throughout the state. These rose-scented devices lure beetles into plastic bags from which they can’t escape, and they serve to both detect and dispatch the insects. In 2020, Betts said, state officials found three. The next year, after officials set up several hundred traps in Grandview, that number exploded to 24,000; Betts remembers her feet crunching on a carpet of dead beetles as she walked down the street. They caught roughly 1,000 fewer in 2022, evidence that the population has since shrunk.

The beetles threaten both crops and Washington’s native plants, some of which, including huckleberries, are endangered or culturally important to tribes in the state, said Haubrich. “We know these things will attack blueberries. So our concern is, will it attack huckleberries?” he said. “We think it probably will.”

Washington state officials instituted a quarantine in Grandview in 2022. Now, there are hundreds of rose-scented traps in the city. Since the insects can hitch a ride on cars, trucks and, especially, in soil as eggs or grubs, residents cannot transport anything that might spread the beetles, such as lawn clippings or foliage. Farmers in the quarantine zone have to show that the traps in their fields don’t contain beetles, or else treat their crops with pesticides. Each year, officials send out letters to residents asking for permission to spray their lawns and gardens.

Betts and Haubrich said that the residents of Grandview and surrounding towns, many of whom work in agriculture, are keenly aware of the threat and have been instrumental in the state’s detection and eradication efforts. Still, Grandview has proven a particularly tricky place to quarantine: It lies on Interstate 82, a major agricultural route. A resident of Wapato, about 30 miles north of Grandview, found multiple beetles in their garden last year.

So far, the Grandview quarantine is the only one in Washington. (Wapato is on the Yakama Indian Reservation, so the state agriculture department lacks the authority to institute a quarantine there; it is, however, partnering with Yakama Nation tribes to limit the beetles’ spread, Haubrich said.) But, according to a study in the Journal of Economic Entomology published in June, the beetle could thrive in both eastern and western Washington, despite their disparate climates. It seems to be able to adapt to new environments, and climate change could hasten the beetles’ expansion. Gengping Zhu, an entomologist at Washington State University and the study’s co-author, said that without intervention, the beetle could spread throughout the state within 20 years.

The post These invasive bugs are a nightmare for Washington’s cherries and hops appeared first on Popular Science.

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Best overall		Thermacell Mosquito Repellent E-Series Rechargeable Repeller		SEE IT	No application is required for this wide-range tabletop bug repellent, which offers up to nine hours of protection with each charge.
Best for babies		Cutter Family Mosquito Wipes		SEE IT	These towelettes make putting on bug repellent quick and easy and give parents greater application control for small kids that want more playtime.
Best budget		OFF! Deep Woods Insect & Mosquito Repellent		SEE IT	This aerosol spray doesn’t feel greasy or oily upon application.

Whether we’re in the middle of nature or in the comfort of our own homes, biting bugs can wreak havoc on humans and pets, so effective insect repellant is the first defense. It’s a proactive way to keep the rude critters away before these scores of Davids leave their mark on our sensitive Goliath skin … or do even more serious damage. But it can be overwhelming to browse through rows of sprays, lotions, wipes, bracelets, and even electronic bug control options. We’re here to help you find the best insect repellents that really, genuinely work.

• Best overall: Thermacell Mosquito Repellent E-Series Rechargeable Repeller
• Best for ticks: Thermacell Tick Control Tubes
• Best picaridin: Sawyer Products 20% Picaridin Insect Repellent
• Best for babies: Cutter Mosquito Wipes
• Best premium: Thermacell LIV Smart Mosquito Repellent System
• Best for dogs: Wondercide Flea, Tick, and Mosquito Spray
• Best budget: OFF! Deep Woods Insect & Mosquito Repellent

How we chose the best insect repellents

What do solar generators, tents, and coolers have in common? They’re all things you enjoy outdoors—or at least you should enjoy outdoors, insect adversaries allowing. That’s why we’d argue that effective repellent is one of the most important things you can pack on a camping trip—without it, you’d be itchy, uncomfortable, and putting yourself at risk of getting a bug from a bug. We turned to reviews, recommendations, and user testing to find the best insect repellents.

The best insect repellents: Reviews & Recommendations

The best insect repellents will help you reduce your calamine lotion and anti-itch cream use. Here are the ones we found:

Best overall: Thermacell Mosquito Repellent E-Series Rechargeable Repeller

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Why it made the cut: No application is required for this wide-range tabletop bug repellent.

Specs

• Volume: .33 fluid ounces
• Form: Liquid
• Scent: No
• Active ingredient: Metofluthrin

Pros

• Comes with dimmable light
• No application
• Long-range coverage
• Rechargeable

Cons

• Reviews say refills tend to deplete quickly

This rechargeable mosquito repeller from Thermacell gives you a 20-foot protection zone within 15 minutes. Its refills are long-lasting (12 hours), and the spray-free design makes for a more comfortable gathering. The repeller is designed with a dimmable light that provides from 50 to 200 lumens of light. One charge gets you up to 9 hours of continuous mosquito protection (5.5 hours if you’re also using the light). An interactive LCD panel will let you know the battery status both visually and audibly. The metofluthrin-based repellent is scent-free and has been independently tested and EPA-reviewed for safety. Additionally, it’s covered by a one-year warranty that can be extended two extra years with item registration.

Best for ticks: Thermacell Tick Control Tubes

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Why it made the cut: These easy-to-use tubes you can spread around your yard provide reliable protection against ticks.

Specs

• Volume: 24 tubes
• Form: Tube
• Scent: None
• Active ingredient: Permethrin

Pros

• Easy to use
• No mess
• Inexpensive

Cons

• Some users say mice didn’t use the cotton
• Cardboard tube may degrade in the wet weather

The prevalence of tick-borne diseases like Lyme, babesiosis, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever require another level of protection when you’re spending time outdoors. Thermacell’s’ Tick Control Tubes can help make the job easier. These 24 tubes provide protection for an acre; the company recommends placing them in wood piles, rock walls, gardens, brush, and other areas that attract mice. The tubes contain cotton treated with the insecticide permethrin, and when mice bring the cotton back to their nest, the ticks feeding upon the mice die. Thermacell recommends you use them in spring and summer. Plus, the tubes are biodegradable.

Best picaridin: Sawyer Products 20% Picaridin Insect Repellent

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Why it made the cut: Get 14 hours of protection against bugs with this non-greasy, non-scented lotion bug repellent.

Specs

• Volume: 4 fluid ounces
• Form: Lotion
• Scent: No
• Active ingredient: Picaridin

Pros

• Long-lasting
• Scent-free
• Repels ticks

Cons

• Spray not as effective as lotion

This bug repellent is completely fragrance-free and offers a stronger defense against biting flies than most DEET products. The lotion offers longer-lasting protection on skin, while the pump spray lingers longer on clothing. The lotion protects from mosquitos for up to 14 hours and provides eight hours of protection against flies and gnats. The spray provides 12 hours of protection against mosquitos and the same level of protection against flies and gnats. It is non-greasy and dries quickly. Additionally, it won’t damage synthetic coatings, and you can use the spray on clothing, backpacks, and more.

Best for babies: Cutter Mosquito Wipes

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Why it made the cut: These wipes make putting on bug repellent quick and easy for more playtime.

Specs

• Volume: N/A
• Form: Wipes
• Scent: Yes
• Active ingredient: DEET

Pros

• Non-greasy
• Clean scent
• Easy-to-use

Cons

• Only 15 wipes

These wipes use a 7.15 percent DEET-based formula to keep mosquitoes away. They’ve got a cooling, clean scent, and don’t feel sticky, greasy, or oily on the skin. You can use them on your face, ears, and neck, which usually go untreated. A resealable packet keeps them moist and allows you to take them on the go. They repel against mosquitoes, deer ticks, gnats, biting flies, fleas, and chiggers. You can use it on children two months and older. And, DEET will not damage nylon, cotton, or wool, but it can damage some synthetic fabrics. You’ll have to buy multiple packages for heavy use since each pack only contains 15 wipes.

Best premium: Thermacell LIV Smart Mosquito Repellent System

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Why it made the cut: Get on-demand protection season after season with this yard system.

Specs

• Volume: N/A
• Form: Liquid
• Scent: No
• Active ingredient: Metofluthrin

Pros

• Wide coverage
• Customizable placement
• Effective

Cons

• Expensive

Protect your entire backyard from mosquitos this summer with the LIV Smart Mosquito Repellent System. You can choose between three, four, or five repellers to place around your property lines, and each kit includes a smart hub, mounts, 24-foot cables, and ground stakes. The amount you receive of each depends on the size of the kit you purchase. Each repellent can last for 40 hours and uses scent-free, heat-activated metofluthrin as its active ingredient. The Smart Hub connects multiple repellers and can be controlled using the LIV+ app. The kits are expensive to purchase (it ranges from $699-$899) and the refills are pricey too—as a six-pack is $120. However, if you want to eradicate bugs from your outdoor entertainment spaces, it might be a worthy investment.

Best for dogs: Wondercide Flea, Tick, and Mosquito Spray

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Why it made the cut: This plant-based insect repellent smells great and keeps your pooch pest-free.

Specs

• Volume: 4 fluid ounces; 16 fluid ounces; 32 fluid ounces, 1 gallon
• Form: Spray
• Scent: Yes: Lemongrass; peppermint; rosemary; cedarwood
• Active ingredient: Essential oils

Pros

• Not harmful to your pet
• Wide variety of sizes
• Plant-based

Cons

• The scent might irritate skin

This flea and tick control is so much more than an insect killer. It uses pet-safe plant-based essential oils to combat pests at all stages of their life cycle. As an added bonus, it won’t harm birds, bees, and butterflies that eat insects that have been treated with the product. You can use it on your pooch, or you can use it on yourself. If your pet has sensitive skin—especially cats—the scent might irritate your pet. Bathe your pet in soap and discontinue use if your pet experiences a negative reaction.

Best budget: OFF! Deep Woods Insect & Mosquito Repellent

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Why it made the cut: This long-lasting, non-greasy insect repellent comes in a two-pack for more bang for your buck.

Specs

• Volume: 4 fluid ounces
• Form: Aerosol
• Scent: Lemon
• Active ingredient: DEET

Pros

• High DEET concentration
• Non-greasy feel
• Scent not overpowering

Cons

• Propellant can leave a white residue on clothes

This DEET OFF insect repellent approaches the maximum level of protection with a concentration of 25 percent, and it’s especially effective at repelling deadly and/or annoying mosquitoes, along with ticks, biting flies, gnats, and chiggers for long periods of time. Its powder-dry insect-repelling formula protects without feeling oily or greasy, and its lemon scent is light and pleasant. Use caution when spraying on or near fabrics, as its included propellant can leave a white residue. It can be washed off easily, however.

What to consider when buying the best insect repellents

So how do you go about choosing the best insect repellent your money can buy? There’s a wide variety, which vary in effectiveness, application style, and whether their effects are scientifically proven. (Mosquito repellent bracelets, for example, are an option but experts are not unanimously sold on their effectiveness.) 

Before settling on any product, it’s important to read the label and look for one of three key ingredients: DEET, oil of lemon eucalyptus, and picaridin. Some experts are less than enthusiastic about natural insect repellents, like citronella, because their active ingredients aren’t as effective. That doesn’t make them useless, but they’re not ideal as a primary protector; they’re best used in tandem with the stronger stuff. Also, beware of products that combine sunscreen and bug repellent. Since sunscreen has to be reapplied every few hours, you’ll risk overexposing yourself to the chemicals in repellent.

When applying insect control, be sure you cover only exposed body parts, using only the recommended dose. Keep it away from cuts and bruises and, when using it on your face, rub it in using your hands and avoid touching your eyes, mouth, and ears. At the end of the day, wash it off using soap and water, and if you’ve sprayed it onto your clothing, keep them in a separate wash pile. The best insect repellent is also often some pretty harsh stuff: it can damage leather, vinyl, and some synthetics, so proceed with caution when applying bug spray directly to fabric.

DEET vs. picaridin

DEET (N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide, in case you needed to know for a Jeopardy! question or bar trivia) is the most widely used active ingredient in insect repellent, and it offers a strong defense against mosquitoes, ticks, and some flies. The amount used in most products ranges between 10 percent and 100 percent, with a protection time of two hours to 10. The level of protection maxes out at a concentration of 30 percent, with higher levels only increasing the protection time. Control-release DEET can keep working for up to 12 hours.

DEET, which was developed by the United States Army during the 1940s, is perfectly safe to use if you follow the instructions that come with it. It’s considered the old faithful of the best insect repellent, but you have to be sure to handle it carefully and keep it away from your sunglasses and trekking pole grips since it doesn’t always mix well with plastics. It can also cause some temporary numbness in your lips if it comes into contact with them, so be careful when applying.

Picaridin is the synthetic version of a repellent found in pepper plants, and it’s often mentioned alongside DEET as a prime active ingredient in insect repellent. The maximum protection of picaridin is reached at 20 percent concentration, with spray and lotion forms providing different lengths of protection. In insect repellent spray, it can keep you covered against mosquitoes and ticks for 12 hours and flies for eight. In lotion form, it can protect you from mosquitoes and ticks for 14 hours and flies for eight.

Picaridin has a few advantages over the older competitor, DEET. When dealing with mosquitoes and ticks, picaridin is similarly effective as DEET, and it’s actually a bit more effective on flies. Picaridin also has less of an odor, and when used in the best insect repellent, it doesn’t do any damage to plastics and other synthetics.

Can kids use insect repellent?

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, insect repellent used on children should not contain any more than a 30 percent concentration of DEET, and insect repellent shouldn’t be used at all on babies younger than two months. Picaridin is also generally safe to use on children, though it can irritate their eyes and skin. To avoid exposing kids to these fairly serious chemicals, you might want to consider an alternative like essential oil insect repellent, but keep in mind that repellents with plant oils as a main active ingredient offer fewer hours of protection than DEET and picaridin products.

To further protect babies from the effects of bugs outdoors, cover their strollers with netting. When applying the best insect repellent to children, adults should follow the same safety guidelines when applying it to themselves.

How do I protect my pets from insects?

Collars, pills, chewables, and drops provide pets with varying levels of pest protection. DEET can be toxic to dogs, especially in large quantities, so it’s best to avoid using DEET insect repellent on dogs, or even on yourself if you’re hanging out with a dog. (They do like to lick skin, remember.) Natural bug repellent is a safer option, but some essential oils are harmful to dogs, so it’s a good idea to check with your veterinarian before using any of them.

The safe list for dogs generally includes citrus, soybean oil, and geranium oil, and you can apply those to their coat or collar. Another option is filling your yard with plants like basil, catnip, lavender, lemon balm, peppermint, and rosemary as a mosquito repellent for dogs. But dog owners beware: Plants such as geranium, citronella, and garlic can be dangerous if eaten by dogs, and if you have a cat, essential oils can be especially toxic, causing an upset stomach and damage to the liver and central nervous system.

How much will you have to pay for bug protection?

The best insect repellent won’t set you back very much—if it’s designed for humans. Solid options can be found for under $10. But specially formulated bug control for pets tends to be a bit more expensive; it can even approach the $100 range. Home systems can also get pricey, and can go for around $600-$700 dollars.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best insect repellents

• Best overall: Thermacell Mosquito Repellent E-Series Rechargeable Repeller
• Best picaridin: Sawyer Products 20% Picaridin Insect Repellent
• Best for babies: Cutter Mosquito Wipes
• Best premium: Thermacell LIV Smart Mosquito Repellent System
• Best for dogs: Wondercide Flea, Tick, and Mosquito Spray
• Best budget: OFF! Deep Woods Insect & Mosquito Repellent

The best insect repellent is likely to include one of the two power ingredients, those being DEET and picaridin. It doesn’t take a high concentration of either to maximize bug control, but the higher the concentration, the longer you’ll be protected. Natural insect repellent is an alternative to these, but they’re not always as effective. Since DEET poses a danger to dogs, natural bug repellents are a better pet option, but you have to be careful to stay away from toxic plants and essential oils that might threaten their health.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

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WHEN YOU LIVE in a big city, sometimes nature comes at you secondhand—a photo from the apple farm upstate, eggs in the grocery store. But for Miami-born and Brooklyn-based Divya Anantharaman, the founder of Gotham Taxidermy, nature is hardly that binary. “Nature is the pigeon that’s on the sidewalk under the Gowanus Bridge,” they say. “It’s the squirrels you see at the park. It doesn’t exist in this pristine box separate from humanity.”

In their work, nothing is quite binary. In Anantharaman’s fantastical, ethereal creations, the beauty of life is captured after death. In many of the pieces, what you see isn’t strictly textbook science or purely creative. For a two-headed goat kid, the chances of surviving more than a week are one in 3 million according to the World Oddities Expo, which now owns this piece. But in Anantharaman’s work, the joy of being young and alive is frozen in time through anatomical specificity and an artful eye. 

↑ Nobody looks their best after death—including adorable little birds. Here, before skinning it, Anantharaman uses a syringe filled with water and a mild soap to inject a little life into the bird’s eyes and body. 

↑ In all of Anantharaman’s work there is a strong sense of kindness, something that isn’t always seen in the world of taxidermied creatures. Taxidermied bats, for example, are popular trinkets with a questionable ethical background. These lifelike Victorian bats are replicas—the gothic aesthetic with no loss of life. 

↑ The predator-prey dynamic is more than a lion stalking a gazelle on Animal Planet. Small, unassuming creatures must also compete to survive in the life-giving, complex ritual. In a transfixed stare-down between a black-throated magpie and its potential rodent dinner, Anantharaman displays the hunter and the hunted with a sense of tenderness. 

↑ One of the biggest misconceptions about taxidermy, Anantharaman says, is that it’s just embalming. Taxidermy literally means “to move the skin,” they add. This process requires care and delicacy in removing the slightest bones and breakable skull so they can be re-created to reflect a living creature’s symmetry and movement.

↑ Rarities draw us in—a lost antique, a precious gem. For some, that always-out-of-reach prize is a rare or endangered animal. But Anantharaman can still build the unattainable, such as by creating a snowy owl replica using the feathers of chickens and turkeys. With its menacing glower, you’d never know this Arctic predator is a fake.  

↑ Like something out of a fairy tale, a curious fawn steps out into a soft field filled with fruits and flowers. But there is a darker secret to this project—the laminated butterfly wings that gently cover the young deer’s petite frame mirror the real-life attraction of the insects to dead bodies. 

↑ This glowing Chilean flamingo is a work in progress, even if its dignified face would tell you otherwise. The tiny pins along its graceful neck are holding the skin and feathers of its deceased form in place as Anantharaman adds the finishing touches to its wacky, but realistic, final pose. 

↑ Many of the creatures in Anantharaman’s menagerie belonged to no one but themselves, but this cat skull is different. It was once part of an adored pet, whose owner requested this gorgeous, but often taboo, celebration of life. “With pets, you’re not just working on someone’s memories of their animal,” they say. “You’re working on the relationship they had to that animal.” 

↑ In the process between death and rebirth, bits and pieces of an animal can shrink or change. In making a creature as dynamic after death as it was in life, even the finest taxidermists need a little help in the form of a head or leg when the real thing doesn’t do its subject justice. 

↑ The history of taxidermy can be painful, presenting often literal representations of brutality. But for those given the remains of a rare creature, honoring its memory for as long as possible can mean revitalizing what is left of the magnificent beast.

↑ This budgie parakeet, another cherished pet, rests in peaceful slumber just as it did during its life—a bit fluffed out, with a sleepy head tucked under its wing. The beloved bird’s owner was fond of drawing the sweet creature in mystical settings, which Anantharaman re-created with a smattering of soft moss and dainty crystal raindrops. 

↑ Some taxidermy jobs start in the garbage, like this spectacular cassowary. When this mishap was found in a waste facility, not much could be salvaged. But with patience and a hand-sculpted, wrinkle-filled “dinosaur head,” Anantharaman was able to go beyond just restoring its former glory while preserving its traditional essence. 

↑ Owls have what’s called a facial disc, a cupped arrangement of feathers surrounding the eyes. In life, this unique feature helps owls collect sound waves, and the bird can adjust its shape to focus on prey shuffling under snow cover or hiding in plants. Placing the feathers requires patience, impeccable grooming, and a sense of humor. “It’s really funny to see it in this halfway state,” Anantharaman says. “It’s just a little owl in progress.”

↑ In museums and scientific displays, the taxidermied creatures might look far different from the ones we encounter in our day-to-day lives. This project, which Anantharaman is building for a high school, features deceased local birds collected by an enthusiastic (and permitted, of course) teacher who hopes to bring an ecological diorama to the classroom. 

↑ Anantharaman’s workshop is no morgue, but it still requires saws, respirators, and other devices for the rough-and-tumble aspects of taxidermy. Keeping an impeccably organized wall of tools is also emotional for the artist—a celebration of the space they use to create their multidimensional work. 

↑ When you think of an artist’s model, your brain may go to a scantily clad human muse. This starling is certainly nude, but it’s also an expert poser that Anantharaman can move however they like. Once this specimen is out of the freezer, Anantharaman has around 20 minutes to turn it into a dynamic fighter or a stately presence. 

Read more PopSci+ stories.

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Spatial learning is an important and complex skill in the animal kingdom, as it helps animals find a meal when food sources are scarce. Insects such as bees and ants that are social and live in communal nests are known to do this, and now we know some butterflies can as well.  A study published August 7 in the journal Current Biology found that the Heliconius butterfly genus is capable of spatial learning. 

[Related: A ‘butterfly tree of life’ reveals the origins of these beautiful insects.]

According to the authors, the results provide the first known experimental evidence of long-range spatial learning for traplining in any butterfly or moth species. Heliconius or “passion vine” butterflies are tropical butterflies from South and Central America known for a variety of wing patterns. The beautiful creatures have evolved a novel foraging behavior amongst butterflies which includes feeding on pollen that utilizes large scale spatial information, according to the team. 

“Wild Heliconius appear to learn the location of reliable pollen sources and establish long-term traplines,” study co-author and University of Bristol evolutionary neurobiologist Stephen Montgomery said in a statement. “Traplines are learnt foraging routes along which food sources are repeatedly returned to over consecutive days, an efficient foraging strategy similar to the behavior of some orchid bees and bumblebees. However, the spatial learning abilities of Heliconius, or indeed any butterfly, had not yet been experimentally tested.”

In the study, the team conducted spatial learning experiments in Heliconius butterflies over three spatial scales that each represented ecologically-relevant behaviors.  

First, they tested the insect’s ability to learn the location of a food reward in a grid made up of 16 fake flowers. This test represented foraging within a single resource patch.  

Next, the team increased the spatial scale and tested if Heliconius could learn to associate food with either the left or right side of a two-armed maze, to represent multiple plants at a single place.  

Finally, they increased the distances and used a facility of outdoor cages called the Metatron in southern France to test if Heliconius can learn the location of good in a 196 foot wide maze shaped like the letter T. This set up represents foraging between places and is closer to the range Heliconius forages in in the wild. 

[Related: What busy bees’ brains can teach us about human evolution.]

The experiments that the Heliconius does show signs of spatial learning and can memorize the spatial location of their food sources. In future studies, the team plans to test if Heliconius are more proficient spatial learners than closely related species that don’t eat pollen. Understanding this would help reveal how enhanced cognitive abilities can be shaped by an animal’s ecology. 

The team also plans to uncover the unknown mechanisms by which Heliconius navigates. Panoramic views and other visual cues are believed to be important for these butterflies, but the insects may rely on other cues such as a sun or geomagnetic compass in addition to what they can see.  

 “It’s been almost a century since the publication of the first anecdotal story on the spatial capabilities of these butterflies,” study co-author and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte biologist Priscila Moura said in a statement. “Now we are able to provide actual evidence on their fascinating spatial learning. And this is just the beginning.”

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Many plants and animals will do whatever it takes to reproduce, from “wingmen” dolphins to pee sniffing giraffes to daisies that trick flies into pollinating with them. Now, a team of scientists have identified a specific blend of pheromone chemicals and a newly unveiled aphrodisiac that male moths use during courtship. The findings were published on August 1 in the journal Current Biology and are showing more detail on this complex blend of chemicals that are used in the short-range communications between male and female moths.

[Related: Does ‘vabbing’ work? The truth about vaginal pheromones.]

The male pheromone mixture used in mating was first discovered almost 35 years ago, but the male moth aphrodisiac found in this study is a chemical called methyl salicylate. It is derived from plants and is emitted when herbivores move in to attacks and eat them. Methyl salicylate acts as both a healing mechanism in the plants and as a cry for help to the enemies of the herbivores eating the plants, to alert them that there is potential food nearby. 

The moth family in this study feeds on roughly 350 plant species across North and South America, including the tobacco budworm, the corn earworm, and the fall armyworm. Male Chloridea virescens moths–also called the tobacco budworm moth–use methyl salicylate in their pheromone blend that the team on this study say likely helps the male show dominance. Basically, this natural perfume is proof that the moth was able to defeat the plant’s defenses and could be considered a way of signaling that it is a worthy mating option. 

“These close-range interactions provide valuable insight into both species recognition— how females recognize males of the same species—and female choice in mate selection,” study co-author and North Carolina State University entomologist Coby Schal said in a statement. “This interaction gives females some insight into a particular male’s history.”

The female moths will begin the mating process by emitting an attraction pheromone blend made up of fatty acids over a longer range of distance and the males respond to these cues by flying closer to the females. Once they’re close enough, the males emit their own unique blend of pheromones made up of different alcohols. The females then use the male’s blend to help them decide whether the male is partner material. 

In the study, the team used a method where chemical compounds are separated in a controllable oven called gas chromatography, to determine the chemicals that make up the male pheromone blend. Some of these ingredients were not found in the initial characterization first made by scientists over three decades ago. 

[Related: The alluring tail of the Luna moth is surprisingly useless for finding a mate.]

They discovered that the methyl salicylate elicited a huge response from the females in the lab, notably because the female moth antennae have two smell receptors specifically for picking up this chemical. 

The team was also able to reduce the amount of methyl salicylate the males emitted and saw that mating success suffered. When these males then received smaller quantities of methyl salicylate, their mating success rates returned to normal, demonstrating how the chemical works more like an aphrodisiac.

Additionally, the team found small amounts of methyl salicylate in moths that had been eating an artificial diet in the lab, but those caught in North Carolina soybean fields had large amounts of the chemical. The chemical was stored in their hairpencils, male organs that emit their special mating pheromone blend. Adding the chemical into the diet of male moths in the lab through a sugar water drink that mimicked nectar demonstrated how male moths incorporated the chemical and sequestered it in their hairpencils. When they were encouraged to vigorously court females, those hairpencils had lower amounts of methyl salicylate since the males used a lot of it in their pheromone cocktail.

“It was surprising to find methyl salicylate in male moth pheromone blends, but the evidence from this paper suggests that male moths take up and sequester methyl salicylate as larvae while chewing up plants or as adults by drinking flower nectar,” Schal said. “Males may have evolved sexual signals that match the sensory bias exhibited by females in responding to methyl salicylate.”

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Some of our planet’s power pollinators may have originated tens of millions of years earlier than scientists once believed. In a study published July 27 in the journal Current Biology, a team of researchers traced bee genealogy back over 120 million years to the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. This former continent includes parts of present day Africa, Madagascar, South America, Australia, Antarctica, India, and Arabia, and it began to break apart during the early Jurassic period about 180 million years ago. 

[Related: Bee brains could teach robots to make split-second decisions.]

While looking deeper into bee history, the team found evidence that bees originated earlier, diversified faster, and spread wider than previously suspected, putting together pieces of a puzzle on the spatial origin of these pollinators. They likely originated in parts of present day Africa and South America before Gondwana broke apart.

In the study, an international team of scientists sequenced and compared genes from over 200 bee species. They then compared these bees with the traits from 185 different bee fossils and extinct fossils to develop an evolutionary history and genealogical model for how bees have historically been spread around the world. The team was able to analyze hundreds of thousands of genes at a time to make sure that the relationships they inferred were correct.  

“This is the first time we have broad genome-scale data for all seven bee families,” study co-author and Washington State University entomologist Elizabeth Murray said in a statement. 

Earlier studies established that the first bees potentially evolved from wasps, transitioning from predators up to collectors of pollen and nectar. According to this study, bees arose in the arid regions of western Gondwana during the early Cretaceous period, between 145 million years ago to 100.5 million years ago.

“There’s been a longstanding puzzle about the spatial origin of bees,” study co-author and Washington State University entomologist Silas Bossert said in a statement. “For the first time, we have statistical evidence that bees originated on Gondwana. We now know that bees are originally southern hemisphere insects.”

The team found evidence that as new continents formed, the bees moved northward. They continued to diversify and spread in parallel partnership with flowering plants called angiosperms. The bees later moved into India and Australia and all major bee families appear to have split off from one another before the beginning of the Tertiary period (65 million years ago). 

[Related: Like the first flying humans, honeybees use linear landmarks to navigate.]

The team believes that the exceptionally rich flora in the Western Hemisphere’s tropical regions may be due to their longtime association with bees. About 25 percent of all flowering plants belong to the large and diverse rose family of plants, and these beautiful flowers make up a large share of the tropical and temperate hosts for bees. 

The team plans to continue sequencing and studying the history and genetic profiles of more species of bees. Understanding how flowering plants and bees evolved together can help inform conservation efforts for pollinators and how to keep their populations healthy.

“People are paying more attention to the conservation of bees and are trying to keep these species alive where they are,” said Murray. “This work opens the way for more studies on the historical and ecological stage.”

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Deep beneath our feet almost anywhere on the planet, there are parasitic spaghetti-like puppet masters known as horsehair worms or gordian nematodes. 

These sneaky, slimy beings are lacking three major systems: excretory, circulatory or respiratory. To make up for it, they invade crickets, grasshoppers and other invertebrates, tapping into their neurological circuit and eventually brainwashing them. Once inside a body, the adult worm will then take action by controlling their host and forcing them to seek a water body so that the worms can exit and mate. 

[Related: Mind-controlling ‘zombie’ parasites are real.]

These creatures might not just be missing crucial systems for function—but something in their DNA.  Scientists from the Field Museum of Natural History and Harvard University sequenced the genome of the freshwater hairworm Acutogordius australiensis and the saltwater worm Nectonema munidae. They discovered that these animals were missing genes that coded for cilia—hair-like structures found on nearly all cells in animals and humans. 

The researchers published their findings in Current Biology this month.   

“What we found, which was very surprising, was that both hairworm genomes were missing about 30 percent of a set of genes that are expected to be present across basically all groups of animals,” said Tauana Cunha, a postdoctoral researcher at Chicago’s Field Museum and lead author of the study

Cilia are the fuzzy hair-like threads found on eukaryotic cells that help with moving fluid, debris and other materials from one place to another. “Animals use ciliary structures to move, to clean their cells, as sensors (there are cilia in your eyes and ears, for example), in sperm cells. Sponges use these structures to move water and feed, we use them for many of the things,” says co-author Bruno de Medeiros, research associate at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University and assistant curator of insects at the Field Museum. “It is crazy that an animal would lose cilia and flagella, since they seem so useful and so entangled into the natural history of an animal.”

The lineage of hairworms has historically been understudied. Hairworm experts are limited, and delving into their genome is an expensive and uncommon process. But, these findings open up a new series of questions over what other creatures may have lost “such a fundamental cell-level structure as the cilia,” Mederios says. 

“So this major lineage of animals was neglected so far. There are others, still. We definitely do not have yet a clear picture of the genome of all animals,” says Mederios. 

[Related: How a peculiar parasitic plant relies on a rare Japanese rabbit.]

While humans don’t need to live in fear of a mind-controlling worm, knowing how these parasites operate is crucial to protecting environmental and human health. For example, the saltwater species sampled was found in a deep-sea lobster, which can be caught for human consumption. Other arthropods pollinate crops, or are even used in feedstocks or experimental human food. 

“If the trend to use crickets as food keeps up and we start to do mass-production of crickets, we certainly want to be aware of the potential parasites and how to deal with them, which include hairworms,” Mederios says. 

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Fruit flies, often caught crawling on a browning banana or overripe zucchini, are insects that are obviously pretty different from people. But on the inside, they actually share 75 percent of the disease-causing genes with humans. For decades, the genome of these tiny beings have been a prime subject for scientists to probe at questions surrounding how certain traits are passed down generations. Flies, however, can be tricky to keep track of because they’re tiny and hard for human scientists to tell apart.

That’s why a team of researchers at Tulane University created software called Machine-learning-based Automatic Fly-behavioral Detection and Annotation, or MAFDA, which was described in an article in Science Advances in late June. Their custom-designed system uses a camera to track multiple fruit flies simultaneously, and can identify when a specific fruit fly is hungry, tired, or even singing a serenade to a potential mate. By tracking the traits of individual flies with varying genetic backgrounds, the AI system can see the similarities and differences between them.

“Flies are such an important model in biology. Many of the fundamental discoveries started with the fruit fly—from the genetic basis of chromosomes to radiation and mutations to innate immunity—and this relates to human health,” says corresponding author Wu-Min Deng, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Tulane. “We want to use this system to be able to actually identify and quantify the behavior of fruit flies.” 

Deng and his team of researchers not only developed a machine-learning system that decreases human error and improves the efficiency of studying the Drosophila melanogaster, but were able to identify a gene called the fruitless gene, or Fru. 

This gene, known to control pheromone production, was discovered to also control how flies smell pheromones and other chemical signals released by surrounding fruit flies engaged in mating. The gene can control the same behavioral circuit (when over- or under expressed) from completely separate organs in the body, Deng says.

“The fruitless gene is a master regulator of the neurobehavior of the courtship of flies,” Deng said.

Because this software lets researchers visualize the behavior of lab animals (including mice and fish) across space and time, Jie Sun, a graduate student at Tulane University School of Medicine and an author on the paper, says that it enables them to characterize the behaviors that are normal, and the behaviors that might be associated with disease conditions. “The MAFDA system also allows us to carefully compare different flies and their behavior and see that in other animals,” says Sun. 

Scientists can gain inspiration from computer science and incorporate it into other fields like biology, says Saket Navlakha, a professor of computer science at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who was not involved in the study. Much of our creativity can come from weaving different fields and skills together. 

From monitoring the fruit flies’ leaps, walking, or wing flaps, the innovative AI system can allow “us to annotate social behaviors and digitize them,” says Wenkan Liu, a graduate student at Tulane University School of Medicine. “If we use the cancer fly, for example, we can try to find what’s different between the cancer flies’ social event, interaction [and] social behaviors to normal social behavior.” 

This deep-learning tool is also an example of advancing two separate fields: computer science and biology. When animals, people or the environment are studied, we gain new algorithms, says Navlakha. “We are actually learning new computer science from the biology.” 

The system could also be applied to drug screenings, and be used to study evolution or bio-computation in the future. 

“It’s a new area for us to study,” says Deng. “We are learning new things every day.” 

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The phrase “busy as a bee” certainly applies to the brains of honey bees. The insects have to balance effort, risk and reward, avoid predators, and make accurate assessments of which flowers are the most likely to offer food for their hive while they fly. Speed and efficiency are thus critical to their survival, and scientists are taking a look at their brains to understand how. A study published June 27 in the journal eLife explores how millions of years of evolution engineered honey bee brains to make these lightning fast decisions and reduce their risks. 

[Related: What busy bees’ brains can teach us about human evolution.]

“Decision-making is at the core of cognition. It’s the result of an evaluation of possible outcomes, and animal lives are full of decisions,” co-author and comparative neurobiologist  at Australia’s Macquarie University Andrew Barron said in a statement. “A honey bee has a brain smaller than a sesame seed. And yet she can make decisions faster and more accurately than we can. A robot programmed to do a bee’s job would need the backup of a supercomputer.”

Barron cites that today’s autonomous robots primarily work with the support of remote computing, and that drones have to be in wireless communication with some sort of data center. Looking at how bees’ brains work and could help design better robots that explore more autonomously. 

In the study, the team trained 20 bees to recognize five different colored “flower disks.” The blue flowers always had a sugar syrup, while the green flowers always had tonic water that tasted bitter to the bees. The other colors sometimes had glucose. Then, the team introduced each bee to a makeshift garden where the flowers only had distilled water. Each bee was filmed and the team watched over 40 hours of footage, tracking the path the insects took and timing how long it took for them to make a decision. 

“If the bees were confident that a flower would have food, then they quickly decided to land on it, taking an average of  0.6 seconds,” HaDi MaBouDi, co-author and computational neuroethologist from the University of Sheffield in England, said in a statement. “If they were confident that a flower would not have food, they made a decision just as quickly.”

If the bees were unsure, they took significantly more time–1.4 seconds on average–and the time reflected the probability that a flower contained some food.

Next, the team built a computer model that aimed to replicate the bees’ decision-making process. They noticed that the structure looked similar to the physical layout of a bee’s brain. They found that the bees’ brains could make complex autonomous decision making with minimal neural circuits. 

[Related: A robot inspired by centipedes has no trouble finding its footing.]

“Now we know how bees make such smart decisions, we are studying how they are so fast at gathering and sampling information. We think bees are using their flight movements to enhance their visual system to make them better at detecting the best flowers,” co-author and theoretical and computational biologist at the University of Sheffield James Marshall said in a statement. 

Marshall also co-founded Opteran, a company that reverse-engineers insect brain algorithms to enable machines to move autonomously. He believes that nature will inspire the future of the AI industry, as millions of years of insect brain evolution has led to these incredibly efficient brains that require minimal power. 

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This article was originally published on Undark.

In a dusty room in central Florida, countless millipedes, centipedes, and other creepy-crawlies sit in specimen jars, rotting. The invertebrates are part of the Florida State Collection of Arthropods in Gainesville, which totals more than 12 million insects and other arthropod specimens, and are used by expert curators to identify pest species that threaten Florida’s native and agricultural plants.

However, not all specimens at the facility are treated equally, according to two people who have seen the collection firsthand. They say non-insect samples, like shrimp and millipedes, that are stored in ethanol have been neglected to the point of being irreversibly damaged or lost completely.

When it comes to how the FSCA stacks up with other collections she’s worked in, Ann Dunn, a former curatorial assistant, is blunt: “This is the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Experts say the loss of such specimens—even uncharismatic ones such as centipedes—is a setback for science. Particularly invaluable are holotypes, which are the example specimens that determine the description for an entire species. In fact, the variety of holotypes a collection has is often more important than its size, since those specimens are actively used for research, said Ainsley Seago, an associate curator of invertebrate zoology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.

A paper published in March 2023 highlighted the importance of museum specimens more generally, for addressing urgent issues like climate change and wildlife conservation, with 73 of the world’s largest natural history museums estimating their total collections to exceed 1.1 billion specimens. “This global collection,” the authors write, “is the physical basis for our understanding of the natural world and our place in it.”

Through Aaron Keller, the communications director of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services—which oversees the FSCA—the museum declined to speak with Undark for this story. In response to a complaint that Dunn filed with the FDACS Office of Inspector General, the director of the museum’s parent agency Trevor Smith wrote: “scientific specimens do not need to be pristine or perfect specimens” and “museum staff strive to maintain materials in the best condition possible because they cannot be replaced.”

Dunn started working at the Florida State Collection of Arthropods in April 2022 as an assistant to curator Felipe Soto-Adames. She was initially hired, she told Undark in a recent interview, in part to help maintain part of the FSCA’s collection—some of the so-called wet specimens, or invertebrates stored in vials and jars filled with alcohol. But she said she was shocked when she saw the condition of many of the specimens that were supposed to be under her care. (The FSCA did not respond to a request for comment on Dunn’s hiring or specifics about her role, nor did the museum respond to multiple requests for an interview with Soto-Adames.)

Dunn told Undark that she found mushy specimens sitting in brown ethanol, some with stoppers so eroded that they were dripping a waxy substance onto the contents of the vial. Most of the damage is in the collection of non-insect arthropods, like sun spiders, millipedes, and shrimp. She estimates that half of the FSCA’s ethanol collection, which included 200,000 vials and approximately 1.1 million individual arthropods as of 2022, is damaged or rotten. Another person who is familiar with the FSCA collections agreed with Dunn’s assessment. (They asked to remain anonymous, citing fear of retaliation.)

The FSCA was founded in 1915 to house the collection of the Florida State Plant Board (now the Division of Plant Industry), and merged with other state collections in the 1960s after the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services formally took it over. Today, the FSCA seeks “to build the best possible worldwide collection of terrestrial and aquatic arthropods in support of research, education and the functions of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services,” according to its website.

The state of the collection, Dunn said, prevented her from fulfilling the FSCA’s mission of identifying pest species. When people asked the museum for help identifying lawn shrimp—terrestrial crustaceans that are invasive in Florida—Dunn had to rely on Google Images. “I knew from experience that the collection would not help me at all,” she said, due to a lack of organization and degradation of specimens.

Maintaining such a vast collection isn’t easy, particularly when it comes to specimens preserved in alcohol. While a few institutions have well-managed alcohol collections, many others do not, said Seago of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. (Seago is also president of the Entomological Collections Network, a nonprofit that provides best practices for insect and other arthropod collections.) She demonstrated one such challenge in a Zoom interview, holding up jars of crabs that were bone dry—all the alcohol within had evaporated over time. While hard-bodied crabs can remain intact when desiccated, soft-bodied invertebrates fare worse. And evaporating alcohol can also degrade the stopper used to seal the specimen’s container, especially if it’s made of cork or rubber.

At the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, there are approximately 76,000 containers of ethanol specimens, mostly stored in a World War-II-era Quonset hut, which is made from corrugated steel and is uninsulated. According to Seago, replenishing the required ethanol of each sample takes a lot of work. Even if interns or volunteers are available to go through them all, supervisors have to oversee the process to ensure they’re using the correct alcohol concentration and understand how the specimens should be properly organized.

“Just keeping an alcohol collection at baseline ‘okay’ is a monumental amount of effort,” Seago said.

According to Dunn, her work at the Florida State Collection of Arthropods came to a halt when her one-year contract was not renewed in April, just days after she posted negative comments about the workplace behavior of head curator Paul Skelley on her personal, anonymous Twitter account. Dunn had submitted a formal complaint against Skelley and the state of the ethanol collections to the FDACS Office of Inspector General on April 17. The inspector general’s office determined that Dunn’s complaint did not warrant an investigation, and in a written evaluation, they noted that Dunn was let go for “conduct unbecoming a public employee and insubordination associated with derogatory comments posted on social media.”

Following her firing, Dunn tweeted photographs of damaged specimens from the FSCA’s collection. Jackson Means, a millipede taxonomist at the Virginia Museum of Natural History, told Undark he had only seen similar conditions in an alcohol collection that had been left unattended in a warehouse for 22 years. “These images are definitely long-term neglect,” he said.

Some of the neglected specimens included holotypes, Dunn told Undark. The loss of holotypes can cause uproar among the scientific community, but they can be replaced—if someone goes through the effort of formally describing a neotype (a new holotype meant to replace one that has been lost or damaged). But designating a neotype “usually relies on other people being able to determine whether or not you can find a specimen of the same species from the same locality” as the holotype, said Seago. For many species, there aren’t enough experts to do that work, she said, “and the fewer taxonomists you have for that group, the less likely that is.”

Seago is currently applying for a grant to help locate, consolidate, and digitize holotype specimens at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. And Means said the Virginia Museum of Natural History is working to catalogue its holotypes too. Dunn had been working on a similar organizational endeavor at the FSCA before her firing.

Many collectors, from scientists to hobbyists, donate their personal collections to museums. This was the case for Nell Causey, who had her millipede collection given to the FSCA after her death in 1979. Causey earned a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1940, and was “the predominant myriapodologist of her time,” said Means. “She was a really good collector, and she described a lot of species.”

During Dunn’s efforts to help catalogue the FSCA’s holotypes, she says she found eight of Causey’s millipedes sitting mislabeled on a shelf in the wrong building gathering dust. The samples had been described in 2010 by William Shear, a professor emeritus at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, who had borrowed the specimens several years prior for a research project. Neither Dunn nor her coworker on the project knew they existed before Shear reached out to check on them. (Shear told Undark that this snafu was caused by a lack of communication from the previous curator, and he has since borrowed and deposited specimens at the FSCA with no problems.)

Dunn is worried that the life’s work of Causey and other passionate collectors, like arachnid specialist Martin Muma, who died in 1989, is at risk of degradation at the FSCA, especially without dedicated taxonomists to care for them. It is a shame, Means told Undark, to lose parts of a prominent collector’s work. “Maybe art historians will be mad at me, but it’s a lot like the degradation of a painting,” he said. “You are losing a piece of history.”

Many museum curators have a preference or bias for the specific group they work on, said Seago, and will prioritize care for that group—especially if they’re in a collection where “the people in charge don’t care at all about those groups.” Meanwhile, taxonomists can be hard to come by, and she said this is even truer for small, obscure, and uncharismatic groups of organisms. Dunn said this taxonomic bias was strong at FSCA, which especially favors beetles. The person familiar with the museum’s collections who did not wish to be named agreed with Dunn that there is a persistent attitude of favoritism toward charismatic insects at FSCA.

Museum donors also usually have preferences for certain groups—Seago said she could easily raise funds for a new butterfly cabinet—but natural history museums need more money if they’re going to adequately care for their entire collections. That hasn’t always been the case even for more popular creatures. “Funding has been dropping across the board,” said Means. “And because of that, staffing is down.”

Dunn accepts the commonality of neglect in ethanol collections, but said “that doesn’t make it acceptable.” And when it comes to holotypes, she said, there’s no excuse. “Holotypes should never go without care.”

Means and Seago agreed. “The whole point of a museum,” said Means, is to take care of type specimens “in perpetuity.”

Darren Incorvaia is a journalist who writes about animals and the natural world. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American, and Science News, among other publications. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from Michigan State University.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

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This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

Some people may be picky eaters, but as a species we are not. Birds, bugs, whales, snails, we’ll eat them all. Yet our reliance on wild animals goes far beyond just feeding ourselves. From agricultural feed to medicine to the pet trade, modern society exploits wild animals in a way that surpasses even the most voracious, unfussy wild predator. Now, for the first time, researchers have attempted to capture the full picture of how we use wild vertebrates, including how many, and for what purposes. The research showcases just how broad our collective influence on wild animals is.

Previously, scientists have tallied how much more biomass humans take out of the wild than other predators. But biomass is only a sliver of the total picture, and researchers wanted a fuller understanding of how human predatory behavior affects biodiversity. Analyzing data compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, researchers have now found that humans kill, collect, or otherwise use about 15,000 vertebrate species. That’s about one-third of all vertebrate species on Earth, and it’s a breadth that’s up to 300 times more than the next top predator in any ecosystem.

The predators that give us the biggest run for our money, says Rob Cooke, an ecological modeler at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and a coauthor of the study, are owls, which hunt a notably diverse array of prey. The Eurasian eagle owl, for instance, is one of the largest and most widely distributed owls in the world. Not a picky eater, this owl will hunt up to 379 different species. According to the researchers’ calculations, humans take 469 species across an equivalent geographical range.

Yet according to Chris Darimont, a conservation scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and a coauthor of the study, the biggest shock isn’t how many species we affect but why we take them. The “ta-da result,” he says, “is that we remove, or essentially prey on, more species of animals for non-food reasons than for food reasons.” And the biggest non-food use, the scientists found, is as pets and pet food. “That’s where things have gone off the rails,” he says.

There is some nuance to this broad trend. When it comes to marine and freshwater species, our main take is for human consumption. For terrestrial animals, however, it depends on what kind of animal is being targeted. Mammals are mostly taken to become people food, while birds, reptiles, and amphibians are mainly trapped to live in captivity as pets. In all, almost 75 percent of the land species humans take enter the pet trade, which is almost double the number of species we take to eat.

The problem is especially acute for tropical birds, and the loss of these species can have rippling ecological consequences. The helmeted hornbill, a bird native to Southeast Asia, for example, is captured mainly for the pet trade or for its beak to be used as medicine or to be carved like ivory. With their massive bills, these birds are one of the few species that can crack open some of the largest, hardest nuts in the forests where they live. Their disappearance limits seed dispersal and the spread of trees around the forest.

Another big difference between humans’ influence on wild animals and that of other predators is that we tend to favor rare and exotic species in a way other animals do not. Most predators target common species since they are easier to find and catch. Humans, however, tend to covet the novel. “The more rare it is,” says Cooke, “the more that drives up the price, and therefore it can spiral and go into this extinction vortex.”

That humans target the largest and flashiest animals, Cooke says, threatens not only their unique biological diversity and beauty, but also the roles they play in their ecosystems. Of the species humans prey on, almost 40 percent are threatened. The researchers suggest industrialized societies can look to Indigenous stewardship models for ways to more sustainably manage and live with wildlife.

Andrea Reid, a citizen of the Nisg̱a’a Nation and an Indigenous fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia, notes that people have been fishing for millennia. “But the choices that shape industrial fishing,” she says, like how people consume fish that were caught far away from their own homes, “are what contribute to these observed high levels of impact on fish species.”

If we want wild species—fish and beyond—to survive, Reid says, we need to reframe our relationship with them, perhaps from predator to steward.

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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This article was originally featured on High Country News.

The seasonal miller moth migration had started. By late May in Colorado, Google searches for “get rid of moths” left orbit. Over a group chat, I asked friends how they were handling this seasonal visitor. “I find miller moths in my closet, my bathroom, and sometimes in my bed. I get a washcloth and wet the tip—my moth katana—and twirl that sucker for the nightly harvest,” said Jack Martin. “My wife left me to join the miller moth migration,” joked Sam Krason, while Connor Rafferty, a graphic designer, offered a vivid tableau. “Every time I open my garage door, I have to wait a minute for the trail of moths to exit the garage, like a bunch of bats out of a cave, before I can walk in.”

After a wet winter, moths the size of dollar coins and the color of dehydrated mulch cascade onto Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico from their nesting sites in the High Plains. Beginning with the June migration, the miller, or army cutworm moth, touches nearly every denizen in the region—their faces, their pillows, their window panes—but rarely their hearts. Because the miller finds refuge in dark crevices to during its journey to the Rocky Mountains to pollinate flowers, it often ends up in garages and bedrooms instead. Trapped and disoriented, the moth panics. Frantic attempts by the resident hominids to swat the confused insect are frustrated by its evasive acrobatics around the nearest light source, which, to the insect, resembles the moon it navigates by. Neither the manic wing-flapping nor the buildup of tiny gray corpses inside homes has done much to endear the species to residents. But according to multiple entomologists, the diminutive creature deserves our sympathy. 

“They’re not exactly intelligent, but they’re doing the best they can,” said Maia Holmes, a Colorado State University entomologist. “So, when you find them ramming themselves up against your window at a time or place you don’t want them, they’re just lost and confused.” Even though the miller moth aggravates human beings, flowering plants and other animals delight in its arrival. The army cutworm begins life as a green-striped caterpillar munching on grasslands and fields at lower elevations. In late spring, it pupates into a winged adult and chases wildflowers up into the Rocky Mountains, where it spends the summer. Along the way, the moths become a crucial food source for native bird species and bats—even grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park that turn over logs and gorge on the sheltering arthropods. 

As industrial agriculture transformed the landscape of the West in the late 1800s, the human relationship to native insects changed, too. “Historically speaking, the moth wasn’t a problem,” said Holmes. “Then we start growing a lot of corn and wheat for money. Army cutworms were like, ‘Great, there’s more food.’ But humans were like, ‘Wait a minute, we use these crops for money.’” An all-out war on the army cutworm had ensued by the late 19th century, buoyed by an emerging school of thought known as “economic entomology.” This approach to insect management, backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, sought to safeguard agricultural profits against its non-human competitors. Controlling cutworms and other “pests” required researching their life cycle and led to USDA officials evaluating pesticides and spreading anti-insect propaganda that reads almost like medieval folklore. 

In 1919, a Colorado newspaper published an ominous USDA press release titled “Cutworm Cowardly Rascal,” warning readers that the cutworm “watches and waits … then sneaks out in the night to destroy the plants.” A year later, an experimental farm operated by the Great Western Sugar Company in Longmont, Colorado, released its own study: The Principle Insect Enemies of the Sugar Beet. Liberally footnoted with USDA research and targeted at numerous arthropods, the study saved its most unhinged descriptions for the Miller:

“Like the evil gnomes of old who sallied forth on moonless nights to wreak vengeance upon some hapless wayfarer, the cutworms come forth from hiding and under cover of darkness, despoil the farmers’ crops.”

The farmers didn’t realize that monoculture crop fields automatically attracted miller moths accustomed to scanning biodiverse grasslands for food. Faced with fast-adapting insects like the army cutworm, the industry embraced chemical weapons to protect crops. “If your primary aim is short-term economic efficiency, the strongest, most powerful and most immediately effective chemicals are the logical endpoint,” said Texas State professor James McWilliams, author of American Pests: The Losing War on Insects from Colonial Times to DDT. “It’s really quite amazing,” McWilliams said. “You can look at economic entomology before 1960, and there’s just no consideration at all of long-term environmental impacts.” 

Application of the deadliest pesticides like DDT only abated in the 1960s, after harrowing revelations concerning their environmental consequences emerged in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. But changing our cultural attitudes toward insects has proven to be a much slower process. In fact, the name “miller moth” is a linguistic artifact left over from the era of ecocidal excess. The term is generic, referring to any moth deemed a pest, whether in Louisiana or the Rocky Mountain West. 

But more recently, Moussa Diawara, an entomologist at CSU Pueblo, has been encouraged by the ethos of tolerance he’s observed in students, and by the calls he’s begun receiving from the public. “I used to get a lot of calls about how to get rid of miller moths. That has come down a lot. Even in my classes, students are more aware of the importance of biodiversity. So the public perception is changing, but slowly,” Diawara said.

Samuel Shaw is an editorial intern for High Country News based in the Colorado Front Range. Email him at samuel.shaw@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy. Follow Samuel on Instagram @youngandforgettable. 

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The term “necrobotics” is relatively self-explanatory—using dead source material within robotic designs. Case in point: researchers at Rice University made headlines last year after repurposing a spider’s corpse as part of a “pneumatically actuating gripper tool” capable of grasping asymmetrical objects up to 130 percent its own mass.

But what if researchers harnessed living creatures as part of robotic devices? That’s the question recently posed by a team collaborating between multiple Japanese universities. In their paper, “Biological Organisms as End Effectors,” published earlier this month on the arXiv preprint server, researchers from Tohoku, Yamagata, and Keio Universities detailed how they developed a way to literally harness living pillbugs and underwater mollusks known as chiton as a robot’s gripping mechanisms without harming the animals.

[Related: Watch this bird-like robot make a graceful landing on its perch.]

In demonstration videos, a 3D-printed harness is ostensibly lassoed around the pill bug using either one or two flexible threads. In the single thread configuration, the pill bug is allowed to roll into its closed, defensive shape; with two threads, the insect is prevented from doing so, thus maintaining its open, walking stance. Attaching a harness to the mollusk required a bit more trial-and-error, with researchers settling on a removable epoxy glue applied to its external shell. In both experiments, the pill bug and chiton were shown to effectively grasp and maneuver objects, either via the insect’s closing into its defensive stance while grasping an object, or via the mollusk’s suctioning ability.

“This approach departs from traditional methodologies by leveraging the structures and movements of specific body parts without disconnecting them from the organism, all the while preserving the life and integrity of the creature,” reads a portion of the team’s paper. The team also notes that for future research, it will be “crucially important to enforce bioethics rules and regulations, especially when dealing with animals that have higher cognition.”  

But, researchers such as Kent State University geographer James Tyner, aren’t completely sold. “To a degree, this is simply the domestication of species not yet domesticated,” Tyner explains to PopSci. Tyner co-authored an essay last year lambasting Rice University’s recycled arachnid necrobot as an “omen” of potentially even further “subsumption of life and death to circuits of capital.” When it comes to employing living organisms within robotic systems, Tyner also questions their efficacy and purpose.

“I’m hard pressed to think of a situation where I’d feel comfortable deploying biotechnologies solely or even partially dependent on the gripping power of a pillbug,” Tyner adds.

For Josephine Galipon, a molecular biologist at Yamagata University and one of the project’s team members, such situations are easier to envision. “Let’s imagine a robot stuck at the bottom of the ocean that needs to improvise a gripper function to complete a task,” she offers via email to PopSci. “Instead of building a gripper from the ground up, it could borrow help from a chiton, and as a reward, the chiton would be transported to a new place with possibly more food.”

According to Galipon, establishing such mutually beneficial, cooperative, and dynamic interactions between living organisms and machines could offer advancements in both biology and robotic engineering.

[Related: These wearable cyborg arms were modeled after Japanese horror fiction and puppets.]

“‘Locomotion’ can be used for more than just getting around from one spot to another,” Galipon continues. “Surprisingly, it can also be used for tasks like picking up and moving objects, as illustrated [by the pillbug]. We can also learn more about how these organisms perceive the world around them.” Galipon points to previous instances of domestication, such as horses and messenger pigeons, and views their pillbug and chiton trials in a similar vein. 

Tyner, meanwhile, points to the longstanding history of biomimicry within robotics as a promising alternative to domesticating new animal species. They also raise the question of experts’ expanding concepts of sentience, and what that might entail for even creepy-crawler companions. Recent studies, in fact, offer evidence of a wider array of “feelings” for insects, notably the capacity for injury or discomfort in insects, such as fruit flies potentially experiencing a form of chronic pain. But critics like Tyner, however, the question still stands with or without evidence: “Do we extend moral standing, for example, only to sentient beings?”

In this sense, it’s a thought shared by Galipon and their fellow researchers. “[We] recommend caution when handling any type of animal, and to exercise mindfulness in avoiding their suffering as much as possible and to the best of our knowledge,” they write in their paper.

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For the first time in 20 years, malaria has been spread locally by mosquitoes in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an alert on June 26 stating that at least four people in Florida and one in Texas have contracted the mosquito-borne illness in the past two months.

[Related: Ghana is the first country to approve Oxford’s malaria vaccine.]

“Malaria is a medical emergency and should be treated accordingly,” the CDC wrote in a Health Alert Network Health Advisory. “Patients suspected of having malaria should be urgently evaluated in a facility that is able to provide rapid diagnosis and treatment, within 24 hours of presentation.”

Malaria was once endemic in the US, but was eradicated by the 1970s. One of the CDC’s first tasks at its founding in 1946 was eliminating the disease as a public health threat.

It is caused by several species of parasites that are transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes. Malaria usually causes flu-like symptoms, but it can also cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea in some cases. It can lead to severe disease if it is left untreated with medication. The World Health Organization estimates that it killed 619,000 people worldwide in 2021. Nearly half of the world’s population is at risk of the disease. 

Roughly 2,000 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the US annually, but those are typically contracted by people who have traveled outside the country. In 2003, there were eight cases of locally acquired mosquito-borne malaria identified in Palm Beach County, Florida. 

According to a Florida’s Department of Health statement announcing a statewide mosquito-borne illness advisory, the new cases were identified in Sarasota County. Texas has also issued a health advisory. The CDC recommends that hospitals around the country have malaria tests on hand, stock up on treatments, and that local public health officials have a plan to rapidly identify, prevent, and control the disease. 

The new cases were caused by the malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax, which is less likely to cause severe disease than some other species of malaria parasites. The CDC says that all five patients “have received treatment and are improving.” The agency also notes that the risk of locally acquired malaria still remains very low in the US.

[Related: Why did it take 35 years to get a malaria vaccine?]

“It’s not panic time,” Brian Grimberg, an associate professor of pathology and international health at Case Western Reserve University, told The Washington Post. “I think the message is to be aware. I mean, Americans never think about malaria unless they travel abroad.”

Malaria is most common in warm climates and some scientists worry that as the Earth warms, more regions will be affected by the disease. According to a 2022 study published in Nature, climate change can exacerbate a full 58 percent of the infectious diseases that humans come in contact with around the world. The authors of that study note that hepatitis can be spread by flooding, droughts can bring in rodents that are infected with hantavirus, and warmer temperatures can lengthen the life of mosquitoes carrying malaria. 

The CDC advises the public to take basic steps to prevent mosquito bites and control mosquitoes at home. Wearing insect repellent, long-sleeved shirts and pants when outdoors can help prevent bug bites, in addition to using good screens on windows and doors when inside. 

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With their soft and spongy tissue, internal organs are rare in the fossil record. But the paleontologists who unearthed the remains of a 50 million year-old katydid hit a bit of a fossil jackpot. Parts of the digestive tract, muscles, glands, and even the testes of an extinct species of this lean-legged insect were preserved along with the bugs’ harder structures. The findings were described in a study published June 23 in the journal Palaeoentomology.

[Related: Bite marks on Triassic fossils show signs of bloody dino decapitation.]

“Katydids are very rare in the fossil record, so any new katydid fossil you find represents a new data point in the evolutionary history of katydids,” study co-author and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign palaeoentomologist lead Sam Heads said in a statement. “But perhaps the most striking feature of this fossil is the really exceptional, remarkable preservation of internal organs – organs that you just don’t see in fossils.”

The specimen was found in Colorado’s Green River Formation. This enormous fossil bed extends into three western states and boasts fine-grained shales that preserve a good retail of the flora and fauna that once lived there. This new katydid species is extinct and is named 

Arethaea solterae in honor of Heads’ colleague and retired insect pathologist Leellen Solter.

“Obviously, having a fossil species of a modern genus is really significant because it confirms the antiquity of this lineage,” Heads said. “Now we know that about 50 million years ago, this genus had already evolved and already had a morphology that mimics the grass in which it lives and hides from predators.”

This rare look inside an extinct insect’s body will help scientists better understand how this group of insects evolved and when their unique physical structure developed over time.

A part of the digestive tract called the ventriculus—where two sets of muscles grind food—was preserved, which is not super unusual, according to Heads. However, when he examined the specimen underneath a microscope, he saw evidence of some surprising internal structures that had been preserved for millennia. Traces of the fibers making up the katydid’s thoracic muscle that are associated with wings were in the specimen, in addition to some tissue called a “fat body,” an organ that helps the insect’s metabolism. 

[Related: Fossil trove in Wales is a 462-million-year-old world of wee sea creatures.]

Yet another surprise awaited Heads. “There are these little tubules that all seem to connect to a round structure – and that can only be a testis and accessory glands that are associated with the testis,” Heads said. “That’s just phenomenal. I was not expecting to see that kind of structure preserved in a rock compression. I’ve never seen that before.”

Just to make sure, Heads dissected several katydid specimens in this same genus to match what he was seeing in this 50 million year-old fossil. The accessory glands and ventriculus were the same in the modern day katydids and looked exactly the same. It is potentially the first example of this level of preservation.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has certified Belize as officially malaria-free. The Central American country with a population of just over 400,000 worked for more than 70 years to stop the deadly mosquito-borne disease.

[Related: Ghana is the first country to approve Oxford’s malaria vaccine.]

Belize joins 41 other countries and one territory that the WHO has certified as malaria-free, including 11 countries in the Americas. Belize is the second Central American nation to be certified malaria-free over the past five years. Paraguay, Argentina, and El Salvador have also been certified. Belize is also the third country in the world to be certified in 2023, following Azerbaijan and Tajikistan.

“WHO congratulates the people and government of Belize and their network of global and local partners for this achievement,”  WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. “Belize is another example of how, with the right tools and the right approach, we can dream of a malaria-free future.”

Malaria is typically transmitted through bites by female Anopheles mosquitoes. According to the CDC, when a mosquito bites an infected person, it takes with it a small amount of blood containing microscopic malaria parasites. When a mosquito bites another person (usually about one week later), these parasites mix with the mosquito’s saliva and are injected into the person being bitten. The disease can also be transmitted through blood transfusions, organ transplants, shared needle use with contaminated blood, or from a mother to her unborn infant before or during delivery.

In 2021, the disease killed an estimated 619,000 people globally and infected 247 million others. Malaria symptoms include a fever and flu-like illness, including headache, muscle aches, chills, and fatigue. Vomiting, diarrhea, and nausea may also occur and malaria can cause anemia and jaundice due to a loss of red blood cells. Severe infection can cause mental confusion, seizures, and kidney failure. 

For the past 30 years, Belize has dramatically reduced its malaria burden. In 1994, the country saw a peak of about 10,000 cases in 1994, down to zero indigenous cases in 2019. The country has implemented strong surveillance for the disease, access to diagnostics, and vector control methods such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets, using insecticides indoors, and trained community health workers.

In 2015, Belize reorganized its malaria program to place more focus on enhanced surveillance in higher-risk populations. This allowed more strategic targeting of interventions and resources to priority areas. Malaria surveillance efforts were maintained throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the country made efforts to integrate malaria and COVID-19 surveillance systems.

[Related: China becomes the largest country to officially eradicate malaria.]

“A dedicated network of trained community-based health workers and voluntary collaborators were the backbone of malaria elimination efforts in Belize. They helped ensure early detection of malaria cases within their respective communities and, for those with a confirmed malaria diagnosis, the provision of effective antimalarial treatment,” the WHO wrote in a statement.

A country can be certified by the WHO as malaria-free when it “has shown—with rigorous, credible evidence—that the chain of indigenous malaria transmission by Anopheles mosquitoes has been interrupted nationwide for at least the past three consecutive years.”

The world’s first malaria vaccine was approved in 2021 based on the results of an ongoing pilot program in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi that has reached more than 800,000 children since 2019. In March, Ghana approved another malaria vaccine for young children. 

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Monarch butterflies in Eastern North America complete one of the longest animal migrations. Often compared to marathon runners, these spotted pollinators traverse the continent, flying for more than two months and up to thousands of miles from their mating grounds as far north as Canada to their wintering roosts as far south as Mexico.

Scientists have long been interested in learning how exactly an insect that weighs less than a paper clip can travel for such long distances. Research up until now has suggested that changes in their metabolism, a voracious appetite for lipid-rich flower nectar, and the shape of their wings all play a part. 

But a new study in the journal PLOS One published today finds that the colors on the monarch’s wings might influence its capacity for endurance flight as well. In a nod to the increasingly popular practice of biomimicry, where researchers try to replicate the natural world in engineering projects, the authors hope that studying the colors of the monarch’s wings will help them make drones more efficient.

[Related: Are monarch butterflies endangered?]

The question of how color influences the monarch’s flight began when Mostafa Hassanalian, a professor of mechanical engineering at New Mexico Tech, published a paper about how the colors on the wings of the albatross, a kind of ocean-roaming bird, might help it fly for longer distances. The black on the top of the bird’s wings absorbs more solar energy, creating a pocket of warm air; the white on the bottom absorbs less. Together, the opposite colors create more lift and less drag, helping the albatross to soar more efficiently. The temperature difference between the two sides of the wings could be up to 10 to 25 degrees Celsius, depending on the amount of sun they receive, according to Hassanalian. 

Andy Davis, a research scientist at the University of Georgia who studies monarchs, saw Hassanalian’s paper and wondered if the same might apply to the North American butterfly. The pair soon came into contact, and along with three other experts, began to investigate if the orange, black, and white pattern on the monarch’s wings determined how far it could fly. First, they measured the proportions of colors on 400 pairs of wings from preserved milkweed butterflies, including Eastern monarchs at different stages of their life cycle. Then they performed image analysis on the right wing of each specimen to figure out the size of the spots. 

The team determined that the butterflies who survived the migration to Mexico tended to have 3 percent less black pigment on their wings and 3 percent more white pigment, a surprising contrast from the albatross. They also found that the Eastern monarchs had significantly larger white spots than other milkweed butterflies that didn’t complete long-distance journeys. Previous research also identified deeper shades of orange on the wings of Eastern monarchs, which migrate farther than the Western and Floridian populations.

The authors still don’t know why the migrating monarchs have larger white spots, but their guess is that the alternating color patterns give them an aerodynamic advantage. “The trailing edge [of the monarch’s wing] is all black, and then you have the white spots,” Hassanalian explains. “White is cool air; black is hot air. So cool and hot, it will change the flow patterns in the trailing edge. And that would allow them to save more energy, enhance their dynamic efficiency, and make it easier to fly.”

No one has directly studied how the white patches on the monarch’s wings influence their flight, says Micah Freedman, a postdoctoral fellow who studies monarch migration at the University of British Columbia. Still, the size of the patches is relatively small. “To the untrained eye, it probably wouldn’t look like a big difference,” he says. “But when you use image processing software, it picks up on a difference.”

Hassanalian, Davis, and their team are planning more projects to validate this hypothesis. Their future experiments could involve building artificial monarch wings with different colors and putting them in a wind tunnel. They might also expose their models to smoke and lasers and use a high-speed camera to visualize the flow patterns around them. “These ideas here are so brand new,” Davis says. “I’ve been studying monarchs for 25 years or so. No one knows what these spots are for. We’ve never known.”

Should the connection between white markings and flight performance prove true, they plan to apply it to drone technology. If small coloration effects “can improve like 10 percent of your efficiency, that’s a lot,” Hassanalian says. “Another aspect is your drone would be able to carry more, because this coloration helps them gain extra lift.” The enhancement could also benefit other aircraft, but he points out one caveat: Planes fly at a much faster speed than butterflies, so coloration may not be as relevant to them. Still, one of his graduate students is currently researching if coloring the tips of a plane’s wings black could reduce fuel use. 

[Related: This ‘airliner of the future’ has a radical new wing design]

“This is bio-inspiration at its best here,” David adds, “because we’re learning from the butterflies that have evolved for eons on how to be better fliers.”

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From weasels to monkeys to herons, smaller animals piggybacking or hitchhiking on other creatures is a pretty common way to get around. This helps the tiny critters conserve energy on long distances, but some insects could use electric fields to help them launch into action. 

[Related: Toads on a python, and five other animals hitching rides on bigger animals.]

In a study published June 21 in the journal Current Biology, researchers found how microscopic and transparent Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) worms can use electric fields to “jump” across Petri plates in the lab or onto some insects and other animals in nature. These electrical fields allow them to glide through the air and then attach themselves to pollinators who have an electrical charge. Bumblebees, in essence, are one of nature’s ultimate electric vehicles.

“Pollinators, such as insects and hummingbirds, are known to be electrically charged, and it is believed that pollen is attracted by the electric field formed by the pollinator and the plant,” co-author and Hiroshima University biophysicist Takuma Sugi said in a statement “However, it was not completely clear whether electric fields are utilized for interactions between different terrestrial animals.”

The team on this study began to investigate this electric transportation when they noticed that the worms they cultivated inside the lab were ending up on the lids of their Petri dishes,  away from the agar they were placed on. Agar is a gelatin-like substance that microbiologists use to make growing areas for bacteria used to study microorganisms like C. elegans, which is a type of nematode. 

The team attached a camera to observe the worms and found that the worms were leaping from the floor of the plate to its ceiling and not just climbing up the Petri dish walls. To investigate, they placed the worms on a glass electrode and noticed that they leaped to another electrode once a charge was applied. They jumped at roughly a human’s walking speed (.86 meters per second), which increased as the electric field intensified. 

To better mimic a natural electric charge, the team then rubbed flower pollen on a bumblebee. Once the worms were close to their possible bee chauffeur, they stood on their tails and hopped aboard. Some of the worms even piled on top of each other and jumped in a single column, like ants working together to make a bridge. They could transfer 80 worms at once across the gap using this method.

“Worms stand on their tail to reduce the surface energy between their body and the substrate, thus making it easier for themselves to attach to other passing objects,” Sugi said. “In a column, one worm lifts multiple worms, and this worm takes off to transfer across the electric field while carrying all the column worms.”

[Related: A swarm of honeybees can have the same electrical charge as a storm cloud.]

C. elegans can attach to other bugs and snails for a ride, but since these animals don’t carry electric fields as well as pollinators, they have to make direct contact with the animal to jump on. These worms can also jump onto winged insects, but it was not clear how C. elegans could traverse across such long distances, considering their microscopic size. According to the study, winged insects naturally accumulate a charge as they fly, which produces the electric field that C. elegans can travel along.

The team is still not sure just how C. elegans performs this behavior, but it is possible that genetics may play a role. When observing worm species closely related to C. elegans, researchers noted that mutants who can’t sense eclectic fields tend to jump less than their normal counterparts. More research is needed to determine exactly what genes are behind making these jumps, and what other microorganisms can also use electricity to get around.  

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This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

Chinese mitten crabs are a delicacy among some seafood lovers: deeply savory, with a distinctive tinge of sweetness. Diners crack the shells open and eat the meat piping hot, dipped in rice vinegar and soy sauce with sliced ginger. The unique flavor of the crabs, most of which are grown in farms on China’s Yangtze River, is crucial to their popularity. When it comes to seafood, research shows that consumers prioritize taste above all else—including health benefits and environmental sustainability.

“All other things sort of fall by the wayside,” says Grant Murray, a marine policy researcher at Duke University in North Carolina who studies consumer seafood choices. “If it doesn’t look good and smell good and taste good, nobody’s going to buy it.”

Now, new research by biochemists at China’s Soochow University and Kunshan Yangcheng Lake Crab Industrial Research Institute suggests that when coveted mitten crabs are fed black soldier fly larvae, they can be made even tastier.

The researchers swapped out the regular diet of farmed mitten crabs—mostly ground-up fish caught as by-catch—for the lab-grown black soldier fly larvae, which have become a promising alternative aquaculture feed for species from Atlantic salmon to tilapia, carp, and catfish. The larvae are high in protein and fat, and they’re quick, easy, and safe to produce, says Murray, who was not involved in the study.

After feeding 12 captive crabs black soldier fly larvae for two months, the scientists measured the meat for important taste-enhancing amino acids including glutamic acid, which can intensify a food’s umami or savory taste, and glycine and arginine, which determine sweetness and bitterness. These molecules, which are present in the larvae, are deposited in the crustaceans’ tissues as they grow. After eating the larvae, the crabs’ muscles contained higher levels of sweet amino acids and lower levels of bitter amino acids. Male crabs also had more amino acids associated with umami flavor in their gonads, which diners eat with the rest of the crab.

Not everyone is convinced that the shift in amino acids will amount to a tastier crustacean though. It’s plausible, says Charles Spence, a sensory researcher at the University of Oxford in England who was not involved in the study. But taste relies on many factors beyond chemistry, including scent, temperature, texture, cooking method, and what the food is paired with, says Spence. Since a taste test was not part of the study, “who knows what things are going to taste like?” And simply adding flavor enhancers, such as umami-elevating MSG, doesn’t always produce the desired effect, he says, otherwise chefs would be adding salt, sugar, or MSG to every single dish.

In the long run, producing a tastier mitten crab by feeding it a more environmentally friendly feed could be a win-win—driving consumers to eat more sustainably, even when it’s not their primary priority. Yet even if mitten crabs were 10 or 20 percent more delicious, says Murray, that doesn’t mean they’re going to become more popular.

Still, as part of the greater push to green our diets, this may be one way to eat more insects without actually having to eat them yourself.

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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Like the luminous lighting bugs and fireflies that light up the night sky across the United States, glow-worms and their green glow shine across parts of Europe and Asia. These beetles are in the Lampyridae family along with fireflies and more than 2,000 other cousins..

[Related: You can set your watch to this glowing green worm orgy.]

However, as the night skies continue to brighten, animals like the glow-worm are paying the price for the bright lights in big cities. A study published June 13 in the Journal of Experimental Biology finds that white light makes it harder for male glow-worms to find the green glow of females, which has potentially disastrous consequences for the global glow-worm population.

The team from the University of Sussex in England collected glow-worms at night and brought them back to the lab. There, team member Estelle Moubarak carefully transferred the male insects into a makeshift maze shaped like the letter Y. They placed the male glow-worms at the bottom of the Y and put a green LED light mimicking a female’s glow at the top of one of the Y’s arms. The male needed to walk towards the green LED and they recorded how long it took for the male glow-worm to walk towards the fake female. 

The team turned on a white light above the maze that ranged from 25 times brighter than moonlight (25 Lux) to the equivalent to the light beneath a streetlamp (145 Lux). 

All of the glow-worms could find the LED light in the dark. Only 70 percent of the males found the fake female at the dimmest levels of white light, and just 21 percent could find the potential mate at the brightest light the team tested. 

In addition to making it much harder to find a female, the white light caused the male glow-worms to take a longer time to scamper towards the green LED light. In total darkness, it took the insects roughly 48 seconds to reach the fake female. It took those same glow-worms about 60 seconds to find the LED at the lowest levels of white light. 

Illuminating the maze also caused the males to spend more time towards the bottom of the maze without moving towards the green light. In the dark, the glow-worms only spent roughly 32 seconds in the bottom of the Y, while they spent approximately 81 seconds in the bottom of the maze in the brightest conditions.

[Related: Light pollution is messing with coral reproduction.]

The team suggests that the male glow-worms were unable to move towards their potential mates when they were under the dazzling white light, since their compound eyes couldn’t be covered with a head shield. This acts like a pair of sunglasses, which protects their eyes reduces the amount of bright light the insects see. 

The glow-worms shaded their eyes for approximately 25 percent of the trial when the white light lit up the area with the fake female LED. They did this roughly 0.5 percent of the time when the maze was dark.

“Keeping their eyes beneath their head shield shows male glow-worms trying to avoid exposure to the white light which suggests that they strongly dislike it,” study co-author and zoologist Jeremy Niven said in a statement. 

If our skies continue to brighten and this trend stays holds, the twinkling lights of female glow-worms could fall dark.  Some individual methods to reduce light pollution include removing nighttime lighting that is not necessarily needed for public safety, removing all unnecessary light even if it is just one in a backyard, and switching away from white lights to more muted red lights.

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If you see one of the thousands of billions of the planet’s ants on your kitchen counter, it’s never truly just one bug. That lone ant usually signals to an entire colony when there is both food and danger nearby. A study published June 14 in the journal Cell takes a closer look into how certain scent markers that the insects use to communicate with one another activate a specific part of the ant brain, which can then change the behavior of an entire nest. 

[Related: This spider pretends to be an ant, but not well enough to avoid being eaten.]

“Humans aren’t the only animals with complex societies and communication systems,” co-author and neurobiologist at The Rockefeller University Taylor Hart said in a statement. “Over the course of evolution, ants have evolved extremely complex olfactory systems compared to other insects, which allows them to communicate using many different types of pheromones that can mean different things.”

The study suggests that ants do have their own communication centers in their brains, just like humans do. They can interpret the danger-signaling pheromones secreted by other ants—and their olfactory clues are potentially more advanced than that of other insects like honeybees. Earlier studies have suggested that bees rely on multiple parts of their brain to coordinate in response to one single pheromone. 

“There seems to be a sensory hub in the ant brain that all the panic-inducing alarm pheromones feed into,” co-author and evolutionary biologist at The Rockefeller University Daniel Kronauer said in a statement.

In this study, the team looked at clonal raider ants. They used an engineered protein called GCaMP to scan the brain activity of ants that were exposed to danger signals. GCaMP attaches itself to calcium ions, which then flares up with brain activity. A fluorescent chemical compound is then visible on high-resolution microscopes that are adapted to view them.

On these scans, the team saw that only a small part of the ants’ brains lit up in response to danger signals. However, the ants still showed instant and complex behaviors. They named these behaviors the panic response, since the ants evacuated the nest, fled, or transported their offspring away from the nest. 

Species of ants that have different colony sizes also use other pheromones to send a variety of messages. 

“We think that in the wild, clonal raider ants usually have a colony size of just tens to hundreds of individuals, which is pretty small as far as ant colonies go,” said Hart. “Frequently, these small colonies tend to have panic responses as their alarm behavior because their main goal is to get away and survive. They can’t risk a lot of individuals. Army ants, the cousins of the clonal raider ants, have massive colonies—hundreds of thousands or millions of individuals—and they can be much more aggressive.”

[Related: The protein that keeps worker ants in line can also make them queen.]

Ants within a colony meticulously organize themselves by role and caste, and the ants within different castes and roles in the colony also have slight variations in their anatomy. The researchers used clonal raider ants of one sex within one caste and role to ensure consistency. Observing only female worker ants made it easier to observe widespread patterns.

As the team gains a clearer understanding of the neural differences between ant roles, sexes, and castes, which could help them decipher how different ant brains process the same danger signals.

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What we experience each day makes an impact on us, good or bad. After all, starting your morning with a smile from a loved one will brighten your mood quite a bit more than driving past roadkill on your a.m. commute. But, depending on how drastic the circumstances, witnessing something can have effects that last much longer than  the afternoon. 

For years, scientists have wondered and studied how exposure to certain things, such as childhood trauma or stress, impacts the way that we age. In an ongoing set of experiments, they’ve had fruit flies sub in for humans. As it turns out, when tiny insects see or smell something tragic, that has an impact on how quickly the invertebrates age.

[Related: Horny male fruit flies plunge into chaos when exposed to air pollution.]

For a study published in 2019, a group of scientists from the University of Michigan discovered that when a fruit fly or Drosophila melanogaster was exposed to a dead fruit fly, this exposure induced cues that were unattractive to other flies, changed their brain chemistry, decreased their fat stores, reduced starvation resistance, and accelerated aging. These kinds of reactions aren’t exactly rare—the authors cite how certain social insects like ants will move dead bodies out of their living spaces. Elephants, too, vocalize and inspect corpses when in the presence of dead elephants, and when female baboons mourn their dead they experience increased stress hormones.

The team now understands a bit more about what’s going on in a fly’s tiny brain upon seeing their deceased brethren, and published these findings in PLOS Biology on June 13.  For this latest experiment, the team investigated neural circuits and central signaling processes in the brains of traumatized Drosophila. 

[Related: Flies evolved before dinosaurs—and survived an apocalyptic world after the Permian extinction.]

The researchers used fluorescent tagging to see what occurred in the brain, and when exposed to other dead flies, there was an increased activity in the ellipsoid body. This part of the brain harbors cells called laminated ring neuron axons, which supply the ellipsoid body with nerves, and mediates sensory integration and motor coordination. To see which ring neurons were associated with this response, the researchers silenced them one by one. This revealed two ring neuron axons that hold a specific receptor, which binds with the messenger molecule serotonin, were necessary for the response. Later, the researchers artificially activated these same neurons and found that fruit fly life spans shrunk when they were turned on, even if the insect hadn’t come in contact with a dead fly previously. 

In a world obsessed with aging—how to prevent it, how to slow it, or even stop it altogether—this kind of research can, according to the researchers, help develop drugs that pause the clock for humans. But until then, the takeaway here is that even for creatures that are only a tenth to a fifth of an inch in size, coming to terms with death is complicated.

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From an ecological standpoint, most ants are great—they aerate soil, clean up organic matter, and help to spread plant seeds. Fire ants, on the other hand… well, you probably already know. The incredibly painful, invasive pests can cause serious harm to their surroundings by disrupting food chains and causing general chaos. It only takes one accidental encounter with the little monsters to know that you never want a repeat experience, but a new AI-powered robotic system could help reduce the number of painful run-ins by locating hives for eradication—no awful ant bites needed.

[Related: The terrifying way fire ants take advantage of hurricane floods.]

According to a new preprint paper highlighted on Friday by New Scientist, researchers at China’s Lanzhou University recently trained an open-source AI system on images of fire ant nests from varying angles and environmental conditions. From there, the engineers installed their program onto a quadrupedal Xiaomi CyberDog, then tasked it to survey 300-square-meter nursery gardens for ant mounds. Once a hive was located, the robot dog “pawed” at it to disturb its residents, after which researchers stepped in to analyze the insects’ numbers and aggression levels to determine regular species from the invasive fire ants.

Impressively, the team’s ant-finding robot dog far outperformed three human control surveyors, even after each received an hour of pest identification and management training. Both the robot and its human competitors searched the same nursery fields for 10 minutes, but the AI system detected three times more nests while also identifying them more accurately at a 95 percent precision rate. The search robot reportedly only fell short when it came to identifying smaller nests recently founded by a colony’s queen.

[Related: Save caterpillars by turning off your outdoor lights.]

Although in its early stages, researchers say that such a system utilizing a more advanced robot boasting more battery life, maneuverability, and speed could optimize its fire ant search-and-destroy missions. 

But then again, with an estimated 20 quadrillion ants across the world, even the most advanced future ant-identifying robots will likely have their work cut out for them.

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Bees are not just the only precious pollinators in need of strong conservation and protection efforts. A study published June 5 in the journal Ecology Letters found that not only do night-time pollinators such as moths likely visit just as many plants as bees, but they may be less resilient than bees due to their more complex life cycle and more specific plant requirements.

[Related: Move over, bees: The lowly weevil is a power pollinator.]

The study also found that despite these threats and pressures, moths play a critical role in supporting plant communities in urban settings, accounting for roughly a third of all pollination in trees, crops, and flowering plants. In more urbanized areas, the diversity of pollen that is carried by bees and moths decreases, and the urban pollinators have fewer flower resources available.  

The team behind the study suggests that supporting the introduction of plant species that are beneficial to moths and bees will only be more important to the health of urban ecosystems. 

“As moths and bees both rely on plants for survival, plant populations also rely on insects for pollination,” study co-author and pollinator ecologist at the University of Sheffield Emilie Ellis said in a statement. “Protecting urban green spaces and ensuring they are developed in such a way that moves beyond bee-only conservation but also supports a diverse array of wildlife, will ensure both bee and moth populations remain resilient and our towns and cities remain healthier, greener places.”

According to the study, bees and moths also visit very different plant communities. Moths were found to be carrying more pollen than previously believed, and tend to visit more types of trees and fruit crops, along with their usual pale fragrant flower species. Urbanized areas can sometimes have less diversity in plant species and an overabundance of non-native plant species. These can both lead to lower insect interactions for less attractive plant species, which harms both insect and plant populations. 

The team used DNA sequencing to identify the pollen that sticks to night-flying moths as they visit flowers. This analysis revealed the wide range of plant species that are not likely pollinated by bees.

[Related: The alluring tail of the Luna moth is surprisingly useless for finding a mate.]

“It’s clear from this study that pollination is achieved by complex networks of insects and plants, and these networks may be delicate, and sensitive to urbanization,” co-author and University of Sheffield evolutionary and chemical ecologist Stuart Campbell said in a statement. “We can also learn which plant species might be the best sources of food for different insects, including nocturnal ones like adult moths, and use that information to better provide for all our pollinators”.

Better understanding how crucial moths are to pollinating plants has implications for urban planning, policy, and wildlife-friendly garden initiatives, especially since populations have dropped by about 33 percent in the United Kingdom over the past half century alone.

“When planning green spaces, consideration needs to be given to ensure planting is diverse and moth-friendly as well as bee-friendly, to ensure both our plants and insects remain resilient in the face of the climate crisis and further losses,” said Ellis.

Some advice for making your own garden more pollinator friendly include using plants that attract both specialist pollinators and generalist pollinators, planting a wide variety of plant species, and keeping those weeds growing.

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This article was originally published on Undark.

It could have been a scene from Jurassic Park: ten golden lumps of hardened resin, each encasing insects. But these weren’t from the age of the dinosaurs; these younger resins were formed in eastern Africa within the last few hundreds or thousands of years. Still, they offered a glimpse into a lost past: the dry evergreen forests of coastal Tanzania.

An international team of scientists recently took a close look at the lumps, which had been first collected more than a century ago by resin traders and then housed at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. Many of the insects encased within them were stingless bees, tropical pollinators that can get stuck in the sticky substance while gathering it to construct nests. Three of the species still live in Africa, but two had such a unique combination of features that last year, the scientists reported them to be new to science: Axestotrigona kitingae and Hypotrigona kleineri.

Species discoveries can be joyous occasions, but not in this case. Eastern African forests have nearly disappeared in the past century, and neither bee species has been spotted in surveys conducted in the area since the 1990s, noted coauthor and entomologist Michael Engel, who recently moved from a position at the University of Kansas to the American Museum of Natural History. Given that these social bees are usually abundant, it’s unlikely that the people looking for insects had simply missed them. Sometime in the last 50 to 60 years, Engel suspects, the bees vanished along with their habitat.

“It seems trivial on a planet with millions of species to sit back and go, ‘Okay, well, you documented two stingless bees that were lost,’” Engel said. “But it’s really far more troubling than that,” he added, because scientists increasingly recognize that extinction is “a very common phenomenon.”

The stingless bees are part of an overlooked but growing trend of species that are already deemed extinct by the time they’re discovered. Scientists have identified new species of bats, birds, beetles, fish, frogs, snails, orchids, lichen, marsh plants, and wildflowers by studying old museum specimens, only to find that they are at risk of vanishing or may not exist in the wild anymore. Such discoveries illustrate how little is still known about Earth’s biodiversity and the mounting scale of extinctions. They also hint at the silent extinctions among species that haven’t yet been described — what scientists call dark extinctions.

It’s critical to identify undescribed species and the threats they face, said Martin Cheek, a botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the United Kingdom, because if experts and policymakers don’t know an endangered species exists, they can’t take action to preserve it. With no way to count how many undescribed species are going extinct, researchers also risk underestimating the scale of human-caused extinctions — including the loss of ecologically vital species like pollinators. And if species go extinct unnoticed, scientists also miss the chance to capture the complete richness of life on Earth for future generations. “I think we want to have a full assessment of humans’ impact on nature,” said theoretical ecologist Ryan Chisholm of the National University of Singapore. “And to do that, we need to take account of these dark extinctions as well as the extinctions that we know about.”

Many scientists agree that humans have pushed extinctions higher than the natural rate of species turnover, but nobody knows the actual toll. In the tens of millions of years before humans came along, scientists estimate that for every 10,000 species, between 0.1 and 2 went extinct each century. (Even these rates are uncertain because many species didn’t leave behind fossils.) Some studies suggest that extinction rates picked up at least in the past 10,000 years as humans expanded across the globe, hunting large mammals along the way.

Islands were particularly hard hit, for instance in the Pacific, where Polynesian settlers introduced pigs and rats that wiped out native species. Then, starting in the 16th century, contact with European explorers caused additional extinctions in many places by intensifying habitat loss and the introduction of invasive species — issues that often continued in places that became colonies. But again, scientists have a poor record of biodiversity during this time; some species’ extinctions were only recognized much later, most famously the dodo, which had disappeared by 1700 after 200 years of Europeans hunting and then settling on the island in the Indian Ocean island it inhabited.

Key drivers of extinction, such as industrialization, have ramped up ever since. For the past century, some scientists have estimated an average of 200 extinctions per 10,000 species— levels so high that they believe they portend a mass extinction, a term reserved for geological events of the scale of the ordeal that annihalated the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Yet some scientists, including the authors of those estimates, caution that even these numbers are conservative. The figures are based on the Red List compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, a bookkeeper of species and their conservation statuses. As several experts have noted, the organization is slow to declare species extinct, wary that if the classification is wrong, they may cause threatened species to lose protections.

The Red List doesn’t include undescribed species, which some estimate could account for roughly 86 percent of the possibly 8.7 million species on Earth. That’s partly due to the sheer numbers of the largest species groups like invertebrates, plants, and fungi, especially in the little-explored regions around the tropics. It’s also because there are increasingly fewer experts to describe them due to a widespread lack of funding and training, noted conservation ecologist Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ocampo-Peñuela told Undark that she has no doubt that many species are going extinct without anyone noticing. “I think it is a phenomenon that will continue to happen and that it maybe has happened a lot more than we realize,” she said.

Studies of animal and plant specimens in museum and herbaria collections can uncover some of these dark extinctions. This can happen when scientists take a closer look at or conduct DNA analysis on specimens believed to represent known species and realize that these have actually been mislabeled, and instead represent new species that haven’t been seen in the wild in decades. Such a case unfolded recently for the ichthyologist Wilson Costa of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, who has long studied the diversity of killifish inhabiting southeastern Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. These fish live in shady, tea-colored acidic pools that form during the rainy season and lay eggs that survive through the dry period. These fragile conditions make these species extremely vulnerable to changes in water supply or deforestation, Costa wrote to Undark via email.

In 2019, Costa discovered that certain fish specimens collected in the 1980s weren’t members of Leptopanchax splendens, as previously believed, but actually represented a new species, which he called Leptopanchax sanguineus. With a few differences, both fish sport alternating red and metallic blue stripes on their flanks. While Leptopanchax splendens is critically endangered, Leptopanchax sanguineus hasn’t been spotted at all since its last collection in 1987. Pools no longer form where it was first found, probably because a nearby breeding facility for ornamental fish has diverted the water supply, said Costa, who has already witnessed the extinctions of several killifish species. “In the case discussed here, it was particularly sad because it is a species with unique characteristics and unusual beauty,” he added, “the product of millions of years of evolution stupidly interrupted.”

Similar discoveries have come from undescribed specimens, which exist in troves for diverse and poorly-studied groups of species, such as the land snails that have evolved across Pacific Islands. The mollusk specialist Alan Solem estimated in 1990 that, of roughly 200 Hawaiian species of one snail family, the Endodontidae, in Honolulu’s Bishop Museum, fewer than 40 had been described. All but a few are now likely extinct, said University of Hawaii biologist Robert Cowie, perhaps because invasive ants feasted off the snails’ eggs, which this snail family carries in a cavity underneath their shells. Meanwhile, Cheek said he’s publishing more and more new plant species from undescribed herbaria specimens that are likely already extinct in the wild.

Sometimes, though, it’s hard to identify species based on individual specimens, noted botanist Naomi Fraga, who directs conservation programs at the California Botanic Garden. And describing new species is not often a research priority. Studies that report new species aren’t often cited by other scientists, and they typically also don’t help towards pulling in new funding, both of which are key to academic success, Cheek said. One 2012 study concluded it takes an average of 21 years for a collected species to be formally described in the scientific literature. The authors added that if these difficulties — and the general dearth of taxonomists — persist, experts will continue to find extinct species in museum collections, “just as astronomers observe stars that vanished thousands of years ago.”

Museum records may only represent a fraction of undescribed species, causing some scientists to worry that many species could disappear unnoticed. For some groups, like snails, this is less likely, as extinct species may leave behind a shell that serves as a record of their existence even if collectors weren’t around to collect live specimens, noted Cowie. For instance, this allowed scientists to identify nine new and already-extinct species of helicinid land snails by combing the Gambier Islands in the Pacific for empty shells and combining these with specimens that already existed in museums. However, Cowie worries about the many invertebrates such as insects and spiders that won’t leave behind long-lasting physical remains. “What I worry about is that all this squishy biodiversity will just vanish without leaving a trace, and we’ll never know existed,” Cowie said.

Even some species that are found while they are still alive are already on the brink. In fact, research suggests that it’s precisely the newly described species that tend to have the highest risk of going extinct. Many new species are only now being discovered because they’re rare, isolated, or both — factors that also make them easier to wipe out, said Fraga. In 2018 in Guinea, for instance, botanist Denise Molmou of the National Herbarium of Guinea in Conakry discovered a new plant species which, like many of its relatives, appeared to inhabit a single waterfall, enveloping rocks amid the bubbly, air-rich water. Molmou was the last known person to see it alive.

Just before her team published their findings in the Kew Bulletin last year, Cheek looked at the waterfall’s location on Google Earth. A reservoir, created by a hydroelectric dam downriver, had flooded the waterfall, surely drowning any plants there, Cheek said. “Had we not got in there, and Denise had not gotten that specimen, we would not know that that species existed,” he added. “I felt sick, I felt, you know, it’s hopeless, like what’s the point?” Even if the team had known at the point of discovery that the dam was going to wipe it out, Cheek said, “it’d be quite difficult to do anything about it.”

While extinction is likely for many of these cases, it’s often hard to prove. The IUCN requires targeted searches to declare an extinction — something that Costa is still planning on doing for the killifish, four years after its discovery. But these surveys cost money, and aren’t always possible.

Meanwhile, some scientists have turned to computational techniques to estimate the scale of dark extinction, by extrapolating rates of species discovery and extinctions among known species. When Chisholm’s group applied this method to the estimated 195 species of birds in Singapore, they estimated that 9.6 undescribed species have vanished from the area in the past 200 years, in addition to the disappearance of 58 known species. For butterflies in Singapore, accounting for dark extinction roughly doubled the extinction toll of 132 known species.

Using similar approaches, a different research team estimated that the proportion of dark extinctions could account for up to just over a half of all extinctions, depending on the region and species group. Of course, “the main challenge in estimating dark extinction is that it is exactly that: an estimate. We can never be sure,” noted Quentin Cronk, a botanist of the University of British Columbia who has produced similar estimates.

Considering the current trends, some scientists doubt whether it’s even possible to name all species before they go extinct. To Cowie, who expressed little optimism extinctions will abate, the priority should be collecting species, especially invertebrates, from the wild so there will at least be museum specimens to mark their existence. “It’s sort of doing a disservice to our descendants if we let everything just vanish such that 200 years from now, nobody would know the biodiversity — the true biodiversity — that had evolved in the Amazon, for instance,” he said. “I want to know what lives and lived on this Earth,” he continued. “And it’s not just dinosaurs and mammoths and what have you; it’s all these little things that make the world go round.”

Other scientists, like Fraga, find hope in the fact that the presumption of extinction is just that — a presumption. As long as there’s still habitat, there’s a slim chance that species deemed extinct can be rediscovered and returned to healthy populations. In 2021, Japanese scientists stumbled across the fairy lantern Thismia kobensis, a fleshy orange flower only known from a single specimen collected in 1992. Now efforts are underway to protect its location and cultivate specimens for conservation.

Fraga is tracking down reported sightings of a monkeyflower species she identified in herbaria specimens: Erythranthe marmorata, which has bright yellow petals with red spots. Ultimately, she said, species are not just names. They are participants of ecological networks, upon which many other species, including humans, depend.

“We don’t want museum specimens,” she said. “We want to have thriving ecosystems and habitats. And in order to do that, we need to make sure that these species are thriving in, you know, populations in their ecological context, not just living in a museum.”

Katarina Zimmer is a science journalist. Her work has been published in The Scientist, National Geographic, Grist, Outside Magazine, and more.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

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Testing the viability of an injectable medical sensor by first strapping it to a bee’s back like a tiny bee backpack may not initially make the most sense. But are you really going to question researchers’ motives for something that looks so cute?

As detailed in a paper published earlier this week in Science, a team at Philips Research in Hamburg, Germany recently designed a 1-millimeter-wide sensor employing two opposing magneto-mechanical resonators (MMRs) within a cylindrical casing. They then attached the sensor to a honeybee just above its wings, and released the insect into a small enclosure featuring a variety of flowers to hop between.

Researchers wirelessly checked the sensor’s conditions by remotely stimulating the MMRs with pulses of current from electromagnetic coils. How much the magnets oscillated, the distance between them, as well as how much they contracted and expanded subsequently helped the team measure its location, pressure, and temperature. MMRs are generally far more sensitive than other, similar radiofrequency trackers, and are thus also capable of three-dimensional spatial tracking. As such, researchers could track the bee’s flight patterns, as well as its positioning as it walked upside down across the case’s ceiling.

[Related: Neuralink human brain-computer implant trials finally get FDA approval.]

The sensor didn’t only stay strapped to its bee test subject—researchers also experimented with using their device to three-dimensionally chart its path through a lengthy, twisting tube simulating a gastrointestinal tract. And if that weren’t enough, the sensor also helped navigate a biopsy needle in a simulated environment, as well as recorded the paths of a writing marker tracing continents’ outlines on a globe.

Although the team estimates their device is still between 5 and 8 years away from becoming available to the public, they believe that the sensor could prove extremely useful in a variety of medical settings. For example, such a sensor could one day be implanted directly in a patient’s heart to measure arterial blood pressure, or within tumors to observe their progress or eradication. A safe, ingestible pill to assess GI tract health is also easily foreseeable for such a small sensor.

That’s all well and good, but would all be worth it alone to see more bees buzzing around gardens with miniature fanny packs.

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Last month, engineers at Georgia Institute of Technology unveiled a creepy, crawly centipede-inspired robot sporting a plethora of tiny legs. The multitude of extra limbs wasn’t simply meant to pay homage to the arthropods, but rather to improve the robot’s maneuverability across difficult terrains while simultaneously reducing the number of complicated sensor systems. Not to be outdone, a separate team of researchers at Japan just showed off their own biomimetic “myriapod” robot which leverages natural environmental instabilities to move in curved motions, thus reducing its computational and energy requirements.

[Related: To build a better crawly robot, add legs—lots of legs.]

As detailed in an article published in Soft Robotics, a team at Osaka University’s Mechanical Science and Bioengineering department recently created a 53-inch-long robot composed of six segments, each sporting two legs alongside agile joints. In a statement released earlier this week, study co-author Shinya Aoi explained their team was inspired by certain “extremely agile” insects able to utilize their own dynamic instability to quickly change movement and direction. To mimic its natural counterparts, the robot included tiny motors that controlled an adjustable screw to increase or decrease each segment’s flexibility while in motion. This leads to what’s known as “pitchfork bifurcation.” Basically, the forward-moving centipede robot becomes unstable.

But instead of tipping over or stopping, the robot can employ that bifurcation to begin moving in curved patterns to the left or right, depending on the circumstances. Taking advantage of this momentum allowed the team to control their robot extremely efficiently, and with much less computational complexity than other walking bots.

As impressive as many bipedal robots now are, their two legs can often prove extremely fragile and susceptible to failure. What’s more, losing control of one of those limbs can easily render the machine inoperable. Increasing the number of limbs a lá a centipede robot, creates system redundancies that also expand the terrains it can handle. “We can foresee applications in a wide variety of scenarios, such as search and rescue, working in hazardous environments or exploration on other planets,” explained Mau Adachi, one of the paper’s other co-authors.

[Related: NASA hopes its snake robot can search for alien life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.]

Such serpentine robots are attracting the attention of numerous researchers across the world. Last month, NASA announced the latest advancements on its Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS), a snake-bot intended to potentially one day search Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus for signs of extraterrestrial life. Although EELS utilizes a slithering movement via “rotating propulsion units,” it’s not hard to envision it doing so alongside a “myriapod” partner—an image that’s as cute as it is exciting.

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Termites are often thought to be structural pests, but two researchers have taken a slightly contrarian viewpoint. As detailed in a new paper recently published in Frontiers in Materials, David Andréen of Lund University and Rupert Soar of Nottingham Trent University studied termites’ tens of millions of years of architectural experience exhibited within their massive mounds. According to the duo’s findings, the insects’ abilities could inspire a new generation of green, energy efficient architecture.

Termites are responsible for building the tallest biological structures in the world, with the biggest mound ever recorded measuring an astounding 42-feet-high. These insects aren’t randomly building out their homes, however—in fact, the structures are meticulously designed to make the most of the environment around them. Termite mounds in Namibia, for example, rely on intricate, interconnected tunnels known as an “egress complex.” As explained in Frontiers’ announcement, these mounds’ complexes grow northward during the November-to-April rainy season in order to be directly exposed to the midday sun. Throughout the rest of the year, however, termites block these egress tunnels, thus regulating ventilation and moisture levels depending on the season.

To better study the architectural intricacies, Andréen and Soar created a 3D-printed copy of an egress complex fragment. They then used a speaker to simulate winds by sending oscillating amounts of CO2-air mixture through the model while tracking mass transference rates. Turbulence within the mound depended on the frequency of oscillation, which subsequently moved excess moisture and respiratory gasses away from the inner mound.

[Related: Termites work through wood faster when it’s hotter out.]

From there, the team created a series of 2D models of the egress complex. After driving an oscillating amount of water through these lattice-like tunnels via an electromotor, Andréen and Soar found that the machine only needed to move air a few millimeters back-and-forth to force the water throughout the entire model. The researchers discovered termites only need small amounts of wind power to ventilate their mounds’ egress complex.

The researchers believe integrating the egress complex design into future buildings’ walls could create promising green architecture threaded with tiny air passageways. This could hypothetically be accomplished via technology such as powder bed printers alongside low-energy sensors and actuators to move air throughout the structures.

“When ventilating a building, you want to preserve the delicate balance of temperature and humidity created inside, without impeding the movement of stale air outwards and fresh air inwards,” explained Soar, adding the egress complex is “an example of a complicated structure that could solve multiple problems simultaneously: keeping comfort inside our homes, while regulating the flow of respiratory gasses and moisture through the building envelope,” with minimal to no A/C necessary. Once realized, the team believes society may soon see the introduction of “true living, breathing” buildings.

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When it comes to the critical process of pollination, butterflies and especially bees are typically the most lauded participants. These pollinators fly from flower to flower to feed and fertilize plants by spreading pollen around. But, these fluttery creatures are far from the only species that help flowers reproduce and bloom. It turns out that some of nature’s most unsung and diverse pollinators are a type of long-snouted beetles called weevils.

[Related: Build a garden that’ll have pollinators buzzin’.]

A study published May 25 in the journal Peer Community in Ecology wiggles into the world of weevils, including some who spend their entire lifecycle in tandem with a specific plant they help pollinate. 

“Even people who work on pollination don’t usually consider weevils as one of the main pollinators, and people who work on weevils don’t usually consider pollination as something relevant to the group,” study co-author and assistant curator of insects at the Field Museum in Chicago said in a statement. “There are lots of important things that people are missing because of preconceptions.”

The quarter-of-an-inch long  weevils can be considered pests, especially when found munching on pasta and flour in pantries. Weevils used to find their way into the biscuits on Nineteenth Century ships that even highly ranked officers ate, as depicted in the 2003 seafaring film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. They can be so destructive that from 1829 to 1920, boll weevils completely disrupted the cotton economy in the South as they fed on cotton buds. 

Despite this less than stellar reputation, the insects are still beneficial to many of the world’s plant species. 

Scientists have identified roughly 400,000 species of beetles, making them one of the largest groups of animals in the world. Among this already big bunch of bugs, weevils are the largest group. “There are 60,000 species of weevils that we know about, which is about the same as the number of all vertebrate animals put together,” said de Medeiros.

The authors looked at 600 species of weevil, reviewing hundreds of previously published data on how weevils and plants interact to get a better sense of their role as prime pollinators. It focused on brood-site pollinators—insects that use the same plants that they pollinate as the breeding sites for their larvae. It is similar to the relationship between Monarch butterflies and milkweed, which is the only plant that Monarch caterpillars can eat. 

“It is a special kind of pollination interaction because it is usually associated with high specialization: because the insects spend their whole life cycle in the plant, they often only pollinate that plant,” said de Medeiros.  And because the plants have very reliable pollinators, they mostly use those pollinators.” 

[Related: This lawn-mowing robot can save part of your yard for pollinators.]

Unlike Monarchs, brood-site pollinators take the relationship with the plant a step further. They rely on only one plant partner as a source for both food and egg laying, unlike adult Monarchs who will eat the nectar of many different types of flowers. 

“This kind of pollination interaction is generally thought to be rare or unusual,” said de Medeiros. “In this study, we show that there are hundreds of weevil species and plants for which this has been documented already, and many, many more yet to be discovered.”

The relationship like the one between weevils and their plants means that they both need each other to flourish. Some industries, like palm oil,  have already hurt forests, therefore disturbing the animal species that rely on them. 

“Oil palm, which is used to make peanut butter and Nutella, was not a viable industry until someone figured out that the weevils found with them were their pollinators. And because people had an incorrect preconception that weevils were not pollinators, it took much, much longer than it could have taken,” said de Medeiros.

Misconceptions about weevils were one of this team’s motivations for the study. The team hopes that by summarizing what is known about the pollinators, more scientists and the general public appreciate the role of weevils as pollinators, particularly in the tropics. 

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Excerpted from The Jewel Box: How Moths Illuminate Nature’s Hidden Rules by Tim Blackburn. Copyright © 2023. Published by Island Press.

The composition and structure of ecological communities doesn’t only depend on what happens in their immediate vicinity. Events in the wider environment are important, too. All of nature is connected. This is why migration matters.

Indeed, migrants have never mattered so much. Humanity has destroyed a substantial proportion of natural habitat worldwide, and much of what is left is now heavily fragmented—small islands in a sea of inhospitable cropland, pasture, or concrete. The populations they house will be small, too, and susceptible to the vagaries of bad
luck. Luckily, as we’ve seen, fragmented populations can still persist if they are connected by migrants. Migrants can bolster birth rates and counteract death rates, preventing population extinction and recolonizing sites when local extinction does take populations out. Humanity’s fragmentation of nature has only increased the relevance of these dynamics.

Migration can ameliorate some of the damage caused by fragmentation, but only some. Metapopulations are most secure when there is a large “mainland” population acting as a plentiful source of immigrants. Unfortunately, habitat destruction tends to reduce the extent and productivity of such mainlands, to the detriment of surrounding patches dependent on their largesse. Remaining fragments are often viewed as unimportant from a biodiversity perspective, but destroying them can increase the distance between surviving patches, and so lower the likelihood of colonization. When colonization rates are lower than extinction rates, populations will eventually disappear. More isolated habitat fragments have fewer species, moths and others.

On top of that, not all species are well adapted for a peripatetic lifestyle. Female vaporer moths, for example, lack wings, essentially being furry sacks for laying eggs. They are ill equipped for moving between habitat fragments. Likewise, winter moth, mottled umber, and early moth—all widespread species I’ve trapped in Devon but not in London, where the patchy nature of suitable habitat does them no favors. Even apparently mobile species often will not move far, like the cinnabar moth. Many skulking bird species of the Amazon rainforest understory evidently will not cross open spaces to the extent that major rivers in this basin become boundaries to their geographic distributions.

Specialists on certain habitats or food plants will fare especially badly when fragmentation increases. Species like the scarce pug, which in Britain feeds only on sea wormwood on a few east coast salt marshes. Extensive coastal development means that salt marshes are rarer and more-fragmented habitats than of old, and these are the only habitat of sea wormwood in Britain. Greater distances between suitable patches reduces the chances that dispersing individuals will find them, to colonize or rescue.

Migrants can also allow species to respond to changes in conditions— to take advantage of new opportunities as they develop, or escape from sinking ships. This is especially important in the face of the ongoing climate crisis. When environmental conditions change beyond the physiological tolerances of individuals, the species has only three options: adapt, move, or go extinct. The current speed of environmental change makes adaptation difficult, especially for those with slower life histories, leaving movement as the best option for survival.

Unfortunately, the ability of species to track changes in the climate is significantly hampered by habitat destruction and fragmentation. It’s easy for populations to move through continuous tracts of habitat. But remember the effects of area and isolation on the species richness of islands: small, remote pockets of habitat are harder targets for dispersing individuals to hit. Humanity has increased the need for species to move while simultaneously making it harder for them to do so.

We can help, though—right? If species need to move, we can step in and do the leg work. It’s called assisted colonization—the translocation of individuals beyond the current limits of their distribution in order to conserve species that would otherwise go extinct thanks to their inability to reach new areas in the face of a changing environment. Humans have been moving species around for all sorts of reasons for millennia now. Why not for conservation?

Well, precisely because of those species we’ve moved—the impacts of pesky aliens like the box-tree moth. In truth, that species is second division when it comes to damage. Other aliens have been much worse. I’ve already mentioned cats and rats, but take the rosy wolfsnail. It was moved to several islands across the Pacific to control populations of another alien, the giant African land snail, but instead ate its way through the entire world populations of more than 130 other snail species. Alien diseases can wipe out naïve host populations, like the fungal pathogens Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and B. salamadrovirans that, between them, have been responsible for the extinction of almost 100 amphibian species worldwide, and population declines in hundreds more. Alien plants can modify ecosystems to their own advantage, and suppress native plant species. Native birds tend to do worse in habitats dominated by alien plants, because their insect prey often cannot make a living on those plants. Aliens in general have been associated with the global extinction of more species in the last 500 years than any other human intervention, including habitat destruction. They remain one of the main drivers of global population declines.

It’s trebly ironic that not only has humanity caused problems for species by increasing the need for them to move while simultaneously making it harder for them to do so, but also has caused problems for some species by moving others. The pressure for assisted colonization is growing, but we are rightly wary of taking species to places where they have no prior history.

Buy The Jewel Box by Tim Blackburn here.

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Up until 100 million years ago, butterflies were night creatures. Only nocturnal moths were living on Earth until some rogue moths began to fly during the day. These enterprising members of the order Lepidoptera took advantage of the nectar-rich flowers that had co-evolved with bees by flying during the day. From there, close to 19,000 butterfly species were born.

[Related: Save caterpillars by turning off your outdoor lights.]

In 2019, a large-scale analysis of DNA helped solve the question of when they evolved. Now,  the mystery of where in the world colorful winged insects evolved plagues lepidopterists and museum curators. A study published May 15 in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution found that butterflies likely evolved in North and Central America, and they forged strong botanical bonds with host plants as they settled around the world.

Getting to this conclusion took a four-dimensional puzzle that makes 3D chess look like a game of Candyland. Scientists from multiple countries had to assemble a massive “butterfly tree of life” using 100 million years of natural history on their distribution and favorite plants, as well as the DNA of more than 2,000 species representing 90 percent of butterfly genera and all butterfly families. 

Within the data were 11 rare butterfly fossils that proved to be crucial pieces to the story.  Butterflies are not common in the fossil record due to their thin wings and very threadlike hair. The 11 in this study were used as calibration and comparison points on the genetic trees, so the team could record timing of key evolutionary events.

They found that butterflies first appeared somewhere in central and western North America. 100 million years ago, North America was bisected by an expansive seaway called the Western Interior Seaway. Present day Mexico was joined in an arc with the United States, Canada, and Russia. North and South America were also separated by a strait of water that butterflies had little difficulty crossing.

The study believes that butterflies took a long way around to Africa, first moving into Asia along the Bering Land Bridge. They then radiated into Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and eventually the Horn of Africa. They were even able to reach India, which was an isolated island separated by miles of open sea at this time. 

[Related: The monarch butterfly is scientifically endangered. So why isn’t it legally protected yet?]

Australia was still connected to Antarctica, one of the last remnants of the supercontinent Pangaea. Butterflies possibly lived in Antarctica when global temperatures were warmer, and made their way north towards Australia before the landmasses broke up. 

Butterflies likely lingered along the western edge of Asia for up to 45 million years before making the journey into Europe. The effects of this pause are still apparent today, according to the authors. 

“Europe doesn’t have many butterfly species compared to other parts of the world, and the ones it does have can often be found elsewhere. Many butterflies in Europe are also found in Siberia and Asia, for example,” study co-author and curator of lepidoptera at the Florida Museum of Natural History Akito Kawahara said in a statement. 

Once butterflies were established all over the world, they rapidly diversified alongside their plant hosts. Nearly all modern butterfly families were on Earth by the time dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago. Each butterfly family appears to have had a special affinity for a specific group of plants.

“We looked at this association over an evolutionary timescale, and in pretty much every family of butterflies, bean plants came out to be the ancestral hosts,” Kawahara said. “This was true in the ancestor of all butterflies as well.”

Over time, bean plants have increased their roster of pollinators to include multiple types of bees, flies, hummingbirds, and mammals, while butterflies have similarly expanded their palate. These botanical partnerships helped make butterflies blossom from a minor offshoot of moths to one of the world’s largest groups of insects, according to the study.

“The evolution of butterflies and flowering plants has been inexorably intertwined since the origin of the former, and the close relationship between them has resulted in remarkable diversification events in both lineages,” study co-author and Florida Museum curator Pamela Soltis said in a statement. 

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This month marks the fifth anniversary of “No Mow May,” an annual environmental project dedicated to promoting sustainable, eco-friendly lawns via a 31-day landscaping moratorium. In doing so, the brief respite gives bees and other pollinators a chance to do what they do best: contribute to a vibrant, healthy, and biodiverse ecosystem. To keep the No Mow May momentum going, Swedish tech company Husqvarna has announced a new, simple feature for its line of robotic lawnmowers: a “rewilding” mode that ensures 10 percent of owners’ lawns remain untouched for pollinators and other local wildlife.

While meticulously manicured lawns are part of the traditional suburban American mindset, they come at steep ecological costs such as biodiversity loss and massive amounts of water waste. The Natural Resource Defense Council, for instance, estimates that grass lawns consume almost 3 trillion gallons of water each year alongside 200 million gallons of gas for traditional mowers, as well as another 70 million pounds of harmful pesticides. In contrast, rewilding is a straightforward, self-explanatory concept long pushed by environmentalists and sustainability experts that encourages a return to regionally native flora for all-around healthier ecosystems.

[Related: Build a garden that’ll have pollinators buzzin’.]

While convincing everyone to adopt rewilding practices may seem like a near-term impossibility, companies like Husqvarna are hoping to set the literal and figurative lawnmower rolling with its new autopilot feature. According to Husqvarna’s announcement, if Europeans set aside just a tenth of their lawns, the cumulative area would amount to four times the size of the continent’s largest nature preserve.

Enabling the Rewilding Mode only takes a few taps within the product line’s Automower Connect app, and can be customized to change the overall shape, size, and placement of the rewilding zones. Once established, the robotic mower’s onboard GPS systems ensure which areas of an owner’s lawn are off-limits and reserved for bees, butterflies, and whatever else wants to set up shop.

Of course, turning on Rewilding Mode means owning a Husqvarna robotic mower that supports the setting—and at a minimum of around $700 for such a tool, they might be out of many lawn care enthusiasts’ budgets. Even so, that doesn’t mean you should abandon giving rewilding a try for your own lawns. It’s easy to get started on the project, and as its name suggests, doesn’t take much maintenance once it’s thriving. If nothing else, there’s still two weeks left in No Mow May, so maybe consider postponing your weekend outdoor chore for a few more days.

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Sadly, vitamins and supplements will not really keep the mosquitoes from biting you this summer, but scientists are still trying to figure out why the insects seem to love sucking some blood more than others.

[Related: How can we control mosquitos? Deactivate their sperm.]

In a small study published May 10 in the journal iScience, a team of researchers looked at the possible effects that soap has on mosquitoes. While some soaps did appear to repel the bugs and others attracted them, the effects varied greatly based on how the soap interacts with an individual’s unique odor profile.

“It’s remarkable that the same individual that is extremely attractive to mosquitoes when they are unwashed can be turned even more attractive to mosquitoes with one soap, and then become repellent or repulsive to mosquitoes with another soap,” co-author and Virginia Tech neuroethologist Clément Vinauger said in a statement.

Soaps and other stink-reducing products have been used for millennia, and while we know that they change our perception of another person’s natural body odor, it is less clear if soap also acts this way for mosquitoes. Since mosquitoes mainly feed on plant nectar and not animal blood alone, using plant-mimicking or plant-derived scents may confuse their decision making on what to feast on next.  

In the study, the team began by characterizing the chemical odors emitted by four human volunteers when unwashed and then after they had washed with four common brands of soap (Dial, Dove, Native, and Simple Truth). The odor profiles of the soaps themselves were also characterized. 

They found that each of the volunteers emitted their own unique odor profile and some of those odor profiles were more attractive to mosquitoes than others. The soap significantly changed the odor profiles, not just by adding some floral fragrances. 

“Everybody smells different, even after the application of soap; your physiological status, the way you live, what you eat, and the places you go all affect the way you smell,” co author and Virginia Tech biologist Chloé Lahondère said in a statement. “And soaps drastically change the way we smell, not only by adding chemicals, but also by causing variations in the emission of compounds that we are already naturally producing.”

The researchers then compared the relative attractiveness of each human volunteer–unwashed and an hour after using the four soaps–to Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. These mosquitoes are known to spread yellow fever, malaria, and Zika among other diseases. After mating, male mosquitoes feed mostly on nectar and females feed exclusively on blood, so the team exclusively tested the attractiveness using adult female mosquitoes who had recently mated. They also took out the effects of exhaled carbon dioxide by using fabrics that had absorbed the human’s odors instead of on the breathing humans themselves.   

[Related from PopSci+: Can a bold new plan to stop mosquitoes catch on?]

They found that soap-washing did impact the mosquitoes’ preferences, but the size and direction of this impact varied between the types of soap and humans. Washing with Dove and Simple Truth increased the attractiveness of some, but not all of the volunteers, and washing with Native soap tended to repel mosquitoes.

“What really matters to the mosquito is not the most abundant chemical, but rather the specific associations and combinations of chemicals, not only from the soap, but also from our personal body odors,” said Vinauger. “All of the soaps contained a chemical called limonene which is a known mosquito repellent, but in spite of that being the main chemical in all four soaps, three out of the four soaps we tested increased mosquitoes’ attraction.”

To look closer at the specific soap ingredients that could be attracting or repelling the insects, they analyzed the chemical compositions of the soaps. They identified four chemicals associated with mosquito attraction and three chemicals associated with repulsion. Two of the mosquito-repellers are a coconut-scented chemical that is a key component in American Bourbon and a floral compound that is used to treat scabies and lice. They combined these chemicals to test attractive and repellent odor blends and this concoction had strong impacts on mosquito preference.

“With these mixtures, we eliminated all the noise in the signal by only including those chemicals that the statistics were telling us are important for attraction or repulsion,” said Vinauger. “I would choose a coconut-scented soap if I wanted to reduce mosquito attraction.”

The team hopes to test these results using more varieties of soap and more people and explore how soap impacts mosquito preference over a longer period of time. 

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The piercing and malevolent gaze of Sauron, the powerful villain The Lord of the Rings, is being honored in a way that may even make Gandalf’s heroic eagles envious. A new genus of butterflies has been named Saurona in honor of one of fiction’s greatest villains.

[Related: Scientists Calculate Calories Needed To Walk To Mordor.]

With their fiery orange hindwings and piercingly dark eyespots, Saurona triangula and Saurona aurigera are the first two species described in this new genus, described in a study published April 10 in the journal Systematic Entomology. Scientists believe that there are more species within this genus waiting to be described.  

“Giving these butterflies an unusual name helps to draw attention to this underappreciated group,” study co-author and Senior Curator of Butterflies at London’s Natural History Museum Blanca Huertas said in a statement. “It shows that, even among a group of very similar-looking species, you can find beauty among the dullness. Naming a genus is not something that happens very often, and it’s even more rare to be able to name two at once. It was a great privilege to do so, and now means that we can start describing new species that we have uncovered as a result of this research.”

Saurona triangula and Saurona aurigera are the first butterflies to be named after the epic villain, but they are not the only animals named after Sauron and other characters from JRR Tolkien’s epic trilogy. A dinosaur (Sauroniops pachytholus) and an insect (Macropsis sauroni), and has also been named after the antagonist and his eye that constantly surveys the lands of Middle Earth. Sauron’s foil and heroic wizard Gandalf also has some animals named for him, including a species of crab, moth, and beetle and a group of fossil mammals. The tragic and troubled creature Gollum has fish, wasps, and fish named after him. 

Naming animals after fictional characters can help draw attention to them in the real world. A recent example comes from the devastating 2019-202 wildfires that struck Australia. The fires burned over 42 million acres and harmed 3 billion animals. Three Australian beetles that were devastated by the fires were named after Pokémon in an effort to attract conservation funding.

The Saurona butterflies are found in the southwestern Amazon rainforest and belong to a butterfly group Euptychiina. This group is difficult to tell apart by their physical characteristics alone, and the scientists on this study used genetic sequencing to help differentiate the new species.

“These butterflies are widely distributed in the tropical lowlands of the Americas, but despite their abundance they weren’t well-studied,” Blanca said. “Historically, the Euptychiina have been overlooked because they tend to be small, brown, and share a similar appearance. This has made them one of the most complex groups of butterflies in the tropics of the Americas.”

[Related: How are dinosaurs named?]

Even with major advances in DNA sequencing like target enrichment and Sanger sequencing that can produce vast amounts of DNA from samples, it took the team over 10 years to assess more than 400 different butterfly species. 

They deciphered the relations between groups and described nine new genera including one called Argenteria. In English, Argenteria translates to “silver mine,” and was named by Blanca and her team due to the silver scales on their wings. Argenteria currently has six species within the genus, but there are likely more out there waiting to be discovered.

The researchers on this study estimate they uncovered up to 20 percent more uncovered species than there were before the project began, and they hope to describe even more. More description will help scientists to better understand the relationships between the different species and the issues they face. 

“It’s important to study groups like the Euptychiina because it reveals that there are many species we didn’t know about, including rare and endemic ones,” said Blanca. “Some of these species are threatened with extinction, and so there’s a lot to do now we can put a name to them. There are also many other butterfly and insect groups that need attention so that they can be better understood and protected.”

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If humans want to learn more about our higher brain functions and behaviors, some scientists think we should look towards insects—including everything from busy bees to social butterflies  to flies on the wall. A study published May 5 in the journal Science Advances found three diverse, specialized Kenyon cell subtypes in honey bee brains that likely evolved from one single, multi-functional Kenyon cell subtype ancestor.

[Related: Older bees teach younger bees the ‘waggle dance.’]

Kenyon cells (KCs) are a type of neural cell that are found within a part of the insect brain. These cells are  involved in learning and memory, particularly with the sense of smell called the mushroom body. They are found in insects in the large Hymenoptera order from more “primitive” sawflies up to the more sophisticated honey bee. 

“In 2017, we reported that the complexity of Kenyon cell subtypes in mushroom bodies in insect brains increases with the behavioral diversification in Hymenoptera,” co-author and University of Tokyo graduate student said in a statement. “In other words, the more KC subtypes an insect has, the more complex its brain and the behaviors it may exhibit. But we didn’t know how these different subtypes evolved. That was the stimulus for this new study.”

In this study, the team from University of Tokyo and Japan’s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) looked at two Hymenoptera species as representatives for different behaviors. The more solitary turnip sawfly has a single KC subtype, compared to the more complex and more social honey bee that has three KC subtypes.

It is believed that the sawfly’s more “primitive” brain may contain some of the ancestral properties of the honey bee brain. To find these potential evolutionary paths, the team used  transcriptome analysis to identify the genetic activity happening in the various KC subtypes and speculate their functions.

[Related: Like the first flying humans, honeybees use linear landmarks to navigate.]

“I was surprised that each of the three KC subtypes in the honey bee showed comparable similarity to the single KC type in the sawfly,” co-author and University of Tokyo biologist Hiroki Kohno said in a statement.  “Based on our initial comparative analysis of several genes, we had previously supposed that additional KC subtypes had been added one by one. However, they appear to have been separated from a multifunctional ancestral type, through functional segregation and specialization.” 

As the number of KC subtypes increased, each one almost equally inherited some distinct properties from a single ancestral KC. The subtypes were then modified in different ways, and the results are the more varied functions seen in the present-day insects.

To see a specific behavioral example of how the ancestral KC functions are present in both the honey bee and the sawfly, they trained the sawflies to partake in a behavior test commonly used in honey bees. The bees, and eventually sawflies, learned to associate an odor stimulus with a reward. Despite initial challenges, the team got the sawflies to engage in this task. 

Then, the team manipulated a gene called CaMKII in sawfly larvae. In honey bees, this gene is associated with forming long-term memory, which is a KC function. After the gene manipulation, the long-term memory was impaired in the larvae when they became adults, a sign that this gene also plays a similar role in sawflies. CaMKII was expressed across the entire single KC subtype in sawflies, but it was preferentially expressed in one KC subtype in honey bees. According to the authors, this suggests that the role of CaMKII in long-term memory was passed down to the specific KC subtype in the honey bee.

Even though insect and mammalian brains are very different in terms of size and complexity, we share some common functions and architecture in our nervous systems. By looking at how insect cells and behavior has evolved, it might provide insights into how our own brains evolved. Next, the team is interested in studying KC types acquired in parallel with social behaviors, such as the honey bee’s infamous “waggle dance.”

“We would like to clarify whether the model presented here is applicable to the evolution of other behaviors,” co-author and University of Tokyo doctoral student Takayoshi Kuwabara said in a statement. “There are many mysteries about the neural basis that controls social behavior, whether in insects, animals or humans. How it has evolved still remains largely unknown. I believe that this study is a pioneering work in this field.”

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Carnivorous plants come in a variety of shapes and colors—and it’s often their looks that help them attract their prey. However, these floral tricksters may use a different scene to attract their dinner: smell. A small study published this month in the journal PLOS One found evidence that different species of Sarracenia, a genus of North American pitcher plant, produces scents that are directed at certain groups of prey.

[Related: Two newly discovered Andes Mountain plant species have an appetite for insects.]

Sarracenia pitcher plants typically make their home in bogs and in poor soil throughout North America. Their signature purple or reddish flowers are actually leaves which form a cup called the “pitcher”  filled with digestive enzymes.  If an insect gets too close to the plant, the pitcher traps it and digests the insect to help supplement their diet in a nutrient-poor home. 

The odor of carnivorous plants hasn’t been well-studied by humans, but has been suspected for over a century. Charles Darwin wrote about the unique plants about 150 years ago, but it’s been more difficult to find concrete evidence of its olfactory mechanisms. 

“Of the signals involved in communication, odor is probably the most cryptic to humans,’ co-author and carnivorous plant expert French National Centre for Scientific Research Laurence Gaume said in a statement. “In plants, it is often correlated with other plant characteristics such as nectar, shape and visual signals, which make it difficult to disentangle its effect from others.”

In this new study, a team identified the odor molecules emanating from four types of pitcher plants. The scents appear to correlate with the types of incense that wound up inside of the pitchers. The chemicals that make up some of the scents are similar to ones known to act as signals to certain insects, which may mean the pitcher plants have evolved to take advantage of their prey’s senses.

“It offers potentially interesting avenues in the field of biological control, and one can imagine drawing inspiration from the olfactory cues of these pitcher plants to control plant pests, for example,” said Gaume.

The team grew Sarracenia purpurea and three of its hybrids with other pitcher plants in a lab.  

They found that all of the pitchers produced a scent that was similar to more generalist plants that are pollinated by many different species. This can allow them to cast a wide net for prey, but they noted that there were subtle differences in the volatile organic compounds that they produced. 

[Related: Dying plants are ‘screaming’ at you.]

The pitchers attracting butterflies and bees were rich in compounds like limonene, a chemical that gives citrus fruits their unique smell. The aroma comes from a class of chemicals found in the scents of around two thirds of flowering plants which attract these pollinators.

Meanwhile, S. purpurea also had an odor that was high in fatty acid chemicals known to attract parasitoid wasps and possibly other insect predators. Wasps and insects made up a large part of the plant’s diet, which suggests that the scent could be targeting them directly. 

The team found that both the odor of a pitcher and its dimensions could help predict the prey caught by a plant about 98 percent of the time. This is not definitive proof, but it suggests a possible link between a pitcher plant’s scent and its prey. 

Since carnivorous plants cannot move to hunt for their prey like a lion or a shark, smells can help them not only find food, but communicate with other plants. Plants being eaten can release scents that tell other plants nearby to get their defenses ready or produce a smell that attracts predators. 

Plants that are pollinated by animals often rely on scents to attract pollinators, like bees. Anything that hides their scent–like air pollution–can cause a drop in the number of pollinators that can find them. 

Further studies could help explain how carnivorous plants that are pollinated by insects can attract some for pollination and other for food. For example, the most important pollinators of Venus fly traps are never found inside its traps, and scent could play a role in this. 

 “However, we remain cautious because our results are currently based on correlations. Even with strong correlations, further tests are necessary to investigate whether the different insect types are indeed attracted to particular scents,” said Gaume.

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Imagine yourself trapped in a building’s rubble following an earthquake. It’s a terrifying prospect, especially if time is of the essence for search and rescue operations. Now imagine  one of your rescuers turns out to be a cyborg cockroach. 

Regardless of how you feel about insects, a team of scientists at Osaka University in Japan apparently believe these resilient little bugs can come in handy in times of disaster. According to the researchers’ paper recently published within the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, society is closer than it’s ever been to deploying cybernetically augmented bugs to aid in real world scenarios such as natural disasters and extreme environment explorations. And everyone owes it all to their legion of semi-controllable cyborg Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

[Related: Spider robots could soon be swarming Japan’s aging sewer systems.]

Insects are increasingly inspiring robotic advancements, but biomimicry still often proves immensely complex. As macabre as it may seem, researchers have found augmenting instead of mechanically replicating six-legged creatures can offer simpler, cost-effective alternatives. In this most recent example, scientists implanted tiny, stimulating electrodes into the cockroaches’ brains and peripheral nervous systems, which were subsequently connected to a machine learning program. The system was then trained to recognize the insects’ locomotive states—if a cockroach paused at an obstacle or hunkered down in a dark, cold environment (as cockroaches are evolutionarily prone to do), the electrodes directed them to continue moving in an alternative route. To prevent excess fatigue, researchers even fine-tuned the stimulating currents to make them as minimal as possible.

Importantly, the setup didn’t reduce the insects to zombie cockroaches, but instead simply influenced their movement decisions.  “We don’t have to control the cyborg like controlling a robot. They can have some extent of autonomy, which is the basis of their agile locomotion,” Keisuke Morishima, a roboticist and one of the study’s authors, said in a statement. “For example, in a rescue scenario, we only need to stimulate the cockroach to turn its direction when it’s walking the wrong way or move when it stops unexpectedly.”

[Related: This bumblebee-inspired bot can bounce back after injuring a wing.]

While the scientists currently can’t yet control their cockroaches’ exact directions this way, their paper concludes the setup “successfully increased [their] average search rate and traveled distance up to 68 and 70 percent, respectively, while the stop time was reduced by 78 percent.” Going forward, they hope to improve these accuracy rates, as well as develop means to intentionally direct their enhanced cockroaches. Once that’s achieved, then you can start worrying about the zombie cyborg cockroach invasion.

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Plenty of species have traits evolved for more than one purpose. Deer antlers are built-in weapons as well as seductive doe-magnets. Octopus suckers can trap prey in their suction but also taste and smell. Bright colors in frogs signal danger to predators while flaunting reproductive viability to potential mates. The Luna moth has uniquely shaped wings that thwart predation from bats, but what else might they be good for? How does one determine the evolutionary role of a trait? 

In two recent complementary studies published in Behavioral Ecology and Biology Letters earlier this year, researchers expanded our understanding of the adaptation by testing the role of wing tails against sexual selection and bird predation.

Luna moths are native to the Eastern half of North America. Like all silk moths, they have distinctive long, trailing tails on their hindwings, or “twisted, cupped paddles” as lead author of both studies and doctoral student at the Florida Museum of Natural history Juliette Rubin said in a statement. Bats use echolocation to detect the position of objects with reflected sound, but the moth’s wing shape reflects sound waves in a way that makes the flying mammals aim for the ends of their wings. In a flap of a wing, the moth just barely dodges their predators. 

[Related: What bats and metal vocalists have in common]

First, the researchers wanted to see if the wing tails also played a role in sexual selection. When female Luna moths are ready to mate, they perch in one spot and release pheromones. Males, with extremely sensitive antennae, can detect and follow a pheromone trail, according to the University of Florida’s entomology department. Then, the female has her pick of suitors. 

In the first experiment, researchers placed a female moth in a flight box with two males: one with intact wings and one with the wing tails removed. Initial data suggested that females preferred tails over no-tails, but further trials demonstrated otherwise. When researchers removed tails by clipping them, the resulting damage may have hindered these males’ performance in the first trial, allowing the intact males to mate successfully.

They recreated the tail/no-tail experiment by removing tails from both males, and re-gluing them to one male, while placing glue only on the hindwings of the other. Researchers found no significant difference in mating success between them. 

To ensure the glue did not confound the results, researchers conducted an additional experiment with two intact males, one with glue on the hindwings. Similarly, they had equal mating success.

Though their elegance is attractive to us humans, the experiment revealed that Luna moth wing tails aren’t the result of sexual selection. 

Then, researchers wanted to see if the moths’ tails had any obvious drawbacks. They help moths to survive bats, a species that relies on echolocation, but what about visually-oriented predators? 

Luna moths sit still during the day, since flying in broad daylight with their large bright green wings would make them easy targets. To test whether or not their tails would have any impact on daytime predation, researchers wrapped pastry dough around mealworms and molded them to the size and shape of real Luna moths. They attached full wings and wings without tails to each half. They placed the replicas around branches and leaves in an aviary, and introduced Carolina wrens. 

The wrens ate the fake moths at the same rate regardless of wing type, indicating that the tails had no effect on whether or not birds could locate them. Some research suggests that birds rely on search images, mental representations of objects, when they are searching for prey. They use visual cues, such as the shape of moth wings, to distinguish between the prey from patterns in the background. So, the wrens may ignore the hindwing tails, using the overall shape of Luna moths to identify food, according to the press release.

[Related: A new technique reveals how butterfly wings grow into shimmery wonders.]

These experiments show that despite being a noteworthy feature to humans, the Luna moths’ tails do not play a role in attracting a mate, nor do they affect predation by birds.

“When we see these really obvious physical features in animals, we’re often drawn into stories we’ve heard about them,” Rubin said in the statement. “A trait that’s obvious to us, as visual creatures, might not stand out to the predators that hunt them, and the traits that we think are dynamic and alluring might not seem that way to a potential mate.”

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Carpenter bees are some of the largest bees native to the US. They resemble bumblebees, but you’ll be able to tell them apart because they will burrow in fences, telephone poles, dead trees, and other types of wood. These insects are major pollinators, but they’ve earned a bit of a bad rap thanks to the damage they do to human structures.

If these bees have decided to call your home their home, it can be tempting to simply exterminate them, but you should take a more peaceful route. Because of how hugely beneficial they are to local ecosystems, many beekeepers say it’s important to safely move them instead.

The female bees start crafting these nests in the spring, laying their eggs inside for the males to visit and fertilize. The hatchlings emerge in late summer and leave the nests in search of flowers, before spending the winter inside the nest tunnels. You can identify a carpenter bee’s nest by the sawdust around or below it.

[Related: City gardens are abuzz with imperiled native bees]

The bees themselves are generally larger than bumblebees, often between a half-inch and 1 inch long, and do not have yellow stripes. You’re more likely to see the male bees, especially during mating season because they’re extremely territorial and hover around the nests. They can be intimidating, but they have no stingers and are unlikely to hurt you—the aggressive buzzing is all an act to protect their nests. Female carpenter bees, on the other hand, do have stingers, but won’t attack unless confronted directly.

Because they create tunnels, and may come back to them year after year, these bees can cause structural damage to load-bearing fence posts and other wooden constructions. They may also cause indirect damage, as woodpeckers like to go after carpenter bee larvae and can splinter the wood in their search for food.

How to safely get rid of carpenter bees

Despite the issues carpenter bees can cause, they are extremely effective pollinators. Nick Hoefly, a beekeeper at Astor Apiaries in Queens, New York, says that thanks to their size, these hefty bugs are excellent “buzz” pollinators. “This is a type of pollination where the insect vibrates the blossom to dislodge pollen, allowing it to fall onto the female parts of the plant,” he says. “Many vegetables and fruits, including tomatoes and some berries, rely on this type of pollination.”

Use almond, citrus, or another scented oil

That’s why it’s best to get rid of carpenter bees without hurting them. Hoefly recommends applying a drop of almond or citrus oil inside any nest holes you find. Since they don’t like the smell, they will most likely vacate and search elsewhere for a less-stinky place to build a nest. After they leave, you’ll need to fill the holes with wood putty or steel wool. If you have wood the bees haven’t found yet, take some time to sand it down, wipe away any excess sawdust with a wet sponge, and then paint it. Carpenter bees are attracted to unfinished wood.

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This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine.

It’s evening at the northern tip of the Red Sea, in the Gulf of Aqaba, and Tom Shlesinger readies to take a dive. During the day, the seafloor is full of life and color; at night it looks much more alien. Shlesinger is waiting for a phenomenon that occurs once a year for a plethora of coral species, often several nights after the full moon.

Guided by a flashlight, he spots it: coral releasing a colorful bundle of eggs and sperm, tightly packed together. “You’re looking at it and it starts to flow to the surface,” Shlesinger says. “Then you raise your head, and you turn around, and you realize: All the colonies from the same species are doing it just now.”

Some coral species release bundles of a pinkish- purplish color, others release ones that are yellow, green, white or various other hues. “It’s quite a nice, aesthetic sensation,” says Shlesinger, a marine ecologist at Tel Aviv University and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat, Israel, who has witnessed the show during many years of diving. Corals usually spawn in the evening and night within a tight time window of 10 minutes to half an hour. “The timing is so precise, you can set your clock by the time it happens,” Shlesinger says.

Moon-controlled rhythms in marine critters have been observed for centuries. There is calculated guesswork, for example, that in 1492 Christopher Columbus encountered a kind of glowing marine worm engaged in a lunar-timed mating dance, like the “flame of a small candle alternately raised and lowered.” Diverse animals such as sea mussels, corals, polychaete worms and certain fishes are thought to synchronize their reproductive behavior by the moon. The crucial reason is that such animals — for example, over a hundred coral species at the Great Barrier Reef — release their eggs before fertilization takes place, and synchronization maximizes the probability of an encounter between eggs and sperm.

How does it work? That has long been a mystery, but researchers are getting closer to understanding. They have known for at least 15 years that corals, like many other species, contain light-sensitive proteins called cryptochromes, and have recently reported that in the stony coral, Dipsastraea speciosa, a period of darkness between sunset and moonrise appears key for triggering spawning some days later.

Now, with the help of the marine bristle worm Platynereis dumerilii, researchers have begun to tease out the molecular mechanism by which myriad sea species may pay attention to the cycle of the moon.

The bristle worm originally comes from the Bay of Naples but has been reared in laboratories since the 1950s. It is particularly well-suited for such studies, says Kristin Tessmar-Raible, a chronobiologist at the University of Vienna. During its reproductive season, it spawns for a few days after the full moon: The adult worms rise en masse to the water surface at a dark hour, engage in a nuptial dance and release their gametes. After reproduction, the worms burst and die.

The tools the creatures need for such precision timing — down to days of the month, and then down to hours of the day — are akin to what we’d need to arrange a meeting, says Tessmar-Raible. “We integrate different types of timing systems: a watch, a calendar,” she says. In the worm’s case, the requisite timing systems are a daily — or circadian — clock along with another, circalunar clock for its monthly reckoning.

To explore the worm’s timing, Tessmar-Raible’s group began experiments on genes in the worm that carry instructions for making cryptochromes. The group focused specifically on a cryptochrome in bristle worms called L-Cry. To figure out its involvement in synchronized spawning, they used genetic tricks to inactivate the l-cry gene and observe what happened to the worm’s lunar clock. They also carried out experiments to analyze the L-Cry protein.

Though the story is far from complete, the scientists have evidence that the protein plays a key role in something very important: distinguishing sunlight from moonlight. L-Cry is, in effect, “a natural light interpreter,” Tessmar-Raible and coauthors write in a 2023 overview of rhythms in marine creatures in the Annual Review of Marine Science.

The role is a crucial one, because in order to synchronize and spawn on the same night, the creatures need to be able to stay in step with the patterns of the moon on its roughly 29.5-day cycle — from full moon, when the moonlight is bright and lasts all night long, to the dimmer, shorter-duration illuminations as the moon waxes and wanes.

When L-Cry was absent, the scientists found, the worms didn’t discriminate appropriately. The animals synchronized tightly to artificial lunar cycles of light and dark inside the lab — ones in which the “sunlight” was dimmer than the real sun and the “moonlight” was brighter than the real moon. In other words, worms without L-Cry latched onto unrealistic light cycles. In contrast, the normal worms that still made L-Cry protein were more discerning and did a better job of synchronizing their lunar clocks correctly when the nighttime lighting more closely matched that of the bristle worm’s natural environment.

The researchers accrued other evidence, too, that L-Cry is an important player in lunar timekeeping, helping to discern sunlight from moonlight. They purified the L-Cry protein and found that it consists of two protein strands bound together, with each half holding a light-absorbing structure known as a flavin. The sensitivity of each flavin to light is very different. Because of this, the L-Cry can respond to both strong light akin to sunlight and dim light equivalent to moonlight — light over five orders of magnitude of intensity — but with very different consequences.

After four hours of dim “moonlight” exposure, for example, light-induced chemical reactions in the protein — photoreduction — occurred, reaching a maximum after six hours of continuous “moonlight” exposure. Six hours is significant, the scientists note, because the worm would only encounter six hours’ worth of moonlight at times when the moon was full. This therefore would allow the creature to synchronize with monthly lunar cycles and pick the right night on which to spawn. “I find it very exciting that we could describe a protein that can measure moon phases,” says Eva Wolf, a structural biologist at IMB Mainz and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and a collaborator with Tessmar-Raible on the work.

How does the worm know that it’s sensing moonlight, though, and not sunlight? Under moonlight conditions, only one of the two flavins was photoreduced, the scientists found. In bright light, by contrast, both flavin molecules were photoreduced, and very quickly. Furthermore, these two types of L-Cry ended up in different parts of the worm’s cells: the fully photoreduced protein in the cytoplasm, where it was quickly destroyed, and the partly photoreduced L-Cry proteins in the nucleus.

All in all, the situation is akin to having “a highly sensitive ‘low light sensor’ for moonlight detection with a much less sensitive ‘high light sensor’ for sunlight detection,” the authors conclude in a report published in 2022.

Many puzzles remain, of course. For example, though presumably the two distinct fates of the L-Cry molecules transmit different biological signals inside the worm, researchers don’t yet know what they are. And though the L-Cry protein is key for discriminating sunlight from moonlight, other light-sensing molecules must be involved, the scientists say.

In a separate study, the researchers used cameras in the lab to record the burst of swimming activity (the worm’s “nuptial dance”) that occurs when a worm sets out to spawn, and followed it up with genetic experiments. And they confirmed that another molecule is key for the worm to spawn during the right one- to two-hour window — the dark portion of that night between sunset and moonrise — on the designated spawning nights.

Called r-Opsin, the molecule is extremely sensitive to light, the scientists found — about a hundred times more than the melanopsin found in the average human eye. It modifies the worm’s daily clock by acting as a moonrise sensor, the researchers propose (the moon rises successively later each night). The notion is that combining the signal from the r-Opsin sensor with the information from the L-Cry on what kind of light it is allows the worm to pick just the right time on the spawning night to rise to the surface and release its gametes.

Resident timekeepers

As biologists tease apart the timekeepers needed to synchronize activities in so many marine creatures, the questions bubble up. Where, exactly, do these timekeepers reside? In species in which biological clocks have been well studied — such as Drosophila and mice — that central timekeeper is housed in the brain. In the marine bristleworm, clocks exist in its forebrain and peripheral tissues of its trunk. But other creatures, such as corals and sea anemones, don’t even have brains. “Is there a population of neurons that acts as a central clock, or is it much more diffuse? We don’t really know,” says Ann Tarrant, a marine biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who is studying chronobiology of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.

Scientists are also interested in knowing what roles are played by microbes that might live with marine creatures. Corals like Acropora, for example, often have algae living symbiotically within their cells. “We know that algae like that also have circadian rhythms,” Tarrant says. “So when you have a coral and an alga together, it’s complicated to know how that works.”

Researchers are worried, too, about the fate of spectacular synchronized events like coral spawning in a light-polluted world. If coral clock mechanisms are similar to the bristle worm’s, how would creatures be able to properly detect the natural full moon? In 2021, researchers reported lab studies demonstrating that light pollution can desynchronize spawning in two coral species — Acropora millepora and Acropora digitifera — found in the Indo-Pacific Ocean.

Shlesinger and his colleague Yossi Loya have seen just this in natural populations, in several coral species in the Red Sea. Reporting in 2019, the scientists compared four years’ worth of spawning observations with data from the same site 30 years earlier. Three of the five species they studied showed spawning asynchrony, leading to fewer — or no — instances of new, small corals on the reef.

Along with artificial light, Shlesinger believes there could be other culprits involved, such as endocrine-disrupting chemical pollutants. He’s working to understand that — and to learn why some species remain unaffected.

Based on his underwater observations to date, Shlesinger believes that about 10 of the 50-odd species he has looked at may be asynchronizing in the Red Sea, the northern portion of which is considered a climate-change refuge for corals and has not experienced mass bleaching events. “I suspect,” he says, “that we will hear of more issues like that in other places in the world, and in more species.”

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

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The waste honeybees discard in their hives could hold valuable insight into the public health of our cities. In a study published this week in the journal Environmental Microbiome, scientists shared a new method for collecting microbial information from the environment using honeybee debris. Identifying germs in a city gives researchers a snapshot of the diversity of a city’s microbiome, which could lead to better health outcomes. The technique might also help in surveilling illness-causing bacteria and viruses among bees and humans. 

While we can’t see microorganisms, they play a critical behind-the-scenes role in shaping our survival. For example, microbes in the human gut support digestion, help keep our immune system healthy, and are the first line of defense from “bad” bacteria that cause food poisoning and other infections. Typically, the more diverse a person microbiome, the greater their health and well-being. One way to increase said variety is interacting with outside surroundings.

[Related: A link to depression might be in your gut bacteria]

“A lot of [microbes] are beneficial to human health,” says lead study author Elizabeth Hénaff, an assistant professor at the center for urban science and progress at New York University. “The goal of this study is understanding the whole breadth of diversity of microbiomes and the ones we’re interacting with in urban environments.” 

Hénaff and her colleagues knew they wanted to create microbial maps of different cities to get a better sense of  the diversity in each area. However, they weren’t sure what was the best way to move forward. One idea was swabbing noses, but it would be impractical to swab everyone in a broad and diverse area. The urban microbiomes might also differ from block to block, requiring extensive swabbing. Another option was wastewater surveillance, but the researchers wanted to look at everything urbanites came into contact with—not just what they digested. Then came the aha moment: they could study bee hives.

Because honeybees constantly interact with the environment when they forage for nectar, and they often carry back some bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms from their travels  when they return to the hive. “As bees are foraging, they’re traversing all of these microbial clouds related to other aspects of the built environment,” explains Hénaff. “They’ve traversed the microbial cloud of a pond, a body of water, and groups of human beings if they happen to be in the same park where they’re going.”

The scientists used a technique called metagenomic sequencing to study all the genes found in a single environmental sample. This allowed them to match genes to different microbial species related to hive health and, in turn, learn the health status of the bees. But first they had to figure out what sample should be collected from the hive.  

In a pilot project in Brooklyn, New York, the scientists worked with local beekeepers. They took swab samples of honey, propolis (a resin-like material used to cover the inside of hives), debris, and bee carcasses—anything that could provide the most information on microorganisms.

Subsequently, they discovered that the microbes found in honey and propolis were similar across hives. “Bees are really good at controlling the microbial environment of their own beehives,” adds Hénaff. The only material that differed from hive to hive was the debris left at the bottom of the hive, and this became the source they collected in the next set of experiments.

To profile urban microbiomes, the team took samples of debris from 17 tended hives from four cities across the world: Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, Tokyo, and Venice. The DNA extracted from the bee debris contained material from different sources, including plants, mammals, insects, bacteria, and fungi in the area. 

Each city carried a unique microbial profile that gave a snapshot of how life is like there. The single Venice hive used in the study was filled with wood-rotting fungi. Hénaff says the findings makes sense since most buildings are built on submerged wood pilings. In Australia, the two Melbourne hives had large amounts of eucalyptus DNA, while Sydney’s revealed high levels of a bacterium called Gordonia polyisoprenivorans, that breaks down rubber. Tokyo’s dozen hives displayed genetic hints of lotus and wild soybean—a common plant found in Eastern Asia. There were also high levels of a soy sauce fermenting yeast called Zygosaccharomyces rouxii. 

“Most interesting to me was that [the results] didn’t feel like a disjoint metric from all the other things we know about these cities and their culture, but it actually felt like a puzzle piece we didn’t know existed that fit into our general understanding of these cities,” says Hénaff.

The debris were also helpful in identifying microbes involved in bee health. The team found three honeybee crop microbial species—Lactobacillus kunkeii, Saccharibacter sp. AM169, and Frishella perrara—along with five species related to the insects’ gut health. Three honeybee pathogens were also identified across cities. 

Next, the study identified the human pathogens bees could pick up when venturing outside. The researchers focused on the hive information collected in Tokyo because it had more hives than the other cities, and so had more data for DNA sequencing. They detected two bacteria: one that could cause bacillary dysentery and another involved in cat scratch fever. They then took the pathogen behind cat scratch fever, Rickettsia felis, and reconstructed the genome. Doing so allowed them to not only confirm the species was in the city, but that it had the bacteria-associated molecules to allow it to spread disease. 

[Related: 5 ways to keep bees buzzing that don’t require a hive]

Profiling the microbiome of different cities may be an additional tool for detecting potentially harmful pathogens in humans, says Hénaff. It could also open up new ways of surveying airborne pathogens—a growing interest since the recent arrival of SARS-CoV-2.

Jay Evans, a research entomologist at the US Department of Agriculture who was not involved in the study, says the new approach is “fine” and can help in identifying at least the microorganisms found in urban floral environments. However, he expressed reservations about overvaluing some results. Evans notes that one of the species genome-mapping algorithms used in the study is known to be “a bit greedy,” matching the best microorganism available at the moment. This suggests some genetic matchups to bacteria may not actually be the right fit, and that further tests would be needed to confirm their presence. Because bees can pick up non-living hitchhikers like pesticides, Evans also says it would be nice for the researchers to contrast these biological results with pesticide-specific studies and how that affects hive microbiomes.

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For decades, scientists have been studying a South African daisy’s (Gorteria diffusa) deceptive way to attract pollen. It uses its petals to trick male flies into believing the flower is actually a female fly. When a male insect approaches the flower, it jiggles around trying to mate, and typically buzzes off after a few unsuccessful attempts, leaving pollen behind.

In a study published March 23 in the journal Current Biology, scientists have identified three sets of genes that help build the fake fly appearance on the daisy’s petals. To determine what these genes do, the team compared which genes were ‘switched on’ in petals that had fake flies compared to petals without. They then compared the petals to a different type of daisy that produces a simple spot pattern on its petals, to figure out which genes were specifically involved in making the more deceptive fake fly spots.

According to the team, the surprising find is that all three sets of insect lookalike-creating genes already have other functions in the plant. One set moves iron around, one controls when flowers are made, and one makes hairs on the roots grow. 

[Related: Ecologists have declared war on this popular decorative tree.]

“This daisy didn’t evolve a new ‘make a fly’ gene. Instead it did something even cleverer – it brought together existing genes, which already do other things in different parts of the plant, to make a complicated spot on the petals that deceives male flies,” said study co-author and University of Cambridge plant biologist Beverley Glover, in a statement.

To make this work, the ‘iron moving’ genes add iron to the flower petal’s typically reddish-purple pigments, which changes the color to a more fly-like hue of blue-green. The root hair genes create hairs that expand the petal and give it more texture, making  the fake flies appear in different positions on the petals.

According to the team, this method of attracting more male flies to pollinate gives the plant an evolutionary advantage. The daisies grow in a harsh desert environment with a short rainy season, with makes for a  compressed flower producing, pollination, and seeding schedule. There’s intense competition for the plants to attract pollinators, and these fake lady flies help the daisies stand out. 

By evolutionary standards, this daisy is fairly young at 1.5 to two million years old. These fake fly spots were not on the planet’s oldest daisies, so they likely appeared on petals early on in their evolution. 

“We’d expect that something as complex as a fake fly would take a long time to evolve, involving lots of genes and lots of mutations. But actually by bringing together three existing sets of genes it has happened much more quickly,” said study co-author and plant evolution specialist Roman Kellenberger, in a statement. 

[Related: Bees can sense a flower’s electric field—unless fertilizer messes with the buzz.]

The authors add that this is the only example of a flower producing multiple fake flies on top of its petals. Other daisies make simpler spots like those around the petals, but they are not as convincing to real flies. Orchids can also use sexual deception to trick males into mating with its petals.
“It’s almost like evolving a whole new organ in a very short time-frame,” said Kellenberger.“Male flies don’t stay long on flowers with simple spots, but they’re so convinced by these fake flies that they spend extra time trying to mate, and rub off more pollen onto the flower – helping to pollinate it.”

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Artificial light at night can wreak havoc on a number of animals, from confusing moonlight-following sea turtle hatchlings to disrupting the sleep patterns of free-living animals like birds, to even stressing out caterpillars and making them age quicker.

Scientists are continuing to look more at the effects of artificial night light on insect larvae–like caterpillars.  A study published this month in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences found that even moderate levels of artificial light attract more caterpillar predators and reduce the chance that their larvae grow up into moths. Moths are part of the order lepidoptera that also contains butterflies and skippers ,and their larvae can serve as food for larger prey like birds, wasps, and some small amphibians. 

[Related: The switch to LEDs in Europe is visible from space.]

To test this light theory, scientists from Cornell University placed 552 lifelike caterpillar replicas made of soft clay in a forest in New Hampshire, gluing them to leaves to look as real as possible. They were made from a green clay that mimics the color and size of two moth caterpillars: Noctuidae (owlet moths) and Notodontidae (prominent moths). The marks of predators like birds, other insects, and arthropods can be left in the soft clay if they tried to take a bite of the fake caterpillars. 

Some of the models were placed on experimental lots that had 10 to 15 lux LED lighting, or roughly the brightness of a streetlight. The lights stayed on at night for about seven weeks in June and July 2021.

Of the 552 caterpillars deployed, 521 models were recovered. Almost half (249 fake caterpillars) showed predatory marks from arthropods, during the summer-long nighttime study. Additionally, they found that the rate of caterpillar predation was 27 percent higher on the experimental plots compared with the control areas that didn’t have the LED lighting.

Since the night sky is getting increasingly more polluted with artificial light, this poses another ecological problem for lepidopterans. These creatures already suffer from  threats like  habitat loss, chemical pollutants used in farming, climate change, and increasingly prevalent invasive species, according to the team.

[Related: ‘Skyglow’ is rapidly diminishing our nightly views of the stars.]

These findings are particularly worrisome for caterpillars at a larval stage when they are eating leaves to ensure that they grow into their next stage of development. Study co-author and research ecologist Sara Kaiser told the Cornell Chronicle, “When you turn on a porch light, you suddenly see a bunch of insects outside the door. But when you draw in those arthropod predators by adding light, then what is the impact on developing larvae? Top-down pressure – the possibility of being eaten by something.”
Some simple ways to reduce artificial light are by using smart lighting control to remotely manage any outside lighting, making sure that lights are close to the ground and shielded, and using the lowest intensity lighting possible.

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Given their habit of bouncing off their surroundings with surprising regularity, bumblebees certainly live up to their name. But despite their collision records, the small insects’ wings can withstand a comparatively hefty amount of damage and still function well enough to continue along their pollination routes. This surprising, natural wing strength often outperforms most flying robots’ arrays, which can be grounded by the smallest issues. It’s a resilience that recently inspired researchers to delve into just what makes bumblebees so hearty, and how engineers can mimic that in repairing their own artificial wings.

In an upcoming issue of the research journal, Science Robotics, a team at MIT detailed the new ways they improved tiny aerial robots’ actuators, aka artificial muscles, to handle a sizable amount of damage and continue flying. In this instance, the test robots were roughly the size of a microcassette tape while weighing slightly more than an average paper clip. Each robot has two wings powered by ultrathin layers of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) placed between two electrodes and rolled into a tube shape. As electricity is applied, the electrodes constrict the elastomers which then cause the wings to flap.

[Related: MIT engineers have created tiny robot lightning bugs.]

DEAs have been around for years, but miniscule imperfections in them can cause sparks that damage the device. Around 15 years ago, however, researchers realized that DEA failures from a single minor injury could be avoided via what’s known as “self-clearing,” in which a high enough voltage applied to the DEA disconnects an electrode from the problem area while keeping the rest of its structure intact.

For large wounds, such as a tear in the wing that lets too much air pass through it, researchers developed a laser cauterization method to inflict minor damage around the injury perimeter. After accomplishing this, they were then able to utilize self-clearing to burn away the damaged electrode and isolate the issue. To assess efficacy, engineers even integrated electroluminescent particles into each actuator. If light shines from the area, they know that portion of the actuator works, while darkened portions mean they are out-of-commission.

[Related: This tiny robot grips like a gecko and scoots like an inchworm.]

The team’s repair innovations showed great promise during stress tests. Self-clearing allowed the aerial robots to maintain performance, position, and altitude, while laser surgery on DEAs recovered roughly 87 percent of its normal abilities. “We’re very excited about this. But the insects are still superior to us, in the sense that they can lose up to 40 percent of their wing and still fly,” Kevin Chen, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), as well as the paper’s senior author, said in a statement. “We still have some catch-up work to do.”

But even without catch-up, the new repair techniques could come in handy when using flying robots for search-and-rescue missions in difficult environments like dense forests or collapsed buildings.

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Following an unusually warm winter in a decent chunk of the Northern Hemisphere, this spring could bring more mosquito bites than there was frostbite.  Colder temperatures typically kill off or slow down the reproduction of the blood sucking insects and warm temperatures have added almost 10 extra days to Washington DC’s mosquito season since the 1980s. 

While increasingly longer summers and shorter and warmer winters could mean more mosquitoes in the future, some new research might help control increasing populations of the common pest. In a study published March 16 in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers find that it’s likely that the proteins that activate mosquito sperm can be shut down. This action would prevent the sperm from swimming to eggs and fertilizing them. This could help control populations of a species of common house mosquito that is known to transmit West Nile Virus and brain-swelling encephalitis called Culex.

[Related: Singapore’s new plan to fight mosquito-borne diseases: bug-infecting bacteria.]

The new paper details all of the proteins that are in the insect’s sperm, which helped researchers find the specific proteins that maintain the quality of the sperm while they’re inactive, as well as the ones that activate the sperm to swim.

“During mating, mosquitoes couple tail to tail, and the males transfer sperm into the female reproductive tract. It can be stored there awhile, but it still has to get from point A to point B to complete fertilization,” said study co-author Cathy Thaler, a cell biologist at the University of California, Riverside, in a statement. 

The specialized proteins secreted during ejaculation activate the flagella (aka sperm tails) and power their movement are key to completing their journey into the female mosquito’s reproductive tract. 

“Without these proteins, the sperm cannot penetrate the eggs. They’ll remain immotile, and will eventually just degrade,” co-author Richard Cardullo, a University of California, Riverside biology professor, said in a statement. 

To get this very detailed information on proteins from a very small insect, the authors worked with a team of students who were able to isolate as many as 200 male mosquitoes from a larger population of bugs. Then, they extracted enough sperm from their reproductive tracts so that mass spectrometry equipment could not only detect the proteins, but identify them. 

In previous studies, the team found that sperm need calcium to power their forward motion upon entering a reproductive tract.  “Now we can look in the completed protein profile we’ve created, find the calcium channel proteins, and design experiments to target these channels,” said Cardullo. 

[Related from PopSci+: Can a bold new plan to stop mosquitoes catch on?]

According to Thaler, profiling proteins offers a path towards controlling mosquito population in a way that is more environmentally friendly and less toxic than methods that use harmful pesticides that can kill other insects and plants and hurt animals—also known as biological control.

Biological control does not mean that mosquitoes would be eradicated as a species. Immobilizing the sperm would be 100 percent effective for the treated mosquitoes, but it is not possible or desirable for scientists to kill all mosquitoes. Using a method like this would instead alter the proportion of fertile to infertile males.

In 2022, scientists from the biotech firm Oxitec completed the first open-air study that released mosquitoes genetically modified to be male, non-biting, and only capable of producing male offspring in the Florida Keys. They found that when the modified mosquitoes matured to adulthood, their flight and exploration behavior matched the abilities of wild mosquitoes and that they successfully mated with native female mosquitoes. The females then laid eggs in traps that the team collected to watch them hatch in a lab. All of the eggs hatched were males. However, the gene that killed female eggs lasted for roughly three mosquito generations.

“Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals on Earth. But as much as people hate them, most ecologists would oppose a plan to completely eradicate them. They play an important role in the food chain for fish and other animals,” Cardullo said.

While this study just looked at Culex, the team is hopeful that this information would apply to some of the more than 3,000 species of mosquitoes. As the planet continues to warm and climate change intensifies, more species of mosquitoes are moving into the Northern Hemisphere, including those that carry malaria. 

Learning more about Culex sperm motility could also have implications for improving fertility in humans. Many cells have flagella, and according to Cardullo, what we can learn about one body system may translate to other species.

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Air pollution is messing with the love lives of fruit flies, warns a new study published on March 14 in the journal Nature Communications. Male common fruit flies had trouble in recognizing their female counterparts after breathing in toxic gas, causing them to make a move on another male. 

Though there’s been some research hinting at bisexuality among fruit flies, the current results suggest it has to do more with ozone pollution. Even brief exposure to O₃ was enough to alter the chemical makeup of pheromones, a unique trails insects use to detect and attract mates. Increasing levels of air pollutants from cars, power plants, and industrial boilers around the world could stop common fruit flies from reproducing, causing a dramatic decline in the insect species.

[Related: Almost everyone in the world breathes unhealthy air]

The chemical ecologists placed 50 male flies into a tube and exposed them to 100 parts per billion (ppb) of ozone—global ozone levels range from 12 ppb to 67 ppb—for two hours. After two hours, fruit flies showed reduced amounts of a pheromone called cis-Vaccenyl Acetate (cVA) in compounds involved in reproductive behavior.

A closer look revealed that ozone seems to have changed the chemical structure of pheromones. Most insect pheromones have carbon double bonds, explains Markus Knaden, a group leader for insect behavior at the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology in Germany and study author. Whenever a compound has carbon double bonds, it becomes highly sensitive to oxidization by ozone or nitric oxide and starts to separate. The explanation is in line with their findings of high amounts of the liquid heptanal in the flies, a product that emerges after cVA breaks down. 

Did the altered pheromones affect a male’s chances at finding a partner? It appears so. A separate experiment exposed male flies to 30 minutes of either ozone ranging from 50 to 200 ppb or regular air with a much lower amount ozone before being placed them with female fruit flies. While males from both groups wasted no time in trying to court females, ozone-exposed fruit flies had more trouble getting a mate. 

“The male advertises himself with pheromones. The more he produces, the more attractive he becomes to the female,” says Knaden. Losing the chemical aphrodisiac made ozone-exposed males a less desirable option to females, who took nearly twice as much time choosing from the corrupted bachelors than the clean ones.

Not only is ozone pollution hampering the males’ ability to get female attention, it’s also affecting how they identify other individuals. Knaden says his team expected the altered pheromones to affect the ability for male fruit flies to distinguish between a male and a female, but what they didn’t expect were males to jump on each other. “In the beginning, it was a very funny observation to see really long chains where one male was courting the next and then the next down the line,” he describes. With the altered pheromones, “the male basically jumps on everything that is small and moves a little bit like a fly, regardless of what it is.”

“Very little is known about how air pollution interferes with insect sex pheromone signaling, so it is great to see this work underway,” says James Ryalls, a research fellow in the Center for Agri-environmental Research at the University of Reading in England, who was not affiliated with the research. “The study demonstrates how disruptive air pollution can be to insect communication, with potential ecological ramifications such as reduced biodiversity.”

[Related: Flies evolved before dinosaurs—and survived an apocalyptic world]

Getting rid of the buggers that crowd your bananas and melons might seem like a good idea at first glance. However, Ryalls warns that these agricultural pests contribute greatly to the world’s ecosystem. As nature’s clean-up crew, fruit flies help decompose rotting fruit, releasing nutrients for plants, bacteria, and fungi to use. They also serve as food for other animals like birds and spiders. Lastly, they are a common insect model used in biomedical research and have contributed to countless neuroscience and genetic discoveries.

Fruit flies are not the only ones feeling the effects of air pollution. Knaden says he has seen dangerous ozone levels affecting flower volatile compounds, which are used as cues for pollinators. His 2020 study found moths were less attracted to flower odors from plants exposed to the gas, resulting in less pollination. 

“Insects are on the decline, and we thought it was from pesticides and habitat loss,” says Knaden. “It seems there are more screws we have to turn, one of them being air pollutants.”

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Tiny, annoying, flying pests might seem as old as time. Gnats are the general name for a bunch of species in the diptera suborder Nematocera, which the Smithsonian describes as “non-biting flies, no bigger than a few grains of salt, [that] are attracted to fluids secreted by your eyes.” 

While their average lifespan is only about a week long, their survival through evolutionary history stretches way further. According to new research, the insects may have been around 247 million years, older than the earliest dinosaurs. 

In a new study published March 10 in the journal Papers in Paleontology, geologists and biologists from Spain and England delved into a recently discovered fossil that can teach us more about the beginnings, and incredible survival abilities, of the gnat. The fossil was found in a small harbor in Estellencs, located in Spain’s Balearic Islands, known for its bluish rock layers that hide remains of plants, insects, fish, and more from the Middle Triassic. 

[Related: When insects got wings, evolution really took off.]

Mallorcan scientist Josep Juárez spotted the find—a complete larva sample that left an imprint on the sides of a split rock. Upon further examination, the well-preserved fossil was identified as part of the insect order that now claims mosquitoes, midges, flies, and of course, gnats. It may be the oldest diptera specimen discovered to date, and could be a common ancestor to the more than million species in the group today.

“While I was inspecting it under the microscope, I put a drop of alcohol on it to increase the contrast of the structures,” says study author Enrique Peñalver, a scientist from the Spanish National Research Council at the Spanish Geological Survey, said in a press release. “I was able to witness in awe how the fossil had preserved both the external and internal structures of the head, some parts of the digestive system, and, most importantly, the external openings to its respiratory system, or spiracles.”

But beyond just revealing what a baby gnat looked like at the time, the existence of this fossil shows the insect’s remarkable ability to adapt to what Oxford University Museum of Natural History’s Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente called a “post apocalyptic environment.” 

[Related: Eyeless army ants chomped their way through Europe millions of years ago.]

The Permian-Triassic extinction occurred around the last 15 million years of the Permian period, and is famous for the extinction of around 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial species in such a, evolutionarily speaking, short period of time. (Some scientists even propose that the bulk of these species disappeared over a 20,000-year span right at the end of the period.) It’s known as the most severe of any major extinction episodes in Earth’s recorded history, wiping out more than half of the taxonomic groups that roamed the land and seas. Potential causes include a change in the planet’s atmosphere that led to radiation poisoning or a change in oxygen levels.

The authors of the new study also noted how this newly discovered specimen has a similar breathing system to that in some modern insects. Perhaps it’s time to add gnats to the short list of animals that could survive an apocalypse alongside tardigrades and cockroaches.

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Social learning and knowledge sharing from generation to generation is a hallmark of a culture among living things. While it’s been documented in many animals including tiny naked mole rats, songbirds, sperm whales, and humans, early social learning has only just been demonstrated in insects. 

A study published March 9 in the journal Science is offering evidence that generational knowledge is fundamental for honeybees.

[Related: The first honeybee vaccine could protect the entire hive, starting with the queen.]

“We are beginning to understand that, like us, animals can pass down information important for their survival through communities and families. Our new research shows that we can now extend such social learning to include insects,” said study co-author and University of California San Diego biologist James Nieh, in a statement. 

Nieh and a team of researchers took a deeper look at a bee’s “waggle dance.”  Bees have a highly organized community structure and use the waggle dance to tell hivemates where critical food resources are located with an intricate series of movements. In the waggle dance, bees circle around in figure-eight patterns, while wagging their bodies during the central part of the dance. It’s kind of like a breakdance performed at a breakneck speed, with each bee moving a body length in less than one second. 

The very precise motions in the dance translate visual information from the environment around the hive, Sending accurate information is especially remarkable since bees must move rapidly across an often uneven honeycomb hive surface. The team discovered that this dance is improved by learning and can be culturally transmitted. 

Nieh and fellow researchers Shihao Dong, Tao Lin, and Ken Tan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences created colonies with bees that were all the same age as an experiment to watch how experienced forager bees pass this process down to younger, less-experienced nestmates. 

Bees typically begin to dance when they reach the right age and always follow the lead of experienced dancers first, but in these experimental colonies, they weren’t able to learn the waggle dance from older bees.

[Related: Bees choose violence when attempting honey heists.]

By comparison, the bees that shadowed other dancers in the control colonies that had a mix of different aged bees didn’t have problems learning to waggle. The acquired social cues stayed with them for the roughly 38 day lifespan of the bees in the study. 

Those that didn’t learn the correct waggle dance in that critical early stage of learning could improve by watching other dancers and by practicing, but they couldn’t correctly encode the distance which created distinct “dialects.” The dialect was then maintained by the bees for the rest of their lives. 

“Scientists believe that bee dialects are shaped by their local environments. If so, it makes sense for a colony to pass on a dialect that is well adapted to this environment,” said Nieh. The results therefore provided evidence that social learning shapes honey bee signaling as it does with early communication in many vertebrate species that also benefit from learning.

The next steps for this research is better understanding the role that the environment plays in shaping bee language. Additionally, the team would like to know more about external threats like pesticides to bees that could disrupt early language learning. 

“We know that bees are quite intelligent and have the capacity to do remarkable things,” said Nieh. “Multiple papers and studies have shown that pesticides can harm honey bee cognition and learning, and therefore pesticides might harm their ability to learn how to communicate and potentially even reshape how this communication is transmitted to the next generation of bees in a colony.”

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The exterior paint on a building is often a major factor in keeping their indoors appropriately warm or cool, and a lot of work goes into developing new concoctions to improve insulation. Unfortunately, the volatile organic compounds found in modern synthetic paint have been shown to have harmful effects on both the environment and humans. On top of all that, air conditioning still contributes to over 10 percent of all electricity consumption in the US. Thankfully, we have butterflies and squid.

Those species and others inspired a researcher at University of Central Florida’s NanoScience Technology Center to create an ultra-lightweight, environmentally safe “plasmonic paint.” The unique paint relies on nanoscale structural arrangements of aluminum and aluminum oxide instead of traditional pigments to generate its hues. As detailed in Debashis Chanda’s recent paper published in Science Advances, traditional pigment paint colorants rely on their molecules’ light absorption properties to determine colors. Chanda’s plasmonic paint, in contrast, employs light reflection, absorption, and scattering based on its nanostructural geometric arrangements to create its visual palettes.

[Related: Are monarch butterflies endangered in the US?]

“The range of colors and hues in the natural world are astonishing—from colorful flowers, birds and butterflies to underwater creatures like fish and cephalopods,” said Chanda in a statement on Wednesday. Chanda went on to explain that these examples’ structural color serves as their hue-altering mechanism, as two colorless materials combine to produce color.

Compared to traditional available paint, Chanda’s plasmonic version is both dramatically longer lasting, eco-friendly, and efficient. Normal paints fade as their pigments lose the ability to absorb light electrons, but plasmonics’ nanostructural attributes ensure color could remain as vibrant as the day it was applied “for centuries,” claimed Chanda.

A layer of plasmonic paint can achieve full coloration at just 150 nanometers thick, making it arguably the lightest paint in the world, and ensuring magnitudes less is needed for projects. Chanda estimated that just three pounds of plasmonic paint would cover an entire Boeing 747 jet exterior—a job that usually requires around 1,000 pounds of synthetic paint.

[Related: A new paint can reflect up to 98.1 percent of sunlight.]

And then there’s the energy savings. Plasmonic paint reflects the entire infrared spectrum, thereby absorbing far less heat. During testing, a surface layered with the new substance typically remained between 25 and 30F cooler than a surface painted with commonly available commercial options. That could save consumers’ bucket loads of cash, not to mention dramatically cut down on energy needed to power A/C systems.

Chanda said fine-tuning is still needed to improve plasmonics’ commercial viability, as well as scale up production abilities to make it a feasible replacement for synthetic paint. Still, natural inspirations like butterflies could be what ultimately help save their beauty for centuries to come.

“As a kid, I always wanted to build a butterfly,” said Chanda. “Color draws my interest.”

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When humans first took to the skies in airplanes–long before GPS–they used roads, railways, buildings, and other linear landmarks on the ground to navigate. The method appears in nature as well. Honeybees use dominant elements in the landscape to find their way home, according to the results of a study published March 6 in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

As expert travelers, honeybees are known to use the sun, their sense of smell, and changes in polarized light in the sky to navigate as they fly. They even use the tiny hairs on their bodies to sense a flowers’ electric field. This new study takes a deeper look at the role that memory of specific visual cues plays in their navigation.

[Related: Male wasps use their genital spines to sting frogs (and people).]

“Here we show that honeybees use a ‘navigation memory’, a kind of mental map of the area that they know, to guide their search flights when they look for their hive starting in a new, unexplored area,” Randolf Menzel, a neurobiologist from Free University of Berlin in Germany and study co-author, said in a statement. “Linear landscape elements, such as water channels, roads, and field edges, appear to be important components of this navigation memory.”

Menzel and his team caught 50 experienced forager honeybees in 2010 and 2011. In unfamiliar territory, these bees fly in exploratory loops in different directions and distances that are centered from where they were released. The team used radar to track each bee’s exploratory flight pattern for between 20 minutes and three hours.  

The bees were from colonies located in five different home areas and were tested in one common area to see how each group responded to differences in landmarks. The most notable linear landmarks were two parallel irrigation channels that ran northeast and southwest. The test area didn’t include any other landmarks that honeybees are known to use to navigate, such as structured horizons, or vertical elements that stand out like trees or plants. Next, the team glued a tiny transponder on the bees’ backs and released them in a test area that was too far away from their home hives for them to already be familiar with. They then used a radar that could detect the transponders at a distance of up to 2,952 feet in the test area. 

The team then used software to simulate two sets of the bees’ seemingly random flight patterns observed in the experiment, centered on the release spot. These paths generated different algorithms. Since these observed flight patterns were very different, the researchers concluded that the honeybees weren’t simply conducting random search flights, but instead had more purpose and direction.

[Related: A swarm of honeybees can have the same electrical charge as a storm cloud.]

They then analyzed the orientation of the search flights and how often the bees flew over each 100 x 100 meter block within the test area using advanced statistics. The models showed that the honeybees tended to spend a disproportionate amount of time flying alongside the irrigation channels. 

Deeper analysis showed that the channels continued to guide the bees’ exploratory flights even when the bees were more than 98 feet away from the channels, which is the furthest distance the honeybees can see linear landscape elements such as these. The team theorizes that this implies that the bees kept the landmarks in their memory for prolonged periods of time.

“Our data show that similarities and differences in the layout of the linear landscape elements between their home area and the new area are used by the bees to explore where their hive might be,” said Menzel.

According to the study, the results suggest that the bees can retain a navigational memory of their home territory based on landmarks and then try to generalize what they saw in the test area to find their way home. This behavior is also found in bats and birds–and now, honeybees. 

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To give grasshoppers some credit—leaping across yards and between branches takes a lot more expertise than it might appear. There are incredibly tiny factors to consider, such as the resistance in launchpad material (Are the blades of grass bouncy? Is the plant twig brittle?), as well as desired distance, speed, and landing.

Most jumping robots can’t compete with the insect, as their leaps are limited to starting atop extremely rigid surfaces. But a new bouncing bot developed by researchers in Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering is soaring over those hurdles, and showing immense promise for how autonomous devices could operate in the future.

[Related: Watch these tiny bugs catapult urine with their butts.]

A team of scientists led by professor of mechanical engineering Sarah Bergbreiter recently optimized a robot’s latch mechanisms used to propel it upward. Previously, these latches were primarily thought of as simple “on/off” switches that enabled the release of stored energy. However, Bergbreiter and her team employed mathematical modeling to illustrate that these latches both were capable of steering energy output, as well as controlling the transfer of energy between the jumper and the launch surface.

To test their work, the team positioned a small leaping robot atop a tree branch and recorded the precise energy transfers in its jumps’ first moments. Watching the branch recoil before the robot jumped, they could tell the device recovered at least a bit of the energy first transferred to the branch right before liftoff.

“We found that the latch can not only mediate energy output but can also mediate energy transfer between the jumper and the environment that it is jumping from,” said Bergbreiter.

Researchers also noticed an “unconventional” energy recovery in other instances which employed a different latch variety. In those situations, the branch actually provided a little push for the bot after it leaped off its surface, thus returning some of its momentum to boost it higher.

[Related: This tiny robot grips like a gecko and scoots like an inchworm.]

Now that researchers better understand the interactions at play in the opening moments of leaping, they can now begin working on ways to integrate this into future robotic designs. Likewise, biologists can gain a better insight into how insects maneuver through variable terrains, such as grass or sand.

“It has been nearly impossible to design controlled insect-sized robots because they are launched in just milliseconds,” explained Bergbreiter. “Now, we have more control over whether our robots are jumping up one foot or three… It’s really fascinating that the latch— something that we already need in our robots—can be used to control outputs that we couldn’t have controlled before.”

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Picture it—you walk into a typical Walmart in Arkansas on a grocery run, but instead of a traditional Walmart greeter welcoming you in, you find an insect whose origins date back to the Jurassic Period. This sci-fi like story actually happened back in 2012 and luckily the person who spotted the insect is a bug expert.

“I remember it vividly, because I was walking into Walmart to get milk and I saw this huge insect on the side of the building,” Michael Skvarla, who was then a doctoral student at the University of Arkansas and is now the director of Penn State University’s Insect Identification Lab, said in a statement. “I thought it looked interesting, so I put it in my hand and did the rest of my shopping with it between my fingers. I got home, mounted it, and promptly forgot about it for almost a decade.”

[Related: Watch these tiny bugs catapult urine with their butts.]

The insect was a giant lacewing (Polystoechotes punctata),  the first of its kind recorded in eastern North America in over 50 years and the first ever recorded in Arkansas. The moth relative with a one inch wingspan used to be widespread across the continent, but disappeared from eastern North America by the 1950s. With this find, scientists believe that there may be relic populations of this insect with roots back to the Jurassic (about 201.3 million to 145 million years ago) yet to be discovered. 

The creature is described in a study published late last year in the journal Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington. Skvarla is a co-author on the paper. 

In the study, the team describes how the insect was originally misidentified,  and how students in one of Skvarla’s online courses helped re-identify the specimen.

“We were watching what Dr. Skvarla saw under his microscope and he’s talking about the features and then just kinda stops,” Codey Mathis, a doctoral candidate in entomology at Penn State, said in a statement. “We all realized together that the insect was not what it was labeled and was in fact a super-rare giant lacewing. I still remember the feeling. It was so gratifying to know that the excitement doesn’t dim, the wonder isn’t lost. Here we were making a true discovery in the middle of an online lab course.”

To confirm, Skvarla and his colleagues performed molecular DNA analyses on the specimen and revealed that it was in fact a giant lacewing.

The discovery could reveal a larger story about biodiversity in North America and changing environment since the giant lacewing was spotted in the urban area of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Skvarla says that the explanations for the giant lacewing’s disappearance from North America are varied and mostly a mystery. Scientists hypothesize that it may have disappeared due to increasing artificial light, pollution, and urbanization, the suppression of forest fires in the eastern part of North America since they rely on post-fire environments to live. Even the introduction of non-native predators like ground beetles may have had an effect.

[Related: Eyeless army ants chomped their way through Europe millions of years ago.]

“Entomology can function as a leading indicator for ecology,” Skvarla said. “The fact that this insect was spotted in a region that it hasn’t been seen in over half a century tells us something more broadly about the environment.”

The city of Fayetteville lies within the Ozark Mountains, which the team says is a suspected biodiversity hotspot. According to Skvarla, dozens of endemic species, including 68 species of insects, are known to live in these mountains and at least 58 species of plants and animals have highly disjunct populations with representatives in the region. 

However, the mystery of how the elusive bug arrived on the outer facade of a Walmart remains. They believe that because it was found on the side of a well-lit building, it was likely attracted to the lights

 “It could have been 100 years since it was even in this area — and it’s been years since it’s been spotted anywhere near it. The next closest place that they’ve been found was 1,200 miles away, so very unlikely it would have traveled that far,” said Skvarla.

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Going to the bathroom is different for every creature. Tigers and penguins are known for projectile excretion that shoots out a fire hose, whereas wombats poop in cubes, sloths only poop once a month, and some wood-boring clams use poop chimneys to build a home. 

All animals, even insects need to get rid of their waste. What goes in, afterall, must eventually come out. After Georgia Tech biomechanics specialist Saad Bhamla caught the rare sight of an insect urinating in his backyard, he was curious what mechanisms the critter used to relieve itself. He watched as the bug formed an almost perfectly round droplet on its tail before quickly launching away, a pattern repeated for hours.

[Related: These clams use poop to dominate their habitat.]

To learn more, Bhamla and bioengineering graduate student Elio Challita studied glassy-winged sharpshooters– an insect the size of a millimeter known notorious for spreading disease among crops like almonds, wine, and citrus. While they are smaller than the tip of a pinky finger, the mechanism behind their excrement can produce superpropulsion– a feat of physics and bioengineering. Their study, published February 28 in the journal Nature Communications, describes the first observation and explanation of this phenomenon in a biological system. 

“Little is known about the fluid dynamics of excretion, despite its impact on the morphology, energetics, and behavior of animals,” said Bhamla, in a statement. “We wanted to see if this tiny insect had come up with any clever engineering or physics innovations in order to pee this way.”

Sharpshooters eat an almost zero-calorie diet of a nutrient deficient liquid called plant xylem sap. It only has water and a trace of minerals and they drink up to 300 times their body weight in xylem sap per day. To survive, they need to constantly drink and efficiently excrete their mostly-water fluid waste. 

In this study, the team used high-speed videos and microscopy to watch precisely what was happening on the insect’s tail. 

First, the scientists looked at the role played by an anal stylus, or as the team called it a “butt flicker.” When the sharpshooter is ready to pee, the butt flicker rotates backwards from a neutral position to make room as the insect squeezes out the liquid. As the flicker remains at the same angle, a droplet forms and gradually grows. When the droplet is at an optimal diameter–or roundness–the flicker rotates farther back about 15 degrees and then launches the droplet at more than 40 G’s. That’s 10 times higher than the fastest sports cars. 

“We realized that this insect had effectively evolved a spring and lever like a catapult and that it could use those tools to hurl droplets of pee repeatedly at high accelerations,” Challita said.

They then measured the speed of the butt flicker’s movement and compared it to the speed of the droplets. They expected the droplets and butt flicker to move at the same speed but instead found that the speed of the droplets in air was faster than the butt flicker that flicked them. This ratio of speed suggested the presence of a principle previously shown only in synthetic systems called superpropulsion. This occurs when an elastic projectile gets a boost of energy when launch and projectile timing is matched up, like a diver timing their jump off a springboard of a diving board.

[Related: These insects have 80 times the suction power of an elephant and pee at an alarming rate.]

After taking a closer look, they saw that the butt flicker compressed the droplets which had energy stored in them because of the surface tensions on the water just before launch. To test this, they  placed water droplets on an audio speaker and used the vibrations of the sound to compress the droplets at high speeds.  At tiny scales, the droplets store energy due to inherent surface tension. When dropped, and if timed just right, the droplets can be catapulted at extremely high speeds.

To figure out why sharpshooters urinate in droplets, Bhamla and Challita studied micro CT scans of their morphology and took measurements from inside the insects. They calculated the pressure that is required for sharpshooters to push the fluid through a very small anal canal and found that peeing in droplets is the most energy efficient way for them to excrete waste.

The team hopes that better understanding how excretion affects animal size, behavior, and evolution can be used to prevent crop losses. Sharpshooter excretion could possibly be a vector surveillance tool infestations from bugs like the sharpshooters will likely get worse with climate change. 

“This work reinforces the idea of curiosity-driven science being valuable,” Challita said. “And the fact that we discovered something that is so interesting–superpropulsion of droplets in a biological system and heroic feats of physics that have applications in other fields–makes it even more fascinating.”

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Conifer forests across Europe are under siege from a tiny threat with a gigantic impact. Abnormally high temperatures and summer droughts have helped populations of the Eurasian spruce bark beetles (Ips typographus) soar, eventually killing the trees. Forest management entities are rushing to fix the problem. In July 2022, the United Kingdom’s Forestry Commission began a new management program to handle outbreaks of beetles and to combat future spread, particularly in southwestern England. Germany alone has lost half a million hectares of forests since 2018, with spruce tree species being hit particularly hard by the species, also called the European bark beetle. 

[Related: Mother dung beetles are digging deeper nests to escape climate change.]

These small beetles burrow into the bark of Norway spruce trees, and once inside, they mate and lay their eggs. They also seem to preferentially attack the spruce trees that are already infected with a symbiotic fungus, such as Grosmannia penicillata, which is believed to weaken trees and break down their chemical defenses. This allows the beetles to successfully reproduce within the bark.

In a study published February 21 in the journal PLoS Biology, a team investigated the chemical signals that the insects use to identify host trees that are infected with the fungus. The team performed experiments in a lab on captive bark beetles and samples of Norway spruce bark. 

The experiments found that the fungus breaks down monoterpenes–chemicals present in tree bark resin–into new compounds, including camphor and thujanol. They also found that the fungus-produced compounds dominated the chemical mixture emitted by the bark samples after 12 days of infection. 

Additionally, single cell recordings of sensory neurons in the beetles’ antennae revealed that the bugs can detect camphor and thujanol. Behavioral experiments found that the bark beetles were attracted to the bark that had these fungus-produced compounds. The compounds may allow bark beetles to assess the presence of the fungus and find trees that are suitable to eat and breed in. 

[Related: The government is raising an army of parasitic wasps to fight invasive beetles.]

According to the study authors, understanding the role that these chemical compounds play in bark beetle attacks could help create better pest-management strategies and protect European conifers from future epidemic outbreaks.

“The bark beetles currently killing millions of spruce trees every year in Europe are supported in their attacks by fungal associates,” said study co-author Jonathan Gershenzon, a biochemist from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Germany, in a statement. “We discovered that these fungi convert volatile compounds from spruce resin to products, which may serve as cues for bark beetles to find them.”

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This article was originally featured on Undark.

At Singapore’s National Environment Agency, more than a million mosquitoes buzz inside plastic boxes in a breeding room that smells of fermented sugar. The male insects, which don’t bite, feed on plant juices in the wild, but here, they nourish themselves on sugar water. Meanwhile, their female counterparts lay eggs on paper-like strips half submerged in trays of water. Each week, the insects inside this facility produce 24 million tiny black eggs.

The NEA’s mosquitoes are all Aedes aegypti, a species that can transmit viruses to humans, including dengue — a growing global threat which, by some estimates, infects 100 to 400 million and kills about 21,000 people each year. These captive insects are disease-free, however, and they are being bred to stop the spread of the viral illness. Specifically, the insects in the NEA lab have been infected with a bacterium called Wolbachia, which they will pass on to the next generation of mosquitoes.

The Wolbachia bacterium is ubiquitous in nature: It can be found in as many as 60 percent of insect species, from butterflies and wasps, to bees, dragonflies, and some species of mosquito. However, these bacteria do not naturally occur in Aedes aegypti. When scientists infect Aedes aegypti with Wolbachia, the insects no longer transmit dengue readily to humans. Additionally, under some circumstances, the bacterium can interfere with mosquitoes’ ability to reproduce. (The precise mechanisms behind these changes are not fully understood.)

Wolbachia-based protocols for insect control have been used in countries across the globe for more than a decade, and in many cases, they have reduced the incidence of mosquito-related disease. But scientists are still learning the best ways to employ these methods at scale. Wolbachia-infected insects are difficult to mass produce, and NEA’s researchers have responded by automating some of the steps that were previously done by hand. Even so, it would be tough to cover “the billions of people, living in the 10,000s of towns and cities in more than 100 countries, that are at risk of dengue,” Jérémie Gilles, the director of production development and supply at the not-for-profit World Mosquito Program, said in an emailed response to Undark.

The WMP and other research organizations use an alternative Wolbachia-based approach — one that doesn’t require such large numbers of lab-bred insects. Thus far, the approach has been effective and cost-efficient, though more time is needed to monitor the long-term outcomes, including the possibility that dengue may evolve to evade the bacterium.

Despite the challenges, officials in Singapore have been game to try Wolbachia to fight dengue — a common scourge in this densely-populated city-state that offers a perfect breeding ground for Aedes aegypti, which favor urban environments and warm climates. Singapore’s National Environment Agency has fought the virus for decades: spraying insecticides, advising people to avoid getting bitten, providing detailed instructions for preventing mosquitoes from reproducing inside one’s home, and fining those who fail to comply. Yet all these efforts are like chasing a runaway train, experts say, which is why the government turned to Wolbachia.

Since 2016, NEA scientists have been setting free male Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes around Singapore. Though the program started small, by 2019, the NEA was releasing up to 2 million insects per week. Thanks to automation, that number increased to as many as 5 million per week in 2022. So far, at intervention sites, this has led to dramatic reductions of wild Aedes aegypti populations — and far less dengue.

Once the insects have laid their eggs in the mosquito breeding room, the NEA researchers move the millions of tiny black dots down the hall to a hatchery — a bright, hot, humid place that stinks of fish. The eggs are placed in small, water-filled trays, waiting to hatch into larvae.

By releasing male Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into the community, Singapore is following a protocol that aims to suppress the population of native mosquitoes. When such males mate with local Wolbachia-free females, the females lay eggs that won’t hatch, and in time the number of mosquitoes decreases. This suppression method is tricky. As it happens — and for reasons that are not well understood — mosquitoes can successfully breed when both partners are infected with Wolbachia. To prevent this, NEA scientists separate the females from the males before the latter are released.

But first, the larvae need to be counted and transferred to a rack with larger trays, each holding precisely 26,000 larvae. The exact number is important for keeping the rearing conditions constant, and initially, NEA staff would manually count all the hatched larvae. It took a sharp-sighted lab assistant two hours to count just 4,000 larvae, said the NEA’s senior research officer, Deng Lu. Now, the tally is automated: Pour millions of larvae into a machine, and within minutes it will count the 26,000 needed to fill one tray.

Once in their new, larger trays, the larvae are kept at a water temperature of 80 degrees Fahrenheit and fed a customized mixture of fish meal, carbohydrates, and fats (hence the smell). In nature, male pupae are generally smaller than females, but the difference is not large and it can be hard to distinguish males from females. To solve this issue and make separation by sex a bit easier, NEA scientists have perfected the larvae-rearing process. The diet, the temperature, and the humidity have to be kept perfectly constant, Deng said, to ensure that the females and males end up as different in size as possible.

Separating male from female pupae also used to be done by hand, a job that was both tedious and prone to error. Now, however, NEA scientists are helped by another new technology: the pupae sex sorter. Here, the process starts with scanning a batch of pupae — basically, taking pictures of each individual and gathering its measurements. An AI-based computer system will then draw a type of graph called a distribution curve. If everything up to now has been done correctly, the graph on the screen will show two clearly separated peaks: a small upward curve indicating males to the left and then another, larger bump, indicating females, to the right.

Scientists can calculate the male-female size differential in a particular mosquito batch by measuring the distance between the two peaks. “In this batch, the male and female distance is about 200 microns,” Deng said. “So we actually can do the female separation.” Based on that 200-micron distance, he picked up a sieve that would only let the smaller pupae through and inserted it into the sorter, a white machine shaped like a mini-fridge. After the pupae are poured in, the females will stay on the sieve while the males pass through into a container underneath. The whole process takes about 10 to 12 minutes.

Singapore is not the only country that fights dengue by releasing Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes. A facility run by Verily Life Sciences — formerly Google Life Sciences — which bred mosquitoes for release in a trial in Fresno, California, can produce close to 3 million males per week, also with the help of AI and automation. The world’s largest mosquito factory in Guangzhou, China, can churn out even 10 times as much.

Automation and AI may have allowed some laboratories to produce huge batches of mosquitoes, but these tools are not cheap. (The NEA would not divulge its budget.) This is one reason why many efforts use a different Wolbachia-based method, known as population replacement, which does not require sex sorting and can work with fewer factory-bred mosquitoes. This method aims to replace native populations with one that is unable to transmit dengue.

Scientists begin by infecting both male and female mosquitoes with Wolbachia. For reasons that are so far unclear to scientists, the bacterium impairs females’ ability to transmit certain viruses, dengue included. A non-randomized study conducted in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia, showed that two years after initiating a population-replacement protocol, dengue incidence in the intervention area fell by 73 percent compared to a control area. A similar study conducted in Brazil showed a 69 percent reduction in dengue incidence and a 56 percent reduction in cases of another virus called chikungunya.

Though male mosquitoes do not bite — and therefore can’t spread dengue — it’s still important to infect them with Wolbachia and release them along with the infected females. When Wolbachia males mate with wild infection-free females, the eggs will not hatch, and over time, there are fewer infection-free females to compete with their lab-produced counterparts. At the same time, as the Wolbachia females mate with both wild and lab-bred males, the eggs will hatch and the offspring will carry Wolbachia. The hope is that ultimately the native Aedes aegypti mosquito population will be made up of individuals infected with the bacterium.

This makes the approach simpler than Singapore’s because there’s no need for sex sorting.

Additionally, population replacement requires considerably fewer lab-grown mosquitoes. “The aim is to get Wolbachia to spread into that population rather than to suppress it, and so the numbers of mosquitoes that need to be released are an order of magnitude lower than with a male-only suppression program,” said Steven Sinkins, a professor of microbiology and tropical medicine at University of Glasgow.

In the Yogyakarta City study, only 1.7 million mosquitoes were released over a 7-month period — compared to Singapore’s 5 million per week. This makes the method more affordable. “Where the budget is restricted, the health budget, we would definitely be recommending the replacement approach because of the smaller scale of releases needed,” Sinkins said.

What also potentially makes the replacement method easier to employ is that it’s designed to be self-sustaining. “If you’ve done it correctly, it will be a discreet period of releases and then you can stop. The Wolbachia will be at a high stable frequency and it will stay there and block dengue transmission long term,” Sinkins said. In Australia, where Wolbachia-mosquito releases to fight dengue were conducted in 2011, the first replacement project in the world, the bacterium was still stable in the Aedes aegypti population nine years later.

The simplicity and affordability of the replacement method is one reason why it was chosen by the World Mosquito Program, which has launched Wolbachia programs in 12 countries, from Brazil and Mexico to Vietnam and Australia. “We aim to simplify our production process as much as possible,” Gilles wrote in an email. “We try to minimize automation throughout our program.”

Why did Singapore choose the suppression method, then? One reason, according to Ng Lee Ching, director of NEA’s Environmental Health Institute, is the issue of bites. To replace a mosquito population, researchers need to release those pesky females. “Our people are not used — not comfortable with mosquito bites, so I think the public acceptance for the replacement approach would not be as high,” she said. After decades of various mosquito control programs on the island, there simply aren’t many mosquitoes flying around Singapore anymore. And for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who has ever been swarmed, local residents are not keen to bring the insects back.

On a November morning, Matthew Verkaik arrived in the Singaporean town of Yishun to release about 4,400 lab-reared male Aedes aegypti. Yishun used to be a dengue hotspot, brimming with mosquitoes. Now, after six years of releases, the local Aedes aegypti population is down by as much as 98 percent, and dengue cases are down by 88 percent. “The before and after is very startling,” said Verkaik, a senior research officer at the National Environment Agency. “You don’t pay attention until you are like, ‘Okay, wait. There’s no mosquitoes. What’s going on?’”

He picked up a basket containing 22 black canisters, each filled with about 200 Wolbachia-infected males, and walked to the first release spot located at the back of a 12-floor apartment block. The place was not random — Verkaik chooses these spots carefully. In general, he freed about six mosquitoes per inhabitant, and did so at even intervals alongside the buildings, both on the ground floor and on higher ones, too.

Standing by the building’s trash chutes, Verkaik grabbed a canister, opened the lid, and gave it a shake. The insects emerged as a cloud of tiny black shapes. A few open containers later and the mosquitoes were everywhere: buzzing around, sitting on walls. In general, the locals seemed not to mind, as the program has strong community support. In a 2021 study, 92 percent of households reported no concerns with releases in their neighborhoods.

According to Sinkins, replacement projects also tend to be welcomed by the public, biting females notwithstanding. “I think mainly because we’ve been targeting areas that have high dengue transmission rates,” he said. “The community acceptance has been very good because nothing else has really been working.”

Reducing mosquito bites, however, is not the only reason why Singapore chose the suppression method over population replacement. The other one is the potential risk of viral evolution, Ng said. Just like Covid-19, dengue is caused by an RNA virus that can evolve relatively quickly. Replacement areas still have a lot of mosquitoes, and there is always the risk of sporadic dengue infections occurring in a small number of the insects. Such breakthrough infections might provide opportunities for dengue viruses to evolve and adapt to the bacterium.

Virus evolution is something that concerns some experts. “It’s a risk, ” said Kat Edenborough, a microbiology research fellow at Monash University in Australia, the institution that owns the World Mosquito Program. “It’s something that we’ll be actively surveying.” She noted, however, that unlike SARS-CoV-2, which can evolve as it spreads person-to-person, dengue needs two species to serve as hosts: the mosquito and the human. This, according to Edenborough, should slow down the viral evolution. A recent study in which researchers passed the dengue virus 10 times through Wolbachia-infected cells of Aedes aegypti did not show signs of the virus adapting.

While Wolbachia programs have gained momentum over the last few years, there is still a lot of ground to cover. Scientists want to understand how exactly Wolbachia works inside mosquitoes, how it evolves, and whether it pushes viruses to fight back. And researchers want to find out if Wolbachia can help fight other diseases, such as malaria. (There are some indications that it might.) The World Health Organization has set a goal to lower the incidence of dengue by 2030 by 60 percent compared to 2016 numbers. “To get to that point,” Edenborough said, “we need to just be using everything that we can.”

UPDATE: A previous version of this piece incorrectly stated that the male mosquitoes at Singapore’s National Environment Agency are infected with Wolbachia after they are sorted from the female mosquitoes. In fact, the males are infected with the bacteria prior to this sorting. The story has been corrected.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

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Animal-inspired robots are all the rage now, with recent creations drawing abilities from birds, snakes, octopuses, and even insects.The buggy creature kingdom just offered its newest inspiration, one which could offer huge benefits at a very small scale.

A group of mechanical engineering researchers across multiple universities have spent the last decade delving into click beetles’ evolution, anatomy, and movements. In recent years, the team focused on how a muscle within the tiny insect’s thorax enables it to not only travel many times its body length, but also right itself if turned over on its back. The propulsion, known as snap buckling, is seen as a natural feature that could be adapted into the field of robotics.

[Related: Watch this bird-like robot make a graceful landing on its perch.]

As detailed in a new paper published with Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team lead by Sameh Tawfick designed a series of coiled actuators which mimic click beetles’ anatomy. When pulled, the beam-shaped device buckles and stores elastic energy like the insects’ thorax muscle. Once the actuator is released, the resultant amplified boost propels the tiny robots upward, allowing it to maneuver over obstacles at roughly the same speed as the real bug. The movement, known as dynamic buckling cascading, could be used by future robots to traverse and examine the innards of large systems like jet turbines using small, on-board cameras.

Tawfick explained in a statement that the team experimented with four robotic actuator variations to determine which were the most economical and effective based on biological data and mathematical modeling. In the end, two designs successfully propelled the robots without any need for manual intervention.

[Related: This robot gets its super smelling power from locust antennae.]

“Moving forward, we do not have a set approach on the exact design of the next generation of these robots, but this study plants a seed in the evolution of this technology,” said Tawfick, explaining that the entire trial-and-error process is similar to biological evolution.

Scientists also believe that future, insect-sized robots using the dynamic buckling cascade actuators could be deployed among agricultural settings like large farms. Often technology such as drones and rovers monitor fields, but these miniscule devices could open up entirely new, more delicate methods of observation and recording.

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Earthlings, get ready for your closeups.

Close-up Photographer of the Year has revealed its fourth annual contest winners, and the results are a doozy. With 11 different categories, the Top 100 features everything from octopuses and Atlas moths, to trails of pheromones and the delicate cross sections of leaves.

The story behind the overall winner (seen above):

“Northern pitcher plants (Sarracenia purpurea) are carnivorous, allowing them to survive in nutrient-poor bog environments. Here there is no rich soil, but rather a floating mat of Sphagnum moss. Instead of drawing nutrients up through their roots, this plant relies on trapping prey in its specialised bell-shaped leaves, called pitchers. Typically, these plants feast on invertebrates—such as moths and flies—but recently, researchers at the Algonquin Wildlife Research Station discovered a surprising new item on the plant’s menu: juvenile spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum).

This population of Northern Pitcher Plants in Algonquin Provincial Park is the first to be found regularly consuming a vertebrate prey. For a plant that’s used to capturing tiny invertebrate, a juvenile spotted salamander is a hefty feast!

On the day I made this image, I was following researchers on their daily surveys of the plants. Pitchers typically contain just one salamander prey at a time, although occasionally they catch multiple salamanders simultaneously. When I saw a pitcher that had two salamanders, both at the same stage of decay floating at the surface of the pitcher’s fluid, I knew it was a special and fleeting moment. The next day, both salamanders had sunk to the bottom of the pitcher.”

– Photographer Samantha Stephens

The next entry period for the Close-up Photographer of the Year awards will open in March. But before you start prepping your cameras, get a little inspiration by scrolling through more of the recent winners below.

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Although human snouts aren’t quite as weak as they’ve been made out to be, they still pale in comparison to a lot of our world’s fellow inhabitants. After all, you don’t see specially trained (human) police officers sniffing baggage at the airport. Even something as tiny as the mosquito, for instance, can detect a 0.01 percent difference in its surrounding environment’s CO2 levels. That said, you’ll never see a mosquito construct a robot to help pick up our species’ olfactory slack, which is exactly what one research team at Tel Aviv University recently accomplished.

The group’s findings, published in the journal Biosensor and Bioelectronics, showcases how the team connected a biological sensor—in this case, a desert locust’s antenna—to an electronic array before subsequently using a machine learning algorithm to hone the computer’s scent detection abilities. The result was a new system that is 10,000 times more sensitive than the existing, commonly used electronic devices currently available. This is largely thanks to the locust’s powerful sense of odor detection.

[Related: This surgical smart knife can detect endometrial cancer cells in seconds.]

Generally speaking, sensory organs such as animals’ eyes and noses use internal receptors to identify external stimuli, which they then translate into electrical signals that can be processed by their brains. Scientists measured the electrical activity induced within the desert locust’s antennae from various odors, then fed those readings into a machine learning program that created a “library of smells,” according to one researcher. The archive initially included 8 separate entries, including marzipan, geranium, and lemon, but reportedly went on to incorporate differentiations between different varieties of Scotch whisky—probably a pretty nice bonus for the desert locust.

The ability for such delicate readings could soon offer major improvements in the detection of everything from illicit substances, to explosives, to even certain kinds of diseases and cancers. The researchers also stressed that the new biosensor capabilities aren’t limited to simply smell—with additional work and testing, the same idea could be applied to touch or even certain animals’ abilities to sense impending natural disasters such as earthquakes. The team also explained they hope to soon develop the means for their robot to navigate on its own, thereby honing in on an odor’s source before identifying it.

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Despite the rapid rise in vehicles’ collision avoidance systems (CASs) like radar, LiDAR, and self-driving software, nighttime navigation remains a particularly hazardous endeavor. While only a quarter of time behind the wheel takes place after the sun sets, an estimated 50 percent of all traffic fatalities occur during this time. Knowing this, the natural inclination for many researchers might be to develop increasingly complex—and, by extension, energy hogging—CAS advancements, but one recent study points towards a literal bug-brained method to improve safety for everyone on roadways.

As detailed in new research published in ACS Nano from a team at Penn State, insects like locusts and houseflies provide the key inspiration behind the new novel collision prevention programming. Many current systems rely on real-time image analysis of a car’s surroundings, but the accuracy is often severely diminished by low-light or rainy conditions. LiDAR and radar tech can solve some of these issues, but at a hefty cost to both literal weight and energy consumption.

[Related: What’s going on with self-driving cars right now?]

Commonplace bugs, however, don’t need advanced neural networks or machine learning to avoid bumping into one another mid-flight. Instead, they use comparatively simple, highly energy efficient, obstacle-avoiding neural circuitry to navigate during travel. Taking this into account, the Penn State researchers devised a new algorithm based on the bugs’ neural circuits reliant on a single variable—car headlight intensity—for its reactions. Because of this, developers could combine the detection and processing units into a much smaller, less energy consuming device.

“Smaller” is perhaps a bit of an understatement. The new, photosensitive “memtransistor” circuit measures only 40-square micrometers (µm) of an “atomically thin” construction comprised of molybdenum disulfide. What’s more, the memtransistor needs only a few hundred picojoules of energy—tens of thousands of times less power than current cars’ CASs require.

[Related: Self-driving EVs use way more energy than you’d think.]

Real-life nighttime scenario testing showed little, if any, sacrifice in the ability to detect potential collisions. While employed, the insect-inspired circuits alerted drivers to possible two-car accidents with between two- and three-second lead times, giving drivers enough time to course correct as needed. Researchers argue that by integrating the new bug-brained circuitry into existing CAS systems, vehicle manufacturers could soon offer far less bulky, more energy efficient evening travel safety protocols. Unfortunately and perhaps ironically, however, the study fails to mention any novel way to avoid those inspirational bugs smacking into your windshield while on the highway.

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This time of year, as the days are short and the calendar winds down to a single page, it’s easy for many to ask “where did the time go?” Perception of time varies partially because time measurements are a social construct, but also due to biological difference- even for animals other than humans.

Some preliminary research presented at the annual meeting of the British Ecological Society on December 20 shows that the animals that perceive time the fastest can fly, are small, or are marine predators.

[Related: Time isn’t real. Here’s how people capitalized on that.]

The to-be published study looked at 138 species and analyzed temporal perception, or the rate at which they perceive changes in the world. The team found that animals who have more fast-paced lifestyles are equipped with visual systems that can detect changes at higher rates.

“Having fast vision helps a species perceive rapid changes in the environment. Such detailed perception of changes is very useful if you move quickly or need to pinpoint the trajectory of  moving prey,” said Kevin Healy, an ecologist from the University of Galway in Ireland, who presented the research.

Dragonflies were able to detect the changes at the highest rate, with vision that could see changes 300 times in one second, or 300 hertz (300 hz). This is much faster than humans, who can only handle changes 65 times in a second (65 hz).

Among vertebrates, the pied flycatcher, a small bird similar to a sparrow, wins the prize for the fastest eyes at 146hz. Dogs clocked in at 75 hz (quicker than humans) and salmon could see at 96hz.

At only 0.7hz, the crown-of-thorns starfish had the slowest eyes in the study.

One of the unexpected findings is that many terrestrial, or land-based, predators perceive time relatively slowly when compared to their aquatic counterparts.

According to Healy, “We think this difference may be because in aquatic environments predators can continuously adjust their position when lunging for prey, while in terrestrial environments, predators that lunge at prey, such as a jumping spider, are not able to make adjustments once they’ve launched.”

Fast temporal perception takes a lot of energy and is limited by how quickly the neurons that are liked to retinal cells in the eye can recharge. For animals that don’t require such rapid eyesight, this energy is better used in reproduction or growth, according to the research.

[Related: How to slow down time because you’re not getting any younger.]

Not surprisingly, variation in the perception of time can also occur within species, including humans. Some studies suggest that goalkeepers in soccer/football can see changes at a higher rate and coffee can briefly give perception a small boost.

This analysis relied on the data from numerous studies that used flickering light experiments to measure time perception. In these experiments, a light is flickered and the rate at which the eye’s optic nerve sends the information to the brain is measured using electroretinograms. The electroretinograms in turn measured critical flicker fusion frequency, or how quickly an animal was able to detect the rate of a light flashing.

The research will help shed light on multiple aspects of an animal’s environment, namely how predators and prey interact with one another.

“By looking at such a wide range of animals, from dragonflies to starfish, our findings show that a species’ perception of time itself is linked to how fast its environment can change,” said Healy. “This can help our understanding of predator-prey interactions or even how aspects such as light pollution may affect some species more than others.”

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Worm spit, aka silk, has inspired a relatively simple, new process of nanofiber weaving that could advance everything from wound bandages to flexible electronics.

As unappealing as it may all sound, the popular, luxurious fabric indeed stems from a two-protein compound secreted by its namesake worm, which uses its threads to help weave cocoons. However, a team of Chinese researchers have also found that—apart from expensive sheets—humans can produce far more uniform micro- and nanofibers by imitating silkworms’ head movements as they secrete, pull, and weave their silk.

[Related: How researchers leveled up worm silk to be tougher than a spider’s.]

The group recently showcased their work in a new paper published with the American Chemical Society’s journal, Nano Letters. At first, researchers poked microneedles into foam blocks soaked in a polyethylene oxide solution, then pulled the needs away via a procedure known as microadhesion-guided (MAG) spinning to create nanofiber filaments that are thousands of times smaller than a single strand of human hair.

Existing nanofiber production methods are either slow and expensive, or otherwise result in inefficient, wadded material. By imitating silkworms’ weaving movement, however, the team found they could create an array of products—pulling the foam blocks straight away from one another offered orderly fibers, while a vibrating retraction crossweaved the material. Twisting the setup gave a similarly shaped “all-in-one” fiber. Regardless of the array, the results proved to clump far less than existing methods.

[Related: Watch this bird-like robot make a graceful landing on its perch.]

Going a step further, however, the team realized that the microneedling step wasn’t actually needed at all—the foam’s abrasive surface was enough to pull apart the polyethylene oxide solution into nanofilaments. It was so simple, in fact, that one can use the foam stretching method to hand-wrap a nanofiber bandage around a person’s wrist. In their experiments, the team utilized an antibiotic fiber to ensure a sterile, bacterial growth-inhibiting dressing that easily washes off with warm water, offering a potential new medical application in the near future.

Turning to the animal world for inspiration consistently offers impressive discoveries and advancements in tech and robotics, whether it’s for weaving, flying, running, or capturing. 

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Sometimes science bites—stings even. Researcher Misaki Tsujii from Kobe University in Japan found this out firsthand while studying the life history of the mason wasp (Anterhynchium gibbifrons) when she got stung. While stings are part of the risk when studying bees, something unexpected happened.

“Surprisingly, the male ‘sting’ caused a pricking pain,” said Tsujii’s research partner Shinji Sugiura, also from Kobe University. With wasps, it’s usually the females that sting predators. “Based on her experience and observations, I hypothesized that the male genitalia of A. gibbifrons function as an anti-predator defense,” Sugiura said.

[Related: Bees can sense a flower’s electric field—unless fertilizer messes with the buzz.]

It’s already known that female bees and wasps use modified ovipositors—a body part also used in egg-laying—to sting their attackers, including humans. These venomous stings are used to defend themselves and their colonies, but since the females have evolved venomous stings from ovipositors, scientists believed that these male bees weren’t as dangerous. A study published Monday in the journal Current Biology details how male mason wasps use their sharp genital spines to attack and sting predatory tree frogs to avoid being swallowed.

“The genitalia of male animals have frequently been studied in terms of conspecific interactions between males and females but rarely in terms of prey-predator interactions,” said Sugiura, in a statment. “This study highlights the significance of male genitalia as an anti-predator defense and opens a new perspective for understanding the ecological role of male genitalia in animals.”

To learn more, they placed male wasps with tree frogs (Dryophytes japonica). All of the frogs attacked the male wasps, and just over a third of the frogs spit the wasps out.

[Related: Bees choose violence when attempting honey heists.]

“Although all of the pond frogs ate the male wasps, 35.3 percent of the tree frogs ultimately rejected them,” they write in the study. “Male wasps were frequently observed to pierce the mouth or other parts of frogs with their genitalia while being attacked.”

They then gave tree frogs wasps that didn’t have their genitalia, and the frogs promptly ate them. Since frogs ate all of these genital-less male wasps, the results of the experiment appear to show the male wasps used their genitalia as a stinging mechanism to prevent the frogs from swallowing them.

The paper says that this is evidence that, just like their female counterparts, males use their genitalia to avoid being eaten by stinging their predators. These genital spines, called “pseudo-stings,” are found in some other wasp families (including Tiphiidae and Sphecidae, among others), so the team believes this newly discovered defensive role is likely found in multiple other wasp species in addition to the mason wasp.

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This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

A longstanding medical myth suggests that taking vitamin B1, also known as thiamine, can make your body repel mosquitoes.

A “systemic repellent” that makes your whole body unappealing to biting insects certainly sounds good. Even if you correctly reject the misinformation questioning safe and effective repellents like DEET, oral repellents would still have the benefit that you wouldn’t need to worry about covering every inch of exposed skin or carrying containers of bug spray whenever you venture into the great outdoors.

Along with thiamine, other alleged oral mosquito repellents include brewer’s yeast, which contains thiamine, and garlic, the legendary vampire repellent. If oral repellents sound too good to be true, it’s because they are.

As a professor of entomology in Taiwan, where the mosquito-transmitted Dengue virus is endemic, I was curious what science really says about food-based repellents. After a very deep dive into the literature and reading practically every paper ever written on the subject, I compiled this knowledge into the first systematic review of the subject.

The scientific consensus is, unequivocally, that oral repellents don’t exist. Despite extensive searches, no food, supplement, medication, or condition has ever been proven to make people repellent. People with vitamin B1 deficiency don’t attract more mosquitoes, either.

So where did the myth that mosquitoes hate vitamins come from, and why is it so hard to exterminate?

Making of a myth

In 1943, Minnesota pediatrician W. Ray Shannon gave 10 patients varying doses of thiamine, which had only first been synthesized seven years prior. They reported back that it relieved itching and prevented further mosquito bites. In 1945, California pediatrician Howard Eder claimed 10 milligram doses could protect people from fleas. In Europe in the 1950s, physician Dieter Müting claimed that daily 200 milligram doses kept him bite-free while vacationing in Finland, and hypothesized a breakdown product of thiamine was expelled through the skin.

These findings drew rapid attention, and almost immediate repudiation. The U.S. Naval Medical Research Institute tried to replicate Shannon’s findings, but failed. By 1949, Californians using thiamine to repel fleas from dogs were reporting it as “completely worthless.” Controlled studies from Switzerland to Liberia repeatedly failed to find any effects at any dose. The first clinical trial in 1969 concluded definitively that “vitamin B1 is not a systemic mosquito repellent in man,” and all controlled studies since suggest the same for thiamine, brewer’s yeast, garlic, and other alternatives.

The evidence was so overwhelming that, in 1985, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared all oral insect repellents are “not generally recognized as safe and effective and are misbranded,” making labeling supplements as repellents technically fraud.

Medical mechanisms aren’t there

Scientists know much more about both mosquitoes and vitamins today than ever before.

Vitamin B1 does not break down in the body and has no known effect on skin. The body strongly regulates it, absorbing little ingested thiamine after the first 5 milligrams and quickly excreting any excess via urine, so it does not build up. Overdose is almost impossible.

As in humans, thiamine is an essential nutrient for mosquitoes. There is no reason they would fear it or try to avoid it. Nor is there evidence that they can smell it.

The best sources of thiamine are whole grains, beans, pork, poultry and eggs. If eating a carnitas burrito won’t make you repel mosquitoes, then neither should a pill.

What explains the early reports, then? Along with shoddy experimental design, many used anecdotal patient reports of fewer bite symptoms as a proxy for reduced biting, which is not a good way to get an accurate picture of what’s going on.

Mosquito bites are followed by two reactions: an immediate reaction that starts fast and lasts hours and a delayed reaction lasting days. The presence and intensity of these reactions depends not on the mosquito, but on your own immune system’s familiarity with that particular species’ saliva. With age and continued exposure, the body goes from no reaction, to delayed reaction only, to both, to immediate reaction only, and eventually no reaction.

What Shannon and others thought was repellency could have been desensitization: The patients were still getting bitten, they just stopped showing symptoms.

So, what’s the problem?

Despite the scientific consensus, a 2020 survey of pharmacists in Australia found that 27% were still recommending thiamine as a repellent to patients traveling abroad: an unacceptable recommendation. Besides wasting money, people relying on vitamins as protection against mosquitoes can still get bitten, potentially putting them at risk of diseases like West Nile and malaria.

To get around the American ban and widely agreed-upon scientific consensus on oral repellents, some unscrupulous dealers are making thiamine patches or even injections. Unfortunately, while thiamine is safe if swallowed, it can cause severe allergic reactions when taken by other routes. These products are thus not only worthless, but also potentially dangerous.

Not every problem can be solved with food. Long sleeves and bug spray containing DEET, picaridin or other proven repellents are still your best defense against biting pests.

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Update (March 23, 2022): The journal Biology Letters retracted “An Eocene army ant” on March 22, 2023. According to the New Jersey Institite of Technology, “once published, other scientists in the field questioned the age of the specimen based on similar samples and upon further analysis, the researchers concluded that their findings were unfounded, and worked with Biology Letters to issue a retraction.”

The army ant (Dorylinae) is generally good at two things: traveling all around the world and having a ravenous appetite. Through their highly coordinated foraging, the ants can eat up to 500,000 prey animals in a single a day. Its nomadic lifestyle has taken the insects to most continents on Earth and there are currently about 270 army ant species living in the planet’s Eastern Hemisphere and roughly 150 species across North and South America.

Thanks to a rare fossil discovery, scientists are now exploring the first evidence that the predators once swarmed where they are not eating and scrurrying around today—Europe.

In a new paper published yesterday in the journal Biology Letters, researchers from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and Colorado State University detail the discovery of the oldest army ant on record. The specimen was preserved in Baltic amber dates back to the Eocene Epoch, about 35 million years ago.

[Related: How many ants are there on Earth? Thousands of billions.]

The specimen is about three millimeters long (less than an inch), shows an animal without eyes, and is named Dissimulodorylus perseus (D. perseus), after the mythical Greek hero Perseus. The legend goes that Perseus defeated Medusa with limited use of sight.

The fossil is just the second fossilized evidence of an army ant species ever described and is the first army ant fossil recovered from the Eastern Hemisphere, according to the study.

The team says that this ant fossil is evidence of previously unknown army ant lineages that would have existed across Continental Europe before going extinct throughout the past 50 million years AGO.

Incidently, this huge find was hidden for nearly 100 years at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.

“The museum houses hundreds of drawers full of insect fossils, but I happened to come across a tiny specimen labeled as a common type of ant while gathering data for another project,” the paper’s lead author and NJIT PhD candidate Christine Sosiak said in a statement. “Once I put the ant under the microscope, I immediately realized the label was inaccurate. I thought, this is something really different.”

It’s likely that the amber encasing the fossil was excavated sometime near or before the 1930s.

“From everything we know about army ants living today, there’s no hint of such extinct diversity,” said Phillip Barden, assistant professor of biology at NJIT and senior author of the paper. “With this fossil now out of obscurity, we’ve gained a rare paleontological porthole into the history of these unique predators.”

The team used X-rays and CT-scans to analyze the fossil and determined that D. perseus as a close relative to eyeless species of army ants currently found in Africa and Southern Asia, named Dorylus.

[Related: Ants have teeth. Here’s how they keep them sharp.]

When this fossil was formed, Europe had a much hotter and wetter climate than it has today, which might have provided an ideal living environment for ancient army ants. Since the Eocene (over tens of millions of years), Europe has undergone several cooling cycles, which may have made the continent been inhospitable for the ancient ants.

They also found an enlarged antibiotic gland on the specimen that is typically found in other army ants, that helps them live underground. This gland suggests that this European army ant lineage was well suited for subterranean living.

According to Sosiak, it’s one factor that sets this fossil a rarity.

“This was an incredibly lucky find. Because this ant was probably subterranean like most army ants today, it was much less likely to come into contact with tree resin that forms such fossils,” said Sosiak. “We have a very small window into the history of life on our planet, and unusual fossils such as this provide fresh insight.”

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Imagine an old-growth forest in the fading light of a summer evening. As the last of the sun’s rays disappear beneath the horizon, a tiny flash catches your eye.

You turn around, hold your breath; it blinks again, hovering 2 feet above the leaf litter. Across the dusky glade, a fleeting response. Then another one, and another, and within minutes flickering fireflies spread all over the quiet woods.

At first they seem disorganized. But soon a few coordinated pairs appear, little tandems flashing on the same tempo twice a second. Pairs coalesce into triads, quintuplets, and suddenly the entire forest is pulsating with a common, glittering beat. The swarm has reached synchrony.

Firefly congregations are sprawling speed-dating events. Flashes convey a courtship dialogue between advertising males and selective females. Shaped by the interplay of competition and cooperation among thousands of fireflies in interaction, collective light patterns emerge, twinkling analogs to the murmurations of bird flocks swooping together. The mystifying phenomenon of some fireflies’ flash synchronization has puzzled scientists for over a century.

Synchrony is ubiquitous throughout the universe, from electron clouds to biological cycles and planetary orbits. But synchrony is a complex concept with many ramifications. It encompasses various shapes and forms, usually revealed by mathematics and later explored in nature.

Take the firefly swarm. Wait a little longer and among the illuminated chorus, something else appears: Some discordant flashers secede and continue off-beat. They blink at the same pace but keep a resolute delay with their conformist peers. Could this be evidence of a phenomenon predicted by mathematical equations but never seen in nature before?

Synchrony, with a twist

Twenty years ago, while digging deeper into the equations that form the framework of synchrony, physicists Dorjsuren Battogtokh and Yoshiki Kuramoto noticed something peculiar. Under specific circumstances, their mathematical solutions would describe an ambivalent ensemble, showing widespread synchrony interspersed with some erratic, free-floating constituents.

Their model relied on a collection of abstract clocks, called oscillators, that have a tendency to align with their neighbors. The nonuniform state was surprising, because the equations assumed all oscillators were perfectly identical and similarly connected to others.

Spontaneous breaking of underlying symmetry is something that typically bothers physicists. We cherish the idea that some order in the fabric of a system should translate into similar order in its large-scale dynamics. If oscillators are indistinguishable, they should either all get in sync, or all remain chaotic – not show differentiated behaviors.

It piqued the curiosity of many, including mathematicians Daniel Abrams and Steven Strogatz, who named the phenomenon “chimera.” In Greek mythology, the Chimera was a hybrid monster made of parts of incongruous animals – so a fitting name for a hodgepodge of mismatched clusters of oscillators.

At first, chimeras were rare in mathematical models, requiring a very specific set of parameters to materialize. Over time, learning where to scout, theorists began to uncover them in many variations of these models, dubbing them “breathing,” “twisted,” “multiheaded” and other eerie epithets. Still, it remained mysterious whether these theoretical chimeras were also possible in the physical world  – or merely a mathematical myth.

A decade later, a few ingenious experiments set up in physics laboratories yielded the elusive chimeras. They involved finely tuned networks of interactions between sophisticated oscillators. While proving that engineering the coexistence of coherence and incoherence was a delicate, but possible, venture, they left the deeper question unanswered: Could mathematical chimeras also exist within the natural world?

It turned out it would take a tiny luminescent insect to shed light on them.

Chimera amid the fireflies’ blinking chorus

As a postdoc in the Peleg Lab at the University of Colorado, I work on deciphering the inner workings of firefly swarms. Our approach builds on the foundations of a little-known niche within modern physics: animal collective behavior. Simply put, the overarching objective is to reveal and characterize spontaneous, unsupervised large-scale patterns in the dynamics of groups of animals. We then investigate how these self-organized patterns emerge from individual interactions.

Advised by knowledgeable firefly experts, my colleagues and I drove across the country to Congaree National Park in South Carolina to chase Photuris frontalis, one of few North American species known to synchronize. We set up our cameras in a small forest clearing among the loblolly pines. Soon after the first flickers poked through the twilight, we observed a very rhythmic, precise synchrony, apparently as clean as predicted by equations.

This was an enchanting experience, yet one that left me reflective. I worried that this display was too orderly to let us infer anything from it. Physicists learn about things by looking at their natural fluctuations. Here, there seemed to be little variability to investigate.

Synchrony manifests itself in the data in the form of sharp spikes in the graph of the number of flashes over time. These peaks indicate that most flashes occur at the same instant. When they don’t, the trace looks irregular, like scribbles. In our plots, I first saw nothing but the flawless comblike pattern of impeccable synchrony.

It turned out the chimera was hiding in plain sight, but I had to roam further along the data to encounter it. There, in between the spikes of the light chorus, some shorter peaks indicated smaller factions in sync among themselves but not with the main group. I called them “characters.” Together with the synchronized chorus, these incongruous characters make up the chimera.

Like in the ancient Greek theater, the chorus sets the background while characters create the action. The two groups are intertwined, roaming the same stage, as we revealed from the three-dimensional reconstruction of the swarm. Despite the split in their rhythm, their spatial dynamics appear indistinguishable. Characters don’t seem to congregate or follow one another.

This unexpectedly intermingled self-organization raises even more questions. Do characters among the swarm consciously decide to break away, maybe to signal their emancipation? Or do they spontaneously find themselves trapped off-beat? Can mathematical insights enlighten the social dynamics at play among luminous beetles?

Unlike abstract oscillators in math equations, fireflies are cognitive beings. They incorporate complex sensory information and process it through a decision-making pipeline. They are also constantly in motion, forming and breaking visual bonds with their peers. Streamlined mathematical models don’t yet capture these intricacies.

In the quiet woods, the synchronized flashes and their dissonant counterparts may have illuminated a trove of new chimeras for mathematicians and physicists to chase.

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Without honeybees, next week’s Thanksgiving feast would be pretty boring. Their hard work makes foods like creamy mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie possible, since the power pollinators are crucial for growing the crops that eventually make it to the dinner table. The FDA estimates that bee pollination accounts for about $15 billion in added crop value and says honey bees are, “like flying dollar bills buzzing over US crops.”

But bees have been in trouble for quite some time. In 2006, beekeepers from Pennsylvania began to notice that their hives were dying off over winter. “Those were colonies that had, a couple weeks earlier, looked healthy, full of strong bees,” Nathalie Steinhauer, science coordinator of the Bee Informed Partnership, a national nonprofit that monitors honeybee populations, told PopSci earlier this year. “And they came back and the apiary was basically just full of empty hives.”

[Related: Do we still need to save the bees?]

The problem has only gotten worse. Between April 2020 and April 2021, beekeepers across the United States lost 45.5 percent of their managed honey bee colonies, according to an annual nationwide survey conducted by Bee Informed Partnership.

In addition to this staggering colony loss, a study published yesterday in the journal Scientific Reports finds that the lifespan of individual honey bees that were kept in a controlled, laboratory environment is 50 percent shorter than it was in the 1970s. The lifespan decreased from 34.3 days to 17.7 days.

The team modeled the effect of these shorter lifespans on bees and it aligned with the increased colony loss and reduced honey production trends that have been seen in the last few decades.

According to the authors, this is the first study to show an overall decline in honey bee lifespan potentially independent of environmental stressors like pesticides, which hints that genes may be influencing what’s happening in the beekeeping industry.

“We’re isolating bees from the colony life just before they emerge as adults, so whatever is reducing their lifespan is happening before that point,” Anthony Nearman, a Ph.D. student in the University of Maryland’s Department of Entomology and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “This introduces the idea of a genetic component. If this hypothesis is right, it also points to a possible solution. If we can isolate some genetic factors, then maybe we can breed for longer-lived honey bees.”

The team researchers collected bee pupae, or the stage of bee growth between a larvae and an adult, from honey bee hives when the pupae were within 24 hours of emerging from the wax cells they grow in. Once collected, the bees finished up their growth in an incubator and were kept in laboratory cages as adult bees.

[Related: The first honeybee vaccine could protect the entire hive, starting with the queen.]

Nearson supplemented the caged bees’ sugar water diet with plain water to better reflect conditions in nature and noticed that the caged bees had a median life span that was half of those in similar experiments in the 1970s.

“When I plotted the lifespans over time, I realized, wow, there’s actually this huge time effect going on,” Nearman said. “Standardized protocols for rearing honey bees in the lab weren’t really formalized until the 2000s, so you would think that lifespans would be longer or unchanged, because we’re getting better at this, right? Instead, we saw a doubling of mortality rate.”

Bee life in a lab setting is different from life in a colony, but records of lab-kept bees show a similar lifespan to colony bees, and previous studies have shown that in shorter honey bee lifespans corresponded to less foraging time and lower honey production in real-world observation. This is the first study to connect those factors to colony turnover rates, according to the authors.

The team modeled the effect of a 50 percent decrease in lifespan on a traditional beekeeping operation, where lost colonies and replaced every year. In this setting, the loss rate was about 33 percent, which is similar to winter losses of 30 percent and 40 percent that beekeepers have reported over the past 14 years.

In the study, they noted that the lab-kept bees might be exposed to a virus or pesticide during their larval stage, but the bees didn’t show any obvious symptoms of those exposures. Also, a genetic component to longevity has been shown in fruit flies, which could help explain what is going on in bees.

The team will compare these trends to honeybees in other countries. Any differences in bee longevity will be used to compare possible reasons for a decrease in life-span including viruses, pesticide use, and bee genetics.

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It’s relatively easy to observe and study the world’s insects, but it’s another thing entirely to safely interact with them physically. Take a pillbug, for example—you can watch them live their tiny pillbug lives all day long, but any attempts to handle them at best only annoys the little insects… and at worst, literally and figuratively squashes their future plans.

[Related: The monarch butterfly is scientifically endangered. So why isn’t it legally protected yet?]

The days of clumsy interactions with the itty-bitty world may be drawing to a close, however: Researchers at Japan’s Ritsumeikan University recently published a paper detailing their advancements in micro-robotics that allows for unprecedented physical interactions with extremely small subjects. As detailed in a paper published last month via Scientific Reports, developers have created “microfingers” that use artificial muscle actuators and tactile sensors to provide a “haptic teleoperation robot system” which they then tested on aforementioned pillbugs. Apparently, the results were extremely successful, although judging from the illustration provided, it sure looks like Ritsumeikan University invented a very ingenious way to finally achieve a truly adorable goal:

That’s right. We can tickle bugs now.

As researchers explained in their paper, while microsensors have previously been used to measure forces exerted by walking and flying insects, most other studies focused on measuring insect behavior. Now, however, with the new robotic glove “a human user can directly control the microfingers,” says study lead, Professor Satoshi Konishi, adding, “This kind of system allows for a safe interaction with insects and other microscopic objects.”

[Related: Scientists made the highest-ever resolution microscope.]

To test their new device, researchers fixed a pillbug in place using a suction tool, then used their microfinger setup to apply an extremely small amount of force on the bug to measure its legs’ reaction—10 mN (millinewtons), to be exact. While the device currently serves as a proof-of-concept, researchers are confident the advancement can pave the way for more accurate and safe interactions with the microworld around us. The paper’s authors also noted the potential to combine their technology with augmented reality systems in the future. Hopefully, this implies they’ll be able to see the bugs laughing when they’re being tickled.

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This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

If the TV series “Dirty Jobs” covered animals as well as humans, it would probably start with dung beetles. These hardworking critters are among the insect world’s most important recyclers. They eat and bury manure from many other species, recycling nutrients and improving soil as they go.

Dung beetles are found on every continent except Antarctica, in forests, grasslands, prairies and deserts. And now, like many other species, they are coping with the effects of climate change.

I am an ecologist who has spent nearly 20 years studying dung beetles. My research spans tropical and temperate ecosystems, and focuses on how these beneficial animals respond to temperature changes.

Insects don’t use internally generated heat to maintain their body temperature. Adults can take actions such as moving to warmer or colder areas. However, earlier life stages such as larvae are often less mobile, so they can be strongly affected by changing temperatures.

But dung beetles appear to have a defense: I have found that adult dung beetles modify their nesting behaviors in response to temperature changes by burying their brood balls deeper in the soil, which protects their developing offspring.

Champion recyclers

It’s easy to joke about these busy insects, but by collecting and burying manure, dung beetles provide many ecological benefits. They recycle nutrients, aerate soil, lessen greenhouse gas emissions from cattle farming and reduce pest and parasite populations that harm livestock.

Dung beetles are also important secondary seed dispersers. Dung from other animals, such as bears and monkeys, contains seeds that the beetles bury underground. This protects the seeds from being eaten, makes them more likely to germinate and improves plant growth.

There are roughly 6,000 species of dung beetles around the world. Most feed exclusively on dung, though some will feed on dead animals, decaying fruit and fungi.

Some species use stars and even the Milky Way to navigate along straight paths. One species, the bull-headed dung beetle (Onthophagus taurus), is the world’s strongest insect, able to pull over 1,000 times its own body weight.

That strength comes in handy for dung beetles’ best-known behavior: gathering manure.

Rolling and tunneling

Most popular images of dung beetles show them collecting manure and rolling it into balls to spirit away. In fact, some species are rollers and others are tunnelers that dig into the ground under a dung pat, bring dung down into the tunnel and pack it into a clump or sphere, called a brood ball. The female then lays an egg in each brood ball and backfills the tunnel with soil. Rollers do the same once they get their dung ball safely away from the competition.

When the egg hatches, the larva feeds on dung from the rood ball, pupates and emerges as an adult. It thus goes through complete metamorphosis – from egg to larva to pupa to adult – inside the brood ball.

Warmer temperatures produce smaller beetles

Dung beetle parents don’t provide care for their offspring, but their nesting behaviors affect the next generation. If a female places a brood ball deeper underground, the larva in the brood ball experiences cooler, less variable temperatures than it would nearer the surface.

This matters because temperatures during development can affect offspring survival and other traits, such as adult body size. If temperatures are too hot, offspring perish. Below that point, warmer, more variable temperatures lead to smaller-bodied beetles, which can affect the next generation’s reproductive success.

Smaller males can’t compete as well as larger males, and smaller females have lower reproductive output than larger females. In addition, smaller-bodied beetles remove less dung, so they provide fewer benefits to humans and ecosystems, such as nutrient cycling.

Beetles in the greenhouse

Climate change is making temperatures more variable in many parts of the world. This means that insects and other species have to handle not just warmer temperatures, but greater changes in temperature day to day.

To examine how adult dung beetles responded to the types of temperature shifts associated with climate change, I designed cone-shaped mini-greenhouses that would fit over 7-gallon buckets buried in the ground to their brims. Will Kirkpatrick, an undergraduate student in my lab, led the field trials.

We randomly placed a fertilized female rainbow scarab, Phanaeus vindex, in each greenhouse bucket and in the same number of uncovered buckets to serve as controls. Using temperature data loggers placed at four depths in the buckets, we verified that soil temperatures in “greenhouse” buckets were warmer and more variable than soil temperatures in uncovered buckets.

We gave the beetles fresh cow dung every other day for 10 days and allowed them to make brood balls. Then we carefully dug through the buckets and recorded the number, depth and size of brood balls in each bucket.

Digging deeper

We found that beetle mothers in greenhouse environments created more brood balls overall, that these brood balls were smaller, and that these females buried their brood balls deeper in the soil than beetle mothers in control buckets. Brood balls in the greenhouses still ended up in areas that were slightly warmer than those in the control buckets – but not nearly as warm as if the beetle mothers had not altered their nesting behaviors.

However, by digging deeper, the adults fully compensated for temperature variation. There was no difference in the temperature variation experienced by brood balls in greenhouse buckets and control buckets. This reflects the fact that soil temperatures become increasingly stable with depth as the soil becomes more and more insulated from the changing air temperatures above it.

Our findings also hint at a possible trade-off between burial depth and brood ball size. Beetle mothers that dug deeper protected their offspring from temperature changes but provided less dung in their brood balls. This meant less nutrition for developing offspring.

Climate change could still affect adult dung beetles in ways we did not test, with consequences for the next generation. In future work, we plan to place brood balls of Phanaeus vindex and other species of dung beetles back into the greenhouse and control buckets at the depths at which they were buried so that we can see how the beetle offspring develop and survive.

So far, though, my colleagues and are encouraged to find that these industrious beetles can alter their behavior in ways that may help them survive in a changing world.

Kimberly S. Sheldon receives funding from the US National Science Foundation.

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This article was originally featured on High Country News.

From the top of Pigeon Butte in western Oregon’s William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge, the full width of the Willamette Valley fits into a gaze. Slung between the Coast Range and the Cascades, the valley is checkered with farmland: grass-seed fields, hazelnut orchards, vineyards. In the foreground, however, grassy meadows scattered with wildflowers and occasional oaks trace the land’s contours.

Upland prairie landscapes like these once covered 685,000 acres of the Willamette Valley. By 2000, only a 10th of 1% remained. Their disappearance has meant the decline of countless species that once thrived here; some are endangered, others have disappeared. Among the nearly lost is a nickel-sized butterfly called Fender’s blue. 

Endemic to this valley, Fender’s blue was first collected in 1929. Shortly thereafter, it vanished, and, for 50 years, no one could find the sapphire-winged insect; it was presumed extinct. But in 1988, a 12-year-old boy netted a few in a meadow outside Eugene, and a lepidopterist officially rediscovered the butterfly the following year. It was added to the endangered species list in 2000, when fewer than 3,400 remained. 

Now, the butterfly’s population has quadrupled and the species is slated to be downlisted from endangered to threatened. If this status change is finalized, as is expected to happen this year, Fender’s blue will become only the second insect to have recovered in the history of the Endangered Species Act.

I’d come to the Pigeon Butte prairie one May morning in search of Fender’s blue because I wanted to see firsthand the particular beauty of this rare butterfly. But also, at a time when an estimated half-million insect species worldwide face extinction and butterfly populations are shrinking at unprecedented rates, I wanted to witness the thing this creature represented — proof that amid such overwhelming loss, recovery, too, remains possible. 

It wasn’t until I’d given up and started back down the hill that I saw them: two blue butterflies circling near my knees. When one landed, I peered at the underside of its wing and found the double arc of black spots that differentiate Fender’s blue from its more common look-alike, silvery blue. 

My first thought was one of wonderment: How had this delicate creature, with its tissue-thin wings and sunflower-seed sized body, come to be flitting about on this spring morning nearly 90 years after it was declared lost forever? My second thought was less romantic: So what? In the face of an ecological crisis of such grand scale, it was hard to imagine what difference the survival of one small blue butterfly might make.

A FEW YEARS AFTER the rediscovery of Fender’s blue, a graduate student named Cheryl Schultz found herself just outside Eugene, slogging through blackberry brambles taller than her head. Here, at what is now a Bureau of Land Management area called Fir Butte, pockets of remnant prairie persisted among a snarl of woody invasives. In these openings a few dozen Fender’s blues resided. Today, much has changed, and the site hosts more than 2,000.

Schultz, now a Washington State University professor, has helped lead Fender’s conservation for nearly three decades. But as a kid, she didn’t carry around a butterfly net. Instead, she came to butterflies by way of her interest in something else. She started her career in the years following the fiercely divisive debate over the addition of the northern spotted owl to the endangered species list. The fight pitted environmentalists against the timber industry and framed the issue as an either/or battle of good versus evil, jobs versus owls. Schultz grew wary of such dichotomies. She wanted to explore how science could help wildlife and people better share a landscape.

Trying to save Fender’s blue offered a challenge well-suited to this line of inquiry. Biologists knew the butterfly’s limited habitat would need to be expanded to prevent its extinction, but its range overlaid a landscape dominated by the human endeavors of agriculture, urban development and private land ownership.

Schultz began by observing Fender’s blues to better understand their particular ecology: How far will a Fender’s travel? How much nectar is needed to support a population? How do fires and herbicides affect the species? Then, she and her colleagues used their findings to help develop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Fender’s blue recovery plan. But science alone, Schultz told me, cannot enact conservation. “Recovery takes three things,” she said. “Science, time and partnerships.”

PERHAPS THIS STORY OF RECOVERYbegins not with an insect but with a plant: Kincaid’s lupine, a perennial wildflower with palm-shaped leaves and spikes of muted purple blossoms. Like many butterflies, Fender’s blue exists in tight relationship with a particular host plant. From the moment a Fender’s caterpillar hatches in early summer until it unfurls from its chrysalis as an adult butterfly the following spring, the host plant — almost always Kincaid’s lupine — provides its sole source of food and shelter. “They’re a species pair,” Tom Kaye, the executive director of the Corvallis-based nonprofit Institute for Applied Ecology, told me. “To conserve the butterfly, you have to conserve the lupine.” 

After the butterfly’s rediscovery in 1989, researchers began searching for Kincaid’s lupine. Like the insect, the plant was exceedingly rare. It grows in upland prairies, ecosystems comprised of grasses and forbs that build soil and, unless something interrupts the process, eventually give way to shrubs and trees. To remain prairie-like, a prairie requires disturbance. 

In the Willamette Valley, that disturbance historically came in the form of fires managed by the Kalapuya people, who burned the prairies regularly to facilitate hunting and sustain plant communities that provided crucial foods, including camas and acorns. When settlers displaced the Kalapuya via disease, genocide and forced removal, burning ceased. The long-tended prairies, invitingly flat and graced with a mild climate and plentiful water, were swiftly plowed under for agricultural fields and turned into settlements.

Without fire, what little prairie habitat remained began to transform: Hawthorn and poison oak encroached, fir and ash trees took root, and the diversity of grasses and flowering plants that had once flourished — including Kincaid’s lupine — withered. 

Researchers at the Institute for Applied Ecology have been studying Kincaid’s lupine in an effort to reverse that trend since the organization’s founding in 1999. Many of the conservation strategies they’ve developed have to do with the ways the lupine interacts with its environment, such as the symbiotic relationships it forms with mycorrhizal fungi and rhizobium bacteria. Rhizobium live in nodules attached to the lupine’s roots, where, in exchange for nutrients, they provide the plant with a steady supply of fixed nitrogen. In new restoration sites where these fungal and bacterial partners are scarce, inoculation with soil from areas currently supporting robust lupine populations can bolster the new plants’ chances of success. 

On a June afternoon, Kaye and I stood amid rows of flowering plants at the organization’s seed production farm. The lupine was nearly ready to harvest, and Kaye lifted a pod and held it skyward. Sunlight flooded the husk to reveal the dark orbs of just two seeds cupped inside. Kincaid’s lupine, he said, produces scant seeds, especially in the wild, where predators such as weevils abound. That made it nearly impossible to collect enough for restoration. “I could hold in my hand the entire seed output of a population,” Kaye told me. “Meanwhile, from a production field I could fill bags.” 

So he and his colleagues sought ways to boost the cultivated supply. In collaboration with the Sustainability in Prisons Project, the organization established a seed production field inside the Oregon State Correctional Institution. Through this program, incarcerated people have produced tens of thousands of Kincaid’s lupine seeds, and, by extension, adult plants that now host Fender’s caterpillars in restored prairies across the Willamette Valley.

ONE LATE MAY MORNING, I met Soledad Diaz, an ecologist with the Institute for Applied Ecology, at Baskett Butte in the Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge. Here, in one of the Willamette Valley’s largest restored Fender’s prairies, I found her crouched with a crew of sun-hatted researchers, counting flowers to estimate available nectar resources. 

Diaz gestured to my shoulder. I spun around to watch the flicker of a Fender’s blue as it flitted off and landed upon a nearby lupine. “Looks like an old one,” Diaz said, pointing out the tattered edges lacing the butterfly’s wings. In the life of a Fender’s blue, “old” means just nine or 10 days. On the slopes around us, knee-high grasses rippled and flowers bloomed: checkermallows, mariposa lily, Oregon iris, plenty of host lupine. Blue butterflies flew from plant to plant with such carefree buoyancy it was hard to remember they were urgently attending to the task of finding nectar and a mate under the ticking clock of their brief lifespan. 

Most remnant populations of Kincaid’s lupine are found on hills like Baskett Butte, explained Graham Evans-Peters, the Baskett Slough Refuge manager. Because steeper terrain makes farming difficult, landowners historically used these uplands for livestock rather than crops. Grazing cattle, like fires, keep woody encroachment at bay and mow down tall grasses. And, Evans-Peters told me, “They don’t like lupine.” 

The Fish and Wildlife Service began restoring Fender’s habitat at Baskett Slough in the mid-1990s. The agency removed encroaching weeds from the existing lupine patches on the butte, then controlled invasive species on the adjacent slopes and replanted them with native vegetation. As the populations of these plants grew, so did that of Fender’s blue.

Today, high-quality Fender’s habitat covers over a hundred acres at Baskett Slough. But the work isn’t done; the prairie must be actively managed. “One of the most important tools for holistic prairie management,” Evans-Peters said, “is fire.” While burning kills some Fender’s larvae, it keeps meadows open and leads to such significant leaps in vigor of both nectar and host plants that the butterfly’s numbers, too, rise in ensuing years.

Burning also benefits another species interaction, this one between Fender’s caterpillars and their caretakers: ants. Fender’s caterpillars produce nectar several ant species eat. In exchange, the ants stand guard against predators and parasites. These ant-tenders, however, don’t always show up. When dense grass surrounds the caterpillars’ host plants, it cools the soil, reducing ant activity, and creates a maze that prevents ants from finding the caterpillars in the lupine above. Burning cleans up this accumulated thatch, which researchers suspect is one of the reasons fire increases ant-tending. Studies show that the caterpillars’ survival rates can be three times higher when the caretakers are present than when they’re not. 

At Baskett Slough, the Fish and Wildlife Service burns sections of the prairie annually in partnership with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, which include bands of the Kalapuya. Over the past two decades, the tribes’ fire program has increasingly focused on reintroducing cultural burning practices to manage land and enhance traditional food sources. Now, due to growing interest in using fire as a tool for restoration, many agencies are seeking the tribes’ expertise. “We want to get to the point where we’re conducting cultural burns that have the restoration effort behind them,” Colby Drake, burn boss and natural resources manager for the Confederated Tribes, explained at a forestry summit in 2021. “The momentum is ripe right now to get that good fire on the ground.”

NINETY-SIX PERCENT of the Willamette Valley is privately owned. Partnerships with private landowners such as Jim and Ed Merzenich of Oak Basin Tree Farm are crucial to conservation efforts. 

At the Merzenichs’ farm outside of Brownsville, a population of Fender’s blues resides in a series of open meadows that spill down the southwest slope of an otherwise forested hillside. These meadows were once overrun with blackberry and isolated by surrounding stands of firs. But Jim Merzenich, working with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Institute for Applied Ecology, has removed blackberries and cleared connecting corridors through the forest. He’s now working with the Greenbelt Land Trust to establish a conservation easement to permanently protect the area. 

“A lot of landowners have a fear of government interference,” Merzenich told me. “But we’ve had no conflicts.” On the contrary, partnerships with federal agencies have provided the funding and expertise to restore oak and prairie habitats on Merzenich’s farm even as timber harvests continue. 

When I visited Merzenich’s prairie in early July, it was too late in the year to see Fender’s blues flying, but Kincaid’s lupine bloomed purple amid grassy meadows splashed pink with clarkia and ribboned with bands of yellow tarweed. New blackberry canes, too, were abundant, already resprouting and reaching into the open space of the recently cleared corridors. “The population here is precarious,” Merzenich said. “The worst thing that could happen to these meadows is for people to just turn around and ignore them. You’d lose your lupine, lose your butterflies.”

Even the most robust Fender’s populations remain dependent upon humans. To keep at bay the myriad plants ready to rush into the open space, people — restoration technicians, landowners, fire crews — must regularly mow or spray or burn the butterfly’s habitat. At first glance, this can appear to undermine the significance of the species’ recovery. Despite decades of conservation, the butterflies are far from self-sufficient. 

But this relationship is nothing new. Without the fires tended by the Kalapuya, the prairies of the Willamette Valley, along with Fender’s blue, would have vanished long ago. Nor is the entanglement unique when examined in light of the other partnerships surrounding the species — those entwining butterfly and host-plant, rhizobium bacteria and Kincaid’s lupine, caterpillars and ant-tenders. Self-sufficiency, it seems, is irrelevant: Survival is a collaborative process. 

Butterflies, despite their poster-child fame, are not great pollinators. Their long, slender tongues often reach nectar without touching pollen or stigma. If not pollination, what ecological purpose do they serve? Their niche is to turn plant material into food for animals like the western meadowlark, also a species of conservation concern. But Fender’s most significant function might be its ability to evoke the attention, and care, of humans. “People respond to butterflies in a way that doesn’t always happen with insects,” Schultz said. 

It’s hard to imagine a coalition of scientists, farmers, incarcerated adults, government agencies, nonprofits and tribal nations coming together with such resolve on behalf of, say, a modest ant or lupine. But in the course of Fender’s conservation, these organisms too — and the suite of other prairie species whose survival is bound up with the butterfly’s — have benefited. So while Fender’s owes its recovery to the prairie community, one could also argue that the butterfly, by recruiting the assistance of humans, has saved the prairie. The truth, I suspect, contains no such dichotomies, only a tangle of relations binding each to the rest.   

The post At long last, a homecoming for the Fender’s blue butterfly appeared first on Popular Science.

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Bees are well-versed in the unspoken language of flowers. These buzzing pollinators are in tune with many features of flowering plants—the shape of the bulbs, the diversity of colors, and their alluring scents—which bees rely on to tell whether a reward of nectar and pollen is near. But bees can also detect signals that go beyond sight and smell. The tiny hairs covering their bodies, for instance, are ultra-sensitive to electric fields that help bees identify flowers. These electric fields can influence how bees forage—or, if those fields are artificially changed, even disrupt that behavior.

Today in the journal PNAS Nexus, biologists found that synthetic spray fertilizers can temporarily alter electric cues of flowers, a shift that causes bumblebees to land less frequently on plants. The team also tested a type of neonicotinoid pesticide—known to be toxic and detrimental to honeybee health—called imidacloprid, and detected changes to the electric field around flowers. Interestingly, the chemicals did not seem to impact vision and smell cues, hinting that this lesser-known signal is playing a greater role in communication. 

“Everything has an electric field,” says Ellard Hunting, lead study author and sensory biophysicist at the University of Bristol. “If you are really small, small weak electric fields become very profound, especially if you have lots of hairs, like bees and insects.” 

[Related: A swarm of honeybees can have the same electrical charge as a storm cloud]

Biologists are just beginning to understand how important electric signals are in the world of floral cues. To distinguish between more and less resource-rich flowers within a species, bees, for instance, can recognize specific visual patterns on petals, like spots on the surface, and remember them for future visits. Shape of the bloom also matters—larger, more open flowers might be an easier landing pad for less agile beetles, while narrow tube-shaped bulbs are hotspots for butterflies with long mouthparts that can reach nectar. Changes in humidity around a flower have also been found to influence hawkmoths, as newly opened flowers typically have higher humidity levels.   

An electrical cue, though, is “a pretty recent thing that we found out about,” says Carla Essenberg, a biologist studying pollination ecology at Bates College in Maine who was not involved in the study. A 2016 study found that foraging bumblebees change a flower’s electric field for about 1 to 2 minutes. The study authors suggested that even this short change might be detectable by other passerby bees, informing them the flower was recently visited—and has less nectar and pollen to offer. 

A flower’s natural electric field is largely created by its bioelectric potential—the flow of charge produced by or occurring within living organisms.  But electric fields are a dynamic phenomenon, explains Hunting. “Flowers typically have a negative potential and bees have a positive potential,” Hunting says. “Once bees approach, they can sense a field.” The wind, a bee’s landing, or other interactions will trigger immediate changes in a flower’s bioelectric potential and its surrounding field. Knowing this, Hunting had the idea to investigate any electric field changes caused by chemical applications, and if they deterred bee visits. 

He first started out with pesticides because of the well-studied impacts they can have on insects. “But then I figured, fertilizer also has a charge, and they are also applied and it is way more relevant on a larger-scale,” he says. These chemical mixtures used in agriculture and gardens often contain various levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. “Everyone uses [fertilizers], and they’re claimed to be non-toxic.”  

First, to assess bumblebee foraging behavior, Hunting and his colleagues set up an experiment in a rural field site at the University of Bristol campus using two potted lavender plants. They sprayed a commercially available fertilizer mixture on one of the potted plants while spraying the other with demineralized water. Then, the team watched as bumblebees bypassed the fertilizer-covered lavender. Sprays that contained the pesticide or fertilizer changed the bioelectric potential of the flower for up to 25 minutes—much longer than shifts caused by wind or a bee landing. 

[Related: Arachnids may sense electrical fields to gain a true spidey sense]

But to confirm that the bees were avoiding the fertilizer because of a change in electric field—and not because of the chemical compounds or other factors—the researchers needed to recreate the electric shift in the flower, without actually spraying. In his soccer-pitch-sized backyard, a natural area free of other sources of electricity, Hunting manipulated the bioelectrical potential of lavender plants in order to mimic the change. He placed the stems in water, wired them with electrodes, and streamed a current with a DC powerbank battery. This created an electric field around the plant in the same way as the fertilizer. 

He observed that while the bees approached the electrically manipulated flowers, they did not land on them. They also approached the flowers significantly less than the control flowers, Hunting says. “This shows that the electrics alone already elicit avoidance behavior.”

Hunting suggests that the plant’s defense mechanism might be at the root of the electrical change. “What actually happens if you apply chemicals to plant cells, it triggers a chemical stress response in the plant, similar to a wounding response,” he explains. The plant sends metabolites—which have ionic charge—to start to fix the tissue. This flux of ions generates an electric current, which the bees detect. 

The researchers also noted that the chemicals didn’t seem to impact vision or smell, and that, interestingly, the plants sprayed with pesticide and fertilizers seemed to experience a shift in electric field again after it rained. This could indicate that the effect persists beyond just one spray. The new findings could have implications for casual gardeners and major agricultural industries, the researchers note. 

“Ideally, you would apply fertilizer to the soil [instead of spraying directly on the plant],” Hunting says. But that would require more labor than the approach used by many in US agriculture, in which airplanes spray massive fields. 

[Related: Build a garden that’ll have pollinators buzzin’]

Essenberg says that luckily the electric field changes are relatively short lived, making it a bit easier for farmers to find workarounds. For instance, they could spray agricultural chemicals during the middle of the day, when pollinators forage less frequently because many flowers open in the morning and typically run out of pollen by then. 

The toxicity of chemical sprays is probably a bigger influence “at the population level” on bee decline, Essenberg says. But this study offers a new idea: that change in electric potential might need to be taken into account for effectively spraying plants. “It raises questions about what other kinds of things might influence that potential,” she adds, such as contaminants in the air or pollution that falls with the rain.

Essenberg says it would be helpful to look at the impacts of electric field changes in more realistic foraging settings over longer periods of time. Hunting agrees. “Whether the phenomenon is really relevant in the long run, it might be, but we need to uncover more about this new mechanism.” 

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The springtail is a tiny, fascinating semiaquatic invertebrate capable of escaping predators by impressively leaping ten times’ its height, performing a midair U-turn, and finally landing atop the water’s surface. Although there are thousands of known springtail species in nature, the close relative to the flea remains a relatively obscure animal, despite its astounding capabilities. Thanks to a closer examination, however, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and South Korea’s Ajou University have not only gained a better understanding of the creature’s acrobatic skills, but recently pulled off mimicking the movements in their own penny-sized robotic imitator. The implications could one improve the movement of robots much larger than a grain-sized springtail. The authors recently published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[Related: Watch a snake wearing robot trousers strut like a lizard.]

Per a recent report from The New York Times, biologists and keen-eyed observers previously believed springtails’ evasive maneuvers were largely random and uncontrolled. The key to a springtail’s gymnastics is a tiny organ called a furcula, which slaps the water underneath it to launch the animal into the air. In less than 20 milliseconds following liftoff (a world record for speed, by the way) springtails manage to orient themselves so as to land on their hydrophilic collophores—tubelike appendages capable of holding water and sticking to surfaces, thus allowing the springtails to sit comfortable atop ponds and lakes.

[Relate: Watch this penny-sized soft robot paddle with hydrogel fins.]

Using a combination of machine training and observations, researchers were then able to construct a tiny, relatively simple robot that mimics springtails’ movements, down to their ability to accurately land around 75 percent of the time. Actual springtails, by comparison, stick 85 percent of their landings.

While extremely small, the robotic springtails’ results could help developments in the fields of engineering, robotics, and hydrodynamics, according to Kathryn Dickson, a program director at the National Science Foundation which partially funded the research, via a news release. Researchers also hope that further fine-tuning and study will allow them to gain insights into the evolutionary origins of flight in various organisms, as well as implement their advancements on other tiny robots used in water and airborne studies.

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In recent years, the monarch butterfly population has decreased by more than 80 percent. A lack of milkweed is one of the major causes of this decline, as the plant is the only food source for the species’ larvae and caterpillars, and the only place monarchs will lay their eggs. 

Planting milkweed in your own outdoor spaces is not only a way to help the butterflies, but it’ll also upgrade your garden or windowsill with beautiful, low-maintenance wildflowers. You can get seeds from marketplaces such as Amazon, but getting them from non-profit organizations like Save Our Monarchs or the Live Monarch Educational Foundation, will allow you to get seeds while supporting conservation efforts at the same time. 

Fall and spring are great times to plant milkweed, and even though this plant has an arguably undeserved bad rap amongst pet owners, there are ways you can incorporate it into your garden safely. 

Any seemingly inhospitable nook, including side yards, alleyways, or patios, can be home to milkweed—even if it’s surrounded by hardscapes like cement slabs. And your neighborhood’s furry residents shouldn’t worry if there are no walls or fencing around the area. Even though milkweed can be toxic to wildlife due to the cardenolide-rich sap it uses as a defense mechanism, it’s only dangerous in large quantities, and bugs that feed on it and become toxic themselves (like the monarchs and their offspring) have bright coloration that warns predators away, van Rees explains. Animals don’t usually eat milkweed unless they’re forced to—like when they’re corraled and have no other food available. Still, if you are neighbors to a lot of pets and wildlife in general, opt for variations such as Joe Pye weed, and stay away from the most toxic kind known as Utah milkweed.

“If you have more waterlogged soils, look for moisture-tolerant species like the swamp milkweed,” he says. These plants “don’t mind wet feet.” 

Next, think about the amount of sunlight your plant would receive. Most milkweed species evolved in open meadows, so they adapted to thrive in full sunlight. Only a few species of milkweed like partial shade, like the purple milkweed (native to Eastern, Southern, and Midwestern United States) or the whorled milkweed (native to eastern North America). 

Regardless of the variety, plant your milkweed seeds under 1/4 of an inch of soil and half an inch apart. Finally, water the area frequently until the plants begin to sprout to ensure they take root.

Some species, like common milkweed, can self-propagate through underground rhizomes, which allows them to spread aggressively even without the help of pollinators. Keeping the plant in a flowerpot can protect your pets’ eyes by preventing milkweed from spreading unchecked to spots your fur babies regularly hang out at. Most milkweed species have a milky white sap that can irritate eyes, Lenhart explains. “But milkweed getting in your dog’s eyes is rare,” and wouldn’t impact your animal’s health seriously, he says. 

To plant milkweed, choose a plastic container. While other materials work just as well, plastic is lighter, which will allow you to move the plant easily indoors for winter storage. Size is also important. Prefer spacious and deep containers around 10- to 12-inches tall and 5-inches wide, as milkweed root systems tend to grow large. You should also make sure your pot has a drainage hole to prevent the plant from becoming waterlogged. 

“Wild animals learn after one bite that milkweed isn’t good to eat,” says Ellen Jacquart, botanist and president of the Indiana Native Plant Society. “Most pets would react the same—that milky sap tastes awful!” 

Still, you should prevent any accidental ingestion of milkweed by fencing off the area. To do this, make sure the fence or protection you install is tall enough to keep pets out. A 24-inch barrier will generally dissuade most dogs from leaping into a patch of milkweed. 

“Native plants offer exponentially more value than plants that are not native,” says Lenhart. This is because native species co-evolved with local animals, learning with time to be best pals with them as they both changed, he explains. 

Variety is also a plus, as grouping different kinds of milkweed together seem to attract more pollinators, Jacquart explains. As long as all the species you choose are native to your area, you can plant as many as you want. 

“It’s important to realize that there are many species of milkweed. All can serve as host plants [for monarch butterflies],” Jacquart says. 

Start your planting now and by Spring you’ll hopefully enjoy a garden filled with beautiful butterflies and other helpful pollinators. You won’t only be getting a pretty landscape, but you’ll also be helping nature thrive. 

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Weather radar has been known to pick swarms of grasshoppers, dragonflies, and possibly cicadas as they take to the sky. While these big brigades of bugs aren’t generating their own rain showers or thunderstorms, the organisms carry with them a very small electrical charge that could impact electricity in the atmosphere as they fly. But just how much of a charge can the buzzing of the bees create?

The short answer is a lot. A team of scientists in the United Kingdom measured the electrical fields near swarming honeybees and found that the insects can produce as much atmospheric electric charge as a thunderstorm cloud. Their research was published today in the journal iScience and demonstrates how this type of electricity can shape weather events, help insects find food, and even lift spiders up in the air when they migrate.

[Related: When insects got wings, evolution really took off.]

“We study how different organisms use the static electric fields that are virtually everywhere in the environment,” study first author Ellard Hunting, a biologist at the University of Bristol, says in an email to Popular Science. “For instance, flowers have an electric field and bees can sense these fields. And these electric fields of flowers can change when it has been visited by a bee, and other bees can use that information to see whether a flower has been visited. Or trees create an increased electric field in the atmosphere, and spiders can use this electric field to take off, and balloon, allowing them to migrate over large distances.”

The team found that honeybee hive swarms change the atmospheric electricity by 100 to 1,000 volts per meter, which increases the electric field force that is normally experienced at ground level rather than in the air. They then developed a a model that can predict the electrical influence of other species of insects. When comparing thunderstorms and other weather events with the the bees’ highest charge, the authors found that a dense swarm of bees had a higher electric charge. The bees had a charge density that was about eight times greater a thunderstorm cloud and six times greater than an electrified dust storm.

“How insect swarms influence atmospheric electricity depends on their density and size,” co-author Liam O’Reilly, also a biologist at the University of Bristol, said in a press release. “We also calculated the influence of locusts on atmospheric electricity, as locusts swarm on biblical scales, sizing 460 square miles with 80 million locusts in less than a square mile; their influence is likely much greater than honeybees.”

[Related: These insects preserved in amber are still glowing 99 million years later.]

The bees most likely acquire their charge through the friction they face during flight. While it would take about 50 billion bees to light one LED light, they can actually increase the background atmospheric electric field two to 10 fold, which Hunting called a “big surprise. “This makes it the first report of biology as a source of biogenic space charge, which can be as relevant as physical phenomena such as clouds,” he tells PopSci.

The discovery of electrical fields happened shortly after Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite experiment, but scientists are still trying to unlock the secrets of electricity as it exists in nature.

“We only recently discovered that biology and static electric fields are intimately linked and that there are many unsuspected links that can exist over different spatial scales, ranging from microbes in the soil and plant-pollinator interactions to insect swarms and the global electric circuit,” says Hunting. “This makes it an exciting new area of empirical research. The true implications of this remain speculative, and whether these dynamics induced by insects affect weather is definitely worth investigating.”

According to Hunting, understanding electric charge in the atmosphere can answer questions in fields beyond physics, including how and why dust particles can be found thousands of miles away from the Sahara Desert. “The true implications of this remain speculative, and whether these dynamics induced by insects affect weather is definitely worth investigating,” said Hunting.

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The world’s first insect vaccine is here, and it could help with stopping a fatal bacterial disease in honeybees. A study published on October 17 in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science found honeybees born from vaccinated queens were more resistant to American Foulbrood (AFB) infection than hives with unvaccinated queens. Not only would the vaccine help in improving colony health, but it might increase commercial beekeeping to make products, such as honey and medical wax.

Several factors have contributed to declining honeybee populations—higher temperatures from climate change, pesticides, and drought to name a few. “Bee health is a multifaceted problem and many factors play into the survival or perishing of a beehive,” says Dalial Freitak, associate professor at the University of Graz in Austria and senior author of the study. “As in any organism, diseases can cause havoc, especially if other stressors are at play.” The current vaccine tackles AFB, a devastating disease that’s caused early outbreaks in US beehives since the early 1900s. 

AFB is caused by the spores of the larva of the bacteria Paenibacillus. Young honeybees ingest the spores in their foods and in one to two days, the spores take root in their gut, sprouting out rod structures. Like an aggressive cancer tumor, the rods quickly multiply before invading the blood and body tissues and killing the young insect larva from the inside. By the time they die, new spores have formed to infect the bees that come in to clean up the honeycomb cells where the deceased laid. Beekeepers may also accidentally spread the disease by exposing contaminated honey or equipment to other bees. Freitak estimates at least 50 percent of beehives globally have AFB. While cultivators may not see any noticeable symptoms of the disease at first, it can feel like a ticking “time bomb” with an outbreak potentially happening at any moment, she says.

The recent study tests the safety and effectiveness of an oral breeder vaccine—an immunization that’s passed down from parents—to increase resistance against Paenibacillus larva. The oral vaccine is mixed into a new queen’s food which she ingests before being introduced into the hive. Once digested, the vaccine contents are transferred into the fat body, the storage organ in insects. Vitellogenin, or the yolk proteins that provide nutrients for growing embryos, bind to pieces of the vaccine and deliver it to eggs in the ovaries. “A little piece of vaccine into the ovaries stimulates an immune response and it’s where you need it the most,” says Annette Kleiser, the CEO of biotech company Dalan Animal Health that created the vaccine. “A lot of these diseases are when the larvae get infected in the first few days when they hatch.”

[Related: Do we still need to save the bees?]

In the current study, two queen honeybees were vaccinated with either the vaccine or the placebo before entering their hive and laying eggs. After the eggs hatched, the two hives were brought to the lab (to avoid infecting other colonies in the wild) and exposed to AFB spores for several days. The team found that vaccinating the queen decreased the risk of AFB by 30 to 50 percent. What’s more, the vaccine did not impact the health of bee colonies. The study authors saw no difference in hive losses between the placebo and vaccinated groups before spore exposure.

“They have shown a proof-of-concept,” says Ramesh Sagili, a professor of apiculture at Oregon State University who was not affiliated with the study. He notes, however, the study took place in an isolated, lab-controlled setting and the challenge with this type of technology is the lack of success when tested in the field. One suggestion is to conduct large-scale field studies, expanding from two honeybee hives to thousands split between vaccine and placebo groups. Other questions Sagili would like answered in future research is how the vaccine fares against different AFB strains and how long immunity lasts in the long-run.

“I’m convinced they have something promising here, but only if they do some large-scale field studies with the beekeeping industry,” adds Sagili. If successful, he says this could open doors to the production of vaccines for other viral diseases plaguing honeybees.

Still, finding solutions to assist honeybees with illness is important: “A declining honeybee population has made it difficult to pollinate enough food for everyone to eat,” explains Kleiser.

Honeybees pollinate one-third of food in the US. Beyond honey, they are essential for the production of apples, broccolis, melons, and even your favorite cup of java. But as much service honeybees provide, humanity has provided them a disservice in keeping them safe and alive. Beekeepers estimated a 45.5 percent loss in honeybee colonies from April 2020 to April 2021, which is largely associated with human activity. According to the United Nations, if bees continue to disappear, we may see permanent disruptions in our food supply chain and the disappearance of fruits, vegetables, and other crops heavily dependent on pollination.

[Related: Temperature tells honey bees what time it is]

There are other options currently on the table to mitigate the spread of AFB. Once beekeepers notice the first signs of disease, they can burn the honey, tools, and other equipment in contact with the hive. Additionally, they could quarantine the hive to prevent infected bees from swarming nearby colonies. However, both options aren’t ideal because they slow down honey production and affect the food supply chain. “You have a withdrawal period where you have to wait and that costs money to beekeepers,” says Kleiser. “The flowers won’t wait so if you miss the season you miss your entire yield.” 

Another option is antibiotics. Sagili explains that antibiotics are effective against AFB, and beekeepers have been using antibiotics to manage the spread of spores. Because of its availability, he says it doesn’t rise to the level of other challenges that honeybees presently face. That said, there is always a risk of antibiotic resistance that could lower honeybees’ protection against the bacterium. “Beekeepers have options, but it would be nice to have a vaccine for [AFB] so they have one less problem to deal with,” Sagili says.

Right now, the vaccine is pending conditional license by the US Department of Agriculture Center of Veterinary Biologics. Kleiser emphasizes the vaccine would not only benefit bees, but the larger ecosystem as well. “It’s a survival issue,” she says. “We have to understand the critical importance of these animals.”

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The Cordyceps mushroom, an exotic fungus, grows by infecting insects with its spores. The spores use the animals’ bodies as all-you-can-eat buffets, feasting on their flesh. This parasitic relationship ends only when the spores fully grow and mature, sprouting out and mercilessly killing their hosts. Despite its unorthodox but popular survival method—Cordyceps are the inspiration behind some apocalyptic films and video games—the mushroom has some sought-after medicinal properties. For years, scientists have attempted to replicate this process in the lab, because the mushroom is hard to find in the wild. Using brown rice, a common experimental substitute for bugs, often fell short.

It turns out the best way to grow the ever-elusive Cordyceps mushroom is on the backs of fatty insects, finds a new study published Wednesday in Frontiers in Microbiology. Cultivating this rare species of fungus could increase the availability of a bioactive compound called cordycepin, which boasts potential antiviral and antitumor properties.

“Cordycepin has diverse biological effects such as anticancer and anti-inflammation, several aspects that must be considered for the treatment of diseases,” explains Mi Kyeong Lee, a professor of pharmacy at Chungbuk National University in South Korea and senior study author. “In addition, Cordyceps mushrooms may be widely used for prevention of diseases through immune enhancement.” 

Lee’s interest in the fungi came after searching for bioactive ingredients from natural products. However, Cordyceps mushrooms are rare in nature, and when grown on brown rice the fungus produces little cordycepin, perhaps because the grain has low protein content. In the outside world, Cordyceps mushrooms prefer snacking on insects and the study authors hypothesized they may prefer insects with a high protein content. “In particular, insects have recently been approved as a protein substitute in Korea,” Lee says. 

In the new study, Lee and his team sought to replicate how Cordyceps mushrooms grow in the wild with the goal of maximizing cordycepin levels. But first they would need to know whether the type of insect it ate mattered.

[Related: This deadly mushroom can literally shrink your brain—and it’s probably more widespread than we thought]

The team collected an assortment of insects—crickets, silkworm pupae, grasshoppers, Japanese rhinoceros beetles, mealworms, and white-spotted flower chafer larvae—exposed to the spores of the Cordyceps mushroom. The fungi grew for two months with the largest ones coming out of the bodies of silkworm pupae and mealworms. Mushrooms that bloomed out of chafer larvae and grasshoppers grew the smallest mushrooms. 

The size of the fungus, though, doesn’t matter for cordycepin levels. Cordyceps mushrooms that sprouted out of Japanese rhinoceros beetles were the most rich in the cordycepin compound, which had nearly 100 times more cordycepin than those grown out of brown rice. And compared to the giant mushrooms from silkworm pupae, Cordyceps cultivated from Japanese rhinoceros beetles had 34 times more cordycepin.

It was not the amount of protein that made a difference, the scientists determined, but the fat content in the invertebrates. Insects with high amounts of a fatty acid called oleic acid seemed to make more cordycepin. (For example, the Japanese rhinoceros beetle held 10.8 percent of oleic acid while silkworms only had 0.4 percent of oleic acid.)

What’s more, genes involved in the production of cordycepin, cns1 and cns2, were found at higher levels in the beetle than the other insects. Adding oleic acid to a low-performing insect raised cordycepin levels by 50 percent.

[Related: A South Pacific island could help us understand how fungi evolve]

“Raising medicinal fungi on farmed insects is a more sustainable practice than collecting these species in the wild,” notes Nicholas P. Money, a mycologist at Miami University in Ohio who was not affiliated with the study. However, he warns that “the clinical benefits of the metabolite examined in this study”–referring to cordycepin–“remain a matter of faith rather than science.” Ongoing research suggests cordycepin may have the potential to ward off viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 by acting as an inhibitor for viral replication as well as mitigating any severe symptoms by lowering inflammation levels. However, there is a lack of evidence from preclinical and clinical studies to support these claims.

Yet with an improved supply of Cordyceps, which the new work aims to provide, researchers will have an easier time studying its therapeutic potential. Lee says his goal is to find the optimal living environment for producing the highest quality of Cordyceps mushrooms. His next work will test different plant species as another possible breeding ground for the fungi to grow.

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The Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly is only found in the far southwest corner of New Mexico, near the state’s borders with Arizona and Mexico and the small community of Cloudcroft. While it’s a local specialty, not many people living in the area have seen it or even heard about it. And for good reason: Recent surveys by biologists found only eight of the orange, black, and white butterflies, and no sign of eggs.

But even as the species teeters on the edge of extinction, the federal government hasn’t stepped in to save it. In 1999, when the insect’s population still numbered above a thousand, the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to grant the butterfly legal protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Since then, the agency has received and declined another petition to list the vanishing critter, and is presently considering a third. 

The ESA is one of the most powerful tools in fighting the massive biodiversity crisis gripping the world right now. Yet examples of omission like the Sacramento Mountain checkerspot’s are all too common. 

[Related: Wildlife populations have decreased 70 percent in only 50 years]

A study published this week in the journal PLOS identifies a few troubling trends in the way the FWS administers the ESA. It points out that species are often not listed until their populations have already reached perilously low numbers, and that, on average, the agency takes nine years to deliver verdicts on petitions that are supposed to be decided within two. 

One reason for this bottleneck is administrative. “The number of species listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act has more than tripled since 1985, but funding for the Fish and Wildlife Service hasn’t kept pace,” says Erich Eberhard, a PhD candidate in ecology at Columbia University and lead author of the research. 

Some of the species listed with low numbers were driven to that point even before conservationists petitioned for their listing. Eberhard points to the Mariana mallard and the Guam broadbill, two bird species that received protection relatively quickly in the 1970s and ‘80s, but whose populations were less than 100 apiece at the time of listing. Both are now extinct. The paper identifies small population sizes at the time of listing (as in the case of the birds) and long petition wait times (as in the case of the checkerspot butterflies) as two issues that hinder the act’s effectiveness.

Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, has seen similar trends detailed in the study over the 20 years he’s spent working on petitions to get species listed under the ESA. He doesn’t only attribute it to limited capacity on the FWS’s part, though. 

“Some of it is just bureaucratic malaise,” says Greenwald. “The process for listing species is terribly cumbersome.” The review process, he points out, includes more than 20 agency officials. 

The language of the ESA is clear that the decision to designate a species as “endangered” or “threatened” should be based solely on the best available science. Given that, Greenwald suggests that a process more like peer-review for academic studies, where other experts in the field evaluate the evidence in a petition, would be more streamlined and effective than what the FWS currently does. 

Political decision-making can also make the ESA slower and less effective. Since taking office, President Joe Biden has undone measures that former President Donald Trump put in place to severely limit the act’s scope. What’s more, for the last couple decades, the number of protected species has fluctuated depending on the party in power, with Trump listing fewer on average than any other president since the ESA was enacted. 

[Related: The monarch butterfly is scientifically endangered. So why isn’t it legally protected yet?]

Both Greenwald and Eberhard are quick to say that the ESA has been highly effective at protecting the species that do end up being listed, which right now includes around 1,300 species. More than 99 percent of them have survived, and 39 former members of the list have fully recovered. But with 9,200 species considered “imperiled” or “critically imperiled” by biologists in the US, that success rate only reflects a piece of the country’s biodiversity needs. 

Given the ESA’s proven effectiveness at protecting species when it’s invoked, the study suggests giving FWS more resources to consider petitions and reach verdicts quickly. “The Fish and Wildlife Service is receiving less funding now on a per species basis than in the past,” says Eberhard. “What we need is a more serious investment.” 

For some wildlife, like the Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly, the lost time between filing a petition and receiving protection is critical, potentially even fatal. The Center for Biological Diversity filed a new petition to the FWS to protect the insects in 2021, and can only hope the butterflies will still be around by the time the agency weighs in.

“You’d think the Fish and Wildlife Service would want to err on the side of protecting species, and wouldn’t wait until they were on the brink,” says Greenwald. “But right now, they want incontrovertible proof that a species is in serious danger before listing—it’s cautious, but in the wrong direction.”

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Termites are often thought of as pests, munching away at the foundations of homes and buildings. But in tropical forests, these master wood carvers are actually important decomposers. Termites help break down rotting wood, releasing the nutrients and carbon back into the soil and atmosphere. And now new findings from a large international effort spanning six continents showcases that the hotter it is, the faster termites whittle down decaying wood. 

The rate of termite wood decomposition and consumption increases more than 6.8 times with every 10°C increase in temperature, a new study published Thursday in Science revealed. In comparison, microbial wood decay only doubles under the same rise in temperature. “It’s like if you go from, say, Boston to Miami, and if there’s a 10 degree [Celcius] increase in temperature, termites will respond by increasing their decomposition rates sevenfold,” says Amy Zanne, lead author of the new paper and biology professor at the University of Miami. “What it means is the wood is cycled out more quickly—you are releasing carbon more quickly.” 

Fallen trees, stumps, branches, leaf litter and other plant debris are major sources of locked-up carbon—in total storing some 73 billion tons. This “deadwood” contributes to the carbon cycle, in which stored carbon atoms are released and reused back into the environment. The process promotes new plant growth and influences the planet’s temperature and climate by emitting carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. There are many factors that cause wood to decay, from wildfire to solar radiation to microbes to fungi. “If we didn’t have decayers in the world, the world would be filled up with dead plants and animals,” explains Zanne, who specializes in decomposition and the carbon cycle. 

But insects—such as termites—are also an important player in wood decay, says Zanne. Termites are temperature-sensitive creatures, increasing in abundance and diversity toward the equator. Unlike the pests that chew homes in more temperate regions, in the tropics, termites are more abundant and diverse. Certain species specialize on leaf litter, grasses, or dung. Another group of termites found in Asia and Africa farm a “garden” of white-rot fungus, Zanne explains. The fungus’ ability to mineralize the wood’s lignin—one of the hardest materials to break down in the world—paired with the termites’ metal-laced mandibles can easily decimate rotten wood. 

To get a better grasp on these wood-devouring insects, Zanne teamed up with 108 coauthors across 133 sites around the world, including an equal representation of temperate and tropical regions in the northern and southern hemispheres. The researchers selected one type of wood, radiata pine also known as Monterey pine, that could be locally found and accessible at all the sites. Each participating group would dry out blocks of the wood, weigh them, and wrap them in a tight mesh that only microbes could slip through—half had holes cut in the bottom so termites could colonize. Researchers monitored the blocks for up to 48 months, looking out for fungi and the intricate tunnels and canyons created by termites. (A few exotic critters—including a tiny poisonous snake and a black widow spider—also snuck into the pine blocks, says Zanne.) 

[Related: Termites are nature’s most amazing skyscraper engineers]

Clearing all that away, the teams dried out the wood and reweighed it to compare how much had been decomposed over time. Previous studies have shown that microbes have faster wood decay rates under warmer conditions, which was reflected in the new data collected from the wood blocks. But Zanne and her colleagues were surprised by how much more sensitive termites were to temperature—termites were four times more responsive than microbes. 

“These were just astronomical numbers,” says Zanne. “They’re super sensitive to increases in temperature, meaning that with a small increase in temperature, they’re going to really jump how fast they’re cycling the carbon out of the wood.” 

These new findings align with previous research. A 2021 study in Nature found that the rate of insect deadwood decay increased with rising temperatures, most notably in the tropics compared to cooler regions. But Zanne and the study authors noted that the termites were also sensitive to precipitation, but in an unanticipated way: While the termite decay was expectedly the greatest in tropical environments, the team saw they had a noticeable effect on decomposition in drier places like tropical savannahs and subtropical deserts. 

The study highlights important trends about the carbon cycle under a changing climate, says Kenneth Noll, a professor emeritus of microbiology at the University of Connecticut who was not involved in the research. “I found the study interesting because it aims to plug a rather large hole in our knowledge about the rate of decomposition of deadwood,” Noll wrote to PopSci in an email. “The rate of release of this stored carbon back into the atmosphere will undoubtedly increase as the planet warms, so we must have better measures of this to have better climate models.”

As climate change is expected to shift environments towards more tropical conditions, it could create more suitable habitat for termites and cause populations to expand. This could increase their role as wood decomposers in the carbon cycle, Zanne and the study authors suggest. However, Noll notes that global temperature rates are generally expected to rise only about two-fold, which would mean that the increase in termite decomposition globally would not go up nearly seven-fold so “the implications could be relatively small.” What remains to be seen, he adds, is how termite communities in temperate and boreal regions would respond to climate change, where temperature increases will be higher.

He also noted that it would be worthwhile to investigate termites as a source of methane—a powerful greenhouse gas. Zanne agrees. “Termites are like little cows, and they are releasing methane” through their digestive systems, she says. “We also think that they have the potential to alter how much is going up as methane versus getting locked in soil. So they might alter how carbon is leaving the wood.” 

While scientists are working on unpacking how climate change will displace various organisms in the future, Zanne says it’s just as important to understand how it will influence carbon cycling. 

It’s important to consider “the role of some of these little things in the world, such as the microbes and termites, that we often can’t see,” she says. “They’re incredibly important for maintaining and affecting the Earth that we co-inhabit with them.”

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Anyone who has ever had an ant infestation know how insidiously and rapidly they can take over a kitchen or home. The humble ant is one of the most successful and dominant animals on the planet. They are hyper-organized and have developed tight interaction with everything from plants to fungi to other insects and larger vertebrates. American biologist Edward O. Wilson called them “the little things that run the world.” “Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects,” Wilson wrote in 1990 book The Ants, co-written with Bert Hölldobler. “There are millions of species of organisms and we know almost nothing about them.”

In plain terms, they are everywhere. Due to their ubiquity, scientists have long wondered just how many of these six-legged bugs are on this planet and what their total weight would be.

A study out today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA has a potential answer. The new research from The University of Hong Kong estimates that the Earth is home to 20 quadrillion (or 20 × 10¹⁵ or 20,000,000,000,000,000) ants. The previous estimates, including one from famous Hölldobler and Wilson, ranged from 10¹⁵ to 10¹⁶ individuals and were essentially educated guesses, since a a global, representative dataset was not available while they conducted their research. In this new study, the total number of ants on Earth is estimated to be 2 to 20 times that number.

This international team of researchers gathered data on ground-dwelling and arboreal (tree-dwelling) ants from 465 studies, spanning continents, major biomes, and habitats. This gigantic global dataset took six years expands on previous efforts to pinpoint just how many ants there are on this planet.

[Related: When insects got wings, evolution really took off.]

“For decades, ant researchers have been incredibly busy studying ant communities the world over. They have collected thousands of ant samples to identify the species, and often counted all the ants as well when publishing their results in scientific articles. We were able to compile such data from nearly 500 different studies from all over the world and written in many different languages. In this way, we have been able to quantify the density of ants in various parts of the globe, and also to estimate the total number of ants on Earth,” co-lead author Patrick Schultheiss, now a Temporary Principal Investigator the University of Würzburg in Germany, told Popular Science in an e-mail.

The insects are incredibly important as ecosystem engineers in many biomes and ecosystem types, like rainforests, grasslands, and deserts. They turn and aerate the soil, which allows water and oxygen to reach plant roots. They spread seeds to grow new plants, eat a wide variety of organic material, and also provide food for other predators.

This many ants on Earth corresponds with biomass of approximately 12 megatons of dry carbon.

“Our estimate of the global ant population is 20 × 10¹⁵ individuals”, says co-lead author Sabine Nooten, now a researcher at the University of Würzburg wrote in a statement. “That’s a 20 with 15 zeroes, which is difficult to appreciate. In terms of biomass, all the ants on Earth weigh more than all the wild birds and mammals combined, or about 20 percent of human biomass.”

The study also found that ants are unevenly distributed over the global land surface. Typically, tropical regions harbor more ants than non-tropical regions, but this also depends on the local ecosystem.

The team was quite surprised since most scientists don’t go out to specifically individually count the numbers of ants, but instead strive to generally answer questions regarding biodiversity, ecological processes, and evolution. The number of ants is often reported as a measure of sample size. The team was also surprised that the final list didn’t cover everywhere on the planet. According Schultheiss and Nooten, there are areas of the world (Central Africa or some parts of Asia) where they have hardly any data of this kind.

[Related: A killer fungus could help the US South fight back against insatiable ants.]

“We hope that this study raises awareness of how important ants are on a global scale. We also hope to inspire scientists and other citizens to go out there and study ants in the parts of the world we know the least about. Counting ants using standard methods is really not difficult to do, but our study has shown that even very basic data can be incredibly informative. In the end, we need such global datasets to help us understand what we should or need to protect,” said the authors in an email.

With this global dataset in hand, the team’s next step is to investigate why some parts of the world have more ants than others. They speculate that it is due to climate, human land use, or other environmental features.

The post How many ants are there on Earth? Thousands of billions. appeared first on Popular Science.

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Ritual enema ceremonies depicted in pottery. The synchronizing heart rates of new lovers. Scorpion constipation. Why the words in your iPhone “Terms of Agreement” are so complicated. Moose crashes.

Research into all of these burning topics and more was honored yesterday at the 2022 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Now in its 32nd year, the good-natured parody of the Nobel prize recognizes the most unique, silly, and downright bizarre research that “first make people laugh and then make them think.” The Annals of Improbable Research gives out the awards less than one month before the real Nobel prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden.

The ceremony is usually held at Harvard University, but has been online since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Per tradition, actual Nobel laureates handed out the prizes. The winners received a virtually worthless Zimbabwean $10 trillion bill.

And the winners are…

Art History: ancient Mayan enemas

Peter de Smet and Nicholas Hellmuth wrote “A Multidisciplinary Approach to Ritual Enema Scenes on Ancient Maya Pottery” in a 1986 paper, but withstands the test of time. The paper was adapted from de Smet’s doctoral dissertation and focuses on polychrome pottery of the late classic Mayan period (600–900 CE). Palace scenes, ball games, hunting parties, and dances associated with human sacrifice (via decapitation) are usually painted on this kind of pottery, but 55 years ago, scholars discovered one Maya jar showing the administration of an enema. Other discoveries of fine fecal art followed.

Applied Cardiology: syncing hearts with your crush

Eliska Prochazkova, Elio Sjak-Shie, Friederike Behrens, Daniel Lindh, and Mariska Kret discovered evidence that shows when two new romantic partners meet for the first time and feel attraction, their heart rates synchronize, publishing their findings in November, 2021. Prochazkova said she did not have problem finding matches on dating apps, but often didn’t feel that spark when they met in real life. She set people up on blind dates in real social settings and measured their physiological reactions, and found that the heart rates of the pairs with real chemistry synchronized. So, did the team discover “love at first sight”? “It really depends, on how you define love,” Prochazkova, a researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said in an email to the Associated Press. “What we found in our research was that people were able to decide whether they want to date their partner very quickly. Within the first two seconds of the date, the participants made a very complex idea about the human sitting in front of them.”

Literature: Terms of Agreement are too tricky

Eric Martínez, Francis Mollica, and Edward Gibson, did what has long needed to be done by analyzing what makes legal documents unnecessarily difficult to understand. Taking a closer look at any Terms of Agreement on a new software or device is enough to make you want to eschew all new technology forever. Martínez, Mollica, and Gibson were frustrated by all of this legal jargon. Their analysis focused on some key psycholinguistic characteristics: nonstandard capitalization (those written out in boistrous ALL CAPS), the frequency of SAT words (aforesaid, herein, to wit, etc.) that rarely appear in everyday speech, word choice, the use of passive versus active voice, center-embedding, where lawyers embed legal jargon within convoluted syntax. “Ultimately, there’s kind of a hope that lawyers will think a little more with the reader in mind,” Martínez told the AP. “Clarity doesn’t just benefit the layperson, it also benefits lawyers.”

Biology: scorpion constipation

Solimary García-Hernández and Glauco Machado did the grueling work of investigating constipation affects the mating prospects of scorpions. Scorpions are better known for their deadly venom and creepy crawly pincers, not so much for their poop habits. In a process called autonomy, scorpions can detach a body part to escape a predator. However, they also lose the last portion of the digestive tract when they do this. This can lead to a constipation and eventually death and the long term decrease in the, “locomotor performance of autotomized males may impair mate searching,” they wrote.

[Related: Cockatoos are pillaging trashcans in Australia, and humans can’t seem to stop them.]

Medicine: ice cream as cancer therapy

A team of scientists at the University of Warsaw in Poland showed in their 2021 study that when patients undergo some forms of toxic chemotherapy, they suffer fewer harmful side effects when ice cream replaces one traditional component of the procedure. This sweet study looked at cryotherapy, where cancer patients often suck on ice-chips to prevent oral mucositis (which causes sores in the mouth, gums, and tongue, increased mucus and saliva, and difficulty swallowing). But this can become uncomfortable really quickly. This now prize winning study found that only 28.85 percent of patients who used ice cream cryotherapy developed oral mucositis, compared with 59 percent who did not receive the Ben and Jerry’s approved cryotherapy.

Engineering: knob turning technique

Gen Matsuzaki, Kazuo Ohuchi, Masaru Uehara, Yoshiyuki Ueno, and Goro Imura, discovered the most efficient way for people to use their fingers when turning a knob. The 1999 study stressed the importance of a good universal knob design, particularly for, “instruments with rotary control,” particularly in elderly people who might find rotary knobs and faucet handles easier to use than a lever. Subjects in the study were asked to turn a series of different sized knobs clockwise with their right hand. They found that the the forefingers and thumb were used most frequently and extra fingers were used as the knobs became wider.

Physics: keeping your ducks in a row

Frank Fish, Zhi-Ming Yuan, Minglu Chen, Laibing Jia, Chunyan Ji, and Atilla Incecik, dove into the world of understanding how ducklings manage to swim in formation. Getting your ducks in a row appears to be all about energy conservation. They found that the ducklings instinctively tended to “ride the waves,” generated by the mother duck to significantly reduce drag. They then use technique called drafting, like cyclists and runners do in a race to reduce drag. “It all has to do with the flow that occurs behind that leading organism and the way that moving in formation can actually be an energetic benefit,” Fish told the AP.

Related: 8 animals being naturally hilarious.]

Peace: the gossip conundrum

An international group of scientists ranging from Bejing to Ontario developed an algorithm to help gossipers decide when to tell the truth and when to lie. Essentially, their work can help determine when people are more likely to be honest or dishonest in their gossip, drawing on models of behavior signaling theory. “Signals are adaptions shaped by marginal costs and marginal benefits of different behaviors, and the ultimate function of the signaler’s behavior is to maximize their fitness,” wrote the authors. The gossiper may be willing to pay some personal cost (being labelled a gossip or losing trust) to provide a benefit to the receiver. That’s because the gossip could gain a secondary benefit as a result of the receiver gaining juicy new information.

Economics: it pays to be lucky

Alessandro Pluchino, Alessio Emanuele Biondo, and Andrea Rapisarda, used math to explain why success most often goes not to the most talented people but instead to the luckiest. The 2018 paper noted that the qualities most often associated as leading to success follow a normal Gaussian distribution around a mean. For example, the average IQ is 100, but nobody boasts an IQ of 1,000 or 10,000. “The same holds for efforts, as measured by hours worked,” the authors wrote. “Someone works more hours than the average and someone less, but nobody works a billion times more hours than anybody else.” However, the distribution of wealth follows a power law, where there are significantly more poor people than the few hugely wealthy billionaires. The study suggests simple, random luck is the missing ingredient based on the agent-based model the authors developed.

Safety Engineering: moose tracks

Magnus Gens developed a moose crash test dummy, and shockingly it is actually useful information. Sweden’s highways are the scene of frequent collisions between the large mammals and cars, which can result in injury or death to both the moose and human. This crash test dummy will allow car makers to use animal crashes in their safety testing. Gens tested the dummy at the Saab facility using one modern Saab and one old Volvo traveling at about 45 mph and a second Saab at 57 mph. Fortunately for car makers, the dummy is robust and able to be reused in multiple crash tests before it needs to be replaced.

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This article was originally featured on Undark.

As the sun began to set on Delhi, 45-year-old Rani hiked up her salwar pants, squatted next to the iron pan just outside her home, and lit a match. The plastic grocery bags were the first items to catch fire. Soon the cow-dung cakes ignited, their chocolate-brown edges glowing in the dusk. Rani coughed as smoke rose from the pan.

All around, Rani’s neighbors performed a similar drill. Some substituted egg trays for cow dung, or omitted the plastic bags, but no matter the kindling, the goal was the same: to repel mosquitoes by means of smoke and other toxic fumes. Indians have long employed this do-it-yourself approach to insect control, but over the past couple of years, as the city’s mosquito population has exploded, the burning has become a nightly ritual in low-income housing developments across this city of more than 30 million people.

According to a recent survey conducted by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, Delhi’s mosquito density was almost nine times higher than normal this past March and April, a 50 percent increase over the previous year. Yet local authorities did not mount a vigorous response because the insects belonged to the Culex genus, which is not known to transmit the well-known diseases—malaria, dengue, chikungunya—that are at the forefront of India’s public health initiatives.

When it comes to malaria in particular, India has achieved success in reducing disease. But even as malaria deaths are on the decline, the sheer number of mosquitoes, particularly in urban areas, has shot up. This is partly due to climate change, said Ramesh C Dhiman, an expert in malaria epidemiology who spent three decades as a government researcher at the Indian Council of Medical Research before becoming an independent consultant. Mosquito populations are on the rise in other countries, too, fueled not just by climate change, but by increased urbanization and the decay of residual DDT in the environment.

A spokesperson for Delhi’s municipal government, Amit Kumar, told Undark that the local government has taken a number of actions to combat the problem, including spraying insecticides on public drains and other water bodies, which serve as breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

These measures were temporary and did not address the severity of the issue, said a Delhi public health official, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution from his employer.

The mosquitoes in Rani’s neighborhood are so insufferable that children and adults struggle to sleep through the night. While not yet much of a problem in Delhi, residents could also face some risk of diseases that are transmitted by Culex mosquitoes, including West Nile and Japanese encephalitis. According to experts, this risk may increase as mosquitoes evolve in response to changing climatic conditions. For the moment, low-cost do-it-yourself remedies like smoke and insecticides offer some measure of relief. But researchers note that these approaches pose a risk to human health and fail to address the underlying problems that allowed the mosquitoes to flourish in the first place.

Delhi’s surge of Culex mosquitoes comes at a time when public health officials are declaring notable victories against other kinds of mosquitoes, including the Anopheles genus that transmits malaria. While those gains have saved lives, the situation, mosquito experts say, is complicated: The very changes that have reduced Anopheles’ numbers may be allowing other species to thrive. And amid a changing climate, mosquitoes have found new niches to exploit, especially in urban areas.

Over the last few decades, malaria’s global footprints have diminished, thanks in part to interventions such as mosquito nets and insecticides used to target Anopheles. In India, such interventions have been implemented with the help of a government agency called the National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control. The program’s efforts helped dramatically reduce malaria deaths in recent years.

A retired government official who worked in northeast India at the ICMR for nearly three decades, Vas Dev, said deforestation likely contributed to declining malaria rates in India, but it came at a cost. Increased urbanization creates more habitat for mosquitoes that prefer urban and suburban landscapes, including Culex and Aedes, the mosquito genus that transmits dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. Since 1970, dengue has spread dramatically in poor countries, killing thousands of people each year, mostly children.

Scientists are working to better understand how changing landscapes and climate will affect mosquito populations in the future. In Delhi, climate change has already extended the breeding season by bringing higher temperatures to months that were formerly too cool for reproduction. Untimely rains have also fueled the mosquito population by increasing humidity levels and contributing to standing water in the environment. As a result, said Dhiman, areas that might have once experienced a one-month mosquito season are now experiencing seasons that stretch for six to eight months.

The insects are known to adapt quickly to changes in their local environment. Anopheles mosquitoes provide an interesting example, said ‪Karthikeyan Chandrasegaran, a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech who has expertise in evolutionary ecology and mosquito biology. The malaria-transmitting insect is known to bite between dusk and dawn, so public health organizations working in sub-Saharan Africa invested in bed nets for the local residents there. Initially, these interventions proved effective, but within less than a decade, cases spiked. It turned out the mosquitoes were feeding in the early morning—after people had gotten out of bed. Mosquitoes can also evolve resistance against commonly used insecticides.

City-dwellers are likely to experience the brunt of any problems, said Chandrasegaran. Poor waste management, lack of sanitation, and irrigation all create opportunities for the insects to thrive. Some cities like Delhi are also contending with water shortages, a situation that has led residents to hoard scarce supplies in buckets that can become breeding sites. These conditions are less acute in rural areas, which also harbor greater numbers of mosquito predators, including certain fish and frogs.

But rural areas have challenges, too, including poor health care infrastructure and poor awareness of vector-borne diseases. “So, you’ll have to probably tailor your solution differently to urban areas, tailor your solution differently to suburban areas, rural areas, forested areas,” said Chandrasegaran. “If you do not identify the pain points exactly, you are going to spend a lot of time and effort and money trying to implement one scheme across the entire country, which is going to waste a lot of things.”

Rani, who like many Indians goes by one name, sat outside with her children on a high cot not far from the iron pan and its steady smoke. They chatted about the day, and one of Rani’s daughters, Meenakshi, mentioned how her teacher had asked the class to participate in a mindfulness activity. The children were to keep their eyes closed and their bodies calm. Unlike her wiggly classmates, Meenakshi excelled at the task. In reality, she told her mother, she had fallen asleep.

Rani took this news in stride. The previous night, the mosquitoes made it hard to sleep, she explained. Many children skipped school because they were exhausted in the morning—a common occurrence that keeps low-income children out of classrooms. Adults struggle to sleep during mosquito season, too. One woman told Undark that her blood pressure rises when the mosquitoes get really dense. Other residents reported sleeping on busses, rickshaws, and trains while commuting to and from work.

Some families leave their pans burning all night, but when Rani is ready for bed, she douses hers with water so she won’t feel suffocated by smoke as she tries to sleep. Rani and her children do use mosquito netting, but they rarely spend the whole night behind its protective shield. Sometimes the children need to get up to use the toilet or get a drink of water, she said, or they get too hot inside. And even a small opening in the netting allows the mosquitoes to enter.

Research indicates that mosquito nets can protect the individual user while also reducing disease transmission within the wider community. Despite this, many individuals who own nets do not use them consistently. A small study conducted in homes in Asia and Africa found that the nets decrease airflow, and researchers have hypothesized that this could explain the spotty uptake. In homes like Rani’s, which lack regular electricity for fans or air conditioning, the reduced airflow can make it even harder to sleep at night.

But the DIY remedies that have become popular across various parts of India bring their own set of problems. Palak Balyan, a scientist in New Delhi who works for the U.S.-based nonprofit Health Effects Institute, said that burning of any kind of material produces the tiny particles known as PM2.5, a type of air pollution that is responsible for millions of premature deaths each year. Research suggests that emissions of PM2.5 have shortened the average Delhi resident’s lifespan by up to 10 years. While the biggest source of this pollution in Delhi is transportation, experts worry that DIY mosquito control is worsening the problem.

In addition to burning cow dung and plastic, Delhi residents also use coils, liquids, and incense sticks to repel insects with odor and fumes. The repellants’ effects on human health have not been well-documented, but the available research suggests that caution may be warranted. One study found that burning a coil releases the same amount of PM2.5 as burning 75 to 137 cigarettes. Another study found heavy metals like zinc, cadmium, and lead in popular coil brands. “Carcinogenic risk is there for 350 people per million population,” said the study’s lead author, S.N. Tripathy, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

On its website, the National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control lists the use of these mosquito repellents as one of several strategies for vector control. But the Delhi public health official characterized the repellants as a short-term strategy of dubious effectiveness. In India, they are part of a 50-billion-rupee business—over half a billion dollars—but they are not a solution. For one thing, the repellants don’t even kill the mosquitoes; they merely prompt the insects to go elsewhere. The mosquitoes, the official said, “just move from one place to another but they do not die.”

The Delhi public health official and other experts interviewed by Undark said they were unaware of the extent of the outdoor burning in Rani’s neighborhood and beyond. The city’s low-income neighborhoods tend to be isolated, overlooked by the city, and looked down upon by other Delhi residents.

Several researchers said that municipalities need to step up and address mosquitoes so the burden doesn’t fall on individuals. This means better insect surveillance, as well as improvements to sanitation and drainage systems. In Rani’s neighborhood, for example, the homes do not have indoor plumbing, so wastewater flows directly into the streets, creating a breeding habitat for mosquitoes. The city’s biggest drain, which carries sewage into a local river, passes about 10 feet from Rani’s one-room house.

Housing quality is important, too. Mosquitoes love the dark, humid, and unventilated spaces so often inhabited by India’s poorest residents, said Dhiman. Rani’s house has just one window, often open so that air can circulate. Even so, moisture lingers on the mud floors and cement walls. A small light bulb hangs from a wire in the ceiling, providing minimal lighting.

Outside that house, as the evening wears on, Meenakshi turns to her homework. She’s still sitting on the cot, her hands kept busy, turning book pages, fanning the air to scatter smoke. She swats mosquitoes, scratches the bites. Rani is thinking of buying a topical repellant, but the ointment is expensive and who knows if it will work. Perhaps tonight Rani will leave the pan burning, just to see if it helps her fall asleep.

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IN THE NORTHWESTERN outskirts of Visalia in Tulare County, California, Bryan Ruiz drives down a familiar dirt road that cuts through farmland. He comes up to an irrigation pipe that’s created a “pretty nasty” situation—a small patch of vegetation and algae-covered water baking under the early June sun. As his shadow looms over the pool, a wormlike critter less than half an inch long quickly tries to submerge out of sight, but before it can, Ruiz scoops it up with a long metal dipper. He squints at his catch: a larva of Culex, a genus that includes common house mosquitoes.

While it may seem innocent at this phase, even a bit clumsy and silly tumbling in the water alongside perhaps hundreds more wrigglers, the larvae grow up to be disease-carrying bloodsuckers—what scientists call vectors. So Ruiz flags the spot for treatment with bacterial spray toxic only to the insects. This is a typical day for Ruiz, a technician at Delta Mosquito and Vector Control District (DMVCD): hunting for an insect that also hunts for him.

Tulare County, located in the agricultural center of California, the San Joaquin Valley, has long battled the pest. DMVCD, an independent abatement district, was founded with a push from the Visalia Women’s Club in 1922, when mosquito-borne malaria once ravaged the area. Today, a new threat menaces the 712-square-mile region, known for its dairy farms, citrus orchards, and vineyards surrounded by growing development. Aedes aegypti—an invasive mosquito species capable of spreading the Zika virus, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever—has expanded its reach in California by making itself at home in anything from dog bowls to small toys left out under sprinklers. Ruiz’s job has become even trickier as Ae. aegypti evolves to evade almost all conventional control tactics aimed at adult skeeters. “Most of the stuff we have doesn’t affect them,” he says.

With insecticide resistance increasing and climate change priming the environment for longer breeding seasons and a wider geographic range, the DMVCD and state biologists are concerned the area might see a bug boom. “Before, we haven’t really had the Ae. aegypti population,” says Crystal Grippin, the biologist and scientific program manager who coordinates surveillance of the insect at DMVCD. “Now we’re getting multiple locations with 10 female Ae. aegypti per trap.” (Only female mosquitoes draw blood; males consume nectar and fruit juice.)

Local abatement units like DMVCD and international companies alike are seeking new ways to combat the pests. The biotech company Oxitec has advanced one of the more novel—and controversial—approaches to curbing Ae. aegypti: releasing more Ae. aegypti. But theirs are no ordinary mosquitoes. These are non-biting males engineered to carry a time-bomb gene that passes on to offspring and kills females in the larval stage. “It is 100 percent fatal to female larvae carrying this gene,” says Rajeev Vaidyanathan, an entomologist and director of US programs at Oxitec. As the population drops, so does the risk of disease.

Oxitec hopes to make Tulare County the next site where it will test out its strategy. After the company showed promising results from a 2021 pilot project in Florida, the US Environmental Protection Agency cleared it in March 2022 to do a second trial in the state and to see how it does in Central California’s vastly different climate. Officials at the California Department of Pesticide Regulation are reviewing the firm’s permit request, which, if approved, might mean the trial would start moving forward in spring 2023.

While Oxitec’s invention is trademarked as “Friendly” mosquitoes, not everyone is charmed by the genetically tweaked insects making a buzz in the neighborhood. National and local groups have complained about the state’s review process and the company’s approach to consulting and communicating with residents.

If the Tulare County project moves forward, though, it could aid DMVCD techs like Ruiz by taking down the swarm from within. While his agency awaits the state’s decision, it is working with Oxitec, providing a much-needed community connection and history of the local landscape. “I’m really excited and lucky to be collaborating with Oxitec,” says Mustapha Debboun, a medical and veterinary entomologist and DMVCD’s general manager. “I’m always interested in seeking additional techniques that would work.”

IT’S A BIT of a surprise that these black-and-white insects have been able to survive in the arid landscape of Tulare County, given their tropical beginnings. Ae. aegypti originated as a forest mosquito, supposedly in Africa, before a strain of the species spun out across the globe when humans began to settle in villages and store water in containers. Their arrival in the Americas aboard slave-trading ships in the 17th century brought outbreaks of yellow fever, and in more recent times, they have caused other viral infections: chikungunya and dengue, known for causing fever and joint pain, and Zika, which can trigger birth defects in the children of infected pregnant people.

The species largely stuck to more tropical areas of North and Latin America for about a century before migrating northward, their eggs or larvae often hitching a ride with humans. Then, in 2013, health officials detected Ae. aegypti in California. As of July 2022, 22 of the state’s 58 counties have reported the mosquitoes’ presence to the California Department of Public Health. (They’ve also been spied as far north as Ontario, Canada.)

That spread is partly influenced by climate change, says Erin Mordecai, an infectious disease ecologist at Stanford University. Mosquitoes are ectotherms, meaning they’re dependent on external sources of heat. “Every life cycle process they go through,” she says, “is dependent on temperature.” A warmer environment speeds up their life cycle, so they reach adult stages faster, have more offspring over a longer breeding season, and bite more humans. To avoid the drier triple-digit heat that would otherwise desiccate their bodies, Ae. aegypti have begun sheltering indoors and in the shade, and DMVCD’s mosquito season now typically begins in April and lasts until November.

A longer season and a bigger population increase the risk to humans. While California has reported travel-associated cases of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika, there haven’t been any known instances of Ae. aegypti spreading the diseases in the state—but they could. In 2018, Ae. aegypti was the fifth most prevalent species detected by DMVCD, with 2,129 nabbed in surveillance traps; in 2021, the agency caught 16,450, making it the second most abundant species in the district.

To gauge local populations, the agency uses traps that cater to the likings of target species. The one used to fool Ae. aegypti is the BG-Sentinel, a laundry hamper–like cylinder that lures the bug with CO2 emitted from a sugar-yeast solution and a scent similar to dirty jeans wafting from a tube of pellets. “I don’t even smell it anymore,” says DMVCD’s Grippin. A small motorized fan in the contraption then sucks up unsuspecting females hungry for a blood feast. Laboratory technicians set about 90 devices baited for some 16 mosquito varieties every day, tucking them in the shade of bushes in residential front yards and parks. Some units can collect more than 4,000 skeeters by the time they’re picked up the next morning.

To push down mosquito numbers, the district tries to stop them when they are young and most vulnerable. First, the team urges locals to eliminate standing water. But the microscopic black eggs of Ae. aegypti are easily mistaken for mold, dirt, even shaving stubble, Grippin says. Simply emptying containers doesn’t always work, because eggs can survive without moisture for up to a year. “Once you put more water in, they hatch,” Ruiz says. He recommends deep scrubbing and repeated checkups.

For larvae, team members tap biological methods like deploying Gambusia affinis, commonly called mosquitofish. These freshwater swimmers are easy to breed and maintain, so the district keeps a large hatchery where residents can pick them up for free. If fish aren’t an option, the squirmers can be treated with natural larvicides, such as Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, in water.

If DMVCD detects an abundance of adult mosquitoes or the presence of pathogens in them, technicians apply chemical fogging treatments before dawn, when fewer people are outside. Ruiz says it’s a last resort. “Our main objective is to not use chemicals at all.”

The compounds might not even do the trick. Decades of pesticide overuse have given mosquitoes time to develop immunity. In 2020, researchers from the California Department of Public Health published a study on Ae. aegypti in the state that pointed to the possibility of the species developing resistance to pyrethroids, a group of commonly used insecticides. DMVCD’s own tests on certain lab-born and wild-caught species have shown resistance to the compounds as well.

With an eye toward finding alternative ways to thwart Ae. aegypti, in 2022 DMVCD was selected by Oxitec from more than 10 other districts in California to host a test of the company’s genetic assassins. Hot off its first trial in the US, Oxitec was looking to expand and see how its mosquitoes would fare in a more arid environment. The dry heat of Tulare County was just right. “I describe Visalia as kind of our Goldilocks spot,” says Oxitec US program director Vaidyanathan. “It has high numbers of Aedes aegypti.… It’s small enough that we can get all over Visalia in a way that we would not be able to in Los Angeles. It also has a very supportive mosquito and vector control district in Delta.”

Officials in Visalia see a potential panacea in the firm’s novel approach. “The technique that Oxitec has is very ingenious,” says DMVCD general manager Debboun. “I think this will work.”

IN MAY 2022, colorful weatherproofed containers about the size of rice cookers began dotting yards in the Florida Keys. But popping open the lid and pouring in water didn’t result in steamy, fluffy grains. Part of Oxitec’s second round of releases, these vessels will incubate some 7 million eggs of the company’s lab-bred male Ae. aegypti. The bugs hatch and emerge in about 10 days to seek out females within a few hundred feet and share the killer gene that Oxitec’s been developing for two decades.

The firm was founded in 2002 with the support of Oxford University in the United Kingdom, where the headquarters and research and development facilities of the now-US-owned company remain based. From the start, Oxitec focused on developing scalable genetic technologies that would squash harmful insect populations—from crop pests like the soybean looper caterpillar to disease-carrying vectors like Ae. aegypti. Oxitec’s solution is a technique it calls RIDL: Release of Insects with a Dominant Lethal. In other words, company scientists have been fine-tuning a genetic time bomb fatal to targeted insects.

It all began with Oxitec’s very own engineered strain of male Ae. aegypti, called OX513A. While they don’t look any different from their counterparts in the wild, these lab-reared specimens are genetically designed Trojan horses that carry two genes—one that identifies their offspring under UV light and another that spells demise for any female progeny. In the lab, the insects are fed tetracycline, an antibiotic that functions as a lock that stops the killer gene from flipping the death switch so the skeeters can reproduce in captivity. But once Oxitec frees the bugs, the gene turns back on in the absence of the drug. (Modern agriculture does tap tetracycline, and while a 2022 EPA statement noted the possibility of the mosquitoes being exposed to sufficient amounts is “remote,” it said the company could not release its males within 500 meters of certain enterprises that use the drug.) After Oxitec males successfully mate—passing on the gender-targeting lethal gene—the wild Ae. aegypti females go on to lay viable eggs, but their female larvae never make it to bloodthirsty adulthood.

Since Ae. aegypti males mate only with females of the same species, Oxitec says its approach shouldn’t have an impact on the overall diversity of the world’s more than 3,500 other mosquito species. Omar Akbari, a molecular biologist who studies the genetics of mosquitoes at the University of California San Diego, and is working with his own team to engineer a sterile male Ae. aegypti, says that Oxitec’s process could help reduce the overuse of insecticides. “In a lot of ways, I would view it as a green technology,” Akbari says. “I would argue it is a great approach, a safe approach.”

Starting in 2009, Oxitec began conducting trials, first in Grand Cayman, and later in Malaysia, Brazil, and Panama. The firm reported that targeted areas with wild Ae. aegypti saw up to a 95 percent drop in population numbers.

Despite these apparent successes, the technology sparked criticism. In 2019, an article published in Scientific Reports found that Oxitec males bred with local Ae. aegypti in a city in the Brazilian state of Bahia resulted in hybrid female mosquitoes. The authors pointed out that it is unclear how this may affect disease transmission or other control efforts. Shortly after, Oxitec responded that the paper had identified no unanticipated effects. UC San Diego’s Akbari says the findings actually show that the hybrids with Oxitec genes didn’t persist in the population, and Scientific Reports eventually noted editorial concerns over some of the authors’ claims and interpretations of the data. Nonetheless, opponents of the company’s real-world experiments still cite it as evidence.

Oxitec’s first US trial faced a long road before the EPA gave the company a green light to let its second-generation Ae. aegypti, OX5034, take wing in 2021, in partnership with the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD). The application was passed to two regulatory agencies before landing with the EPA in 2017, kicking off the whole review process. Controversial from the start, the plan drew 448 responses during the agency’s public comment period. A state agency also had to weigh in. “In the meantime, it was extremely important to try to educate the public on this project,” says Andrea Leal, executive director of FKMCD. “It’s not a very simple thing to explain to folks.”

While data from the 2021 release has not been peer-reviewed, Oxitec reported that every single larva that matured became an adult male and all the blood-hunting females died. The EPA has since allowed the company to continue its experiment in the Keys, where it aims to reiterate its data from the first trial on a larger scale, all while moving forward in California. Oxitec stated that the mosquitoes used in Florida wouldn’t be given tetracycline at any stage, meaning the killer gene should work as intended on the female offspring.

On the ground in California, Oxitec’s permitting process has also been bumpy. National and local groups took issue with the review process. Organizations like the Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth noted that Tulare County covers more than 4,800 square miles, yet the locations of proposed releases have not been disclosed, so residents have no way to know if the project would directly affect them.

As part of its review of Oxitec’s application, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) held a 15-day public comment period in April 2022. “Fifteen days is simply not enough for something that is new to this area,” says Tulare County native Ángel García, co-director of Californians for Pesticide Reform. Garcia adds that the CDPR did not adequately attempt to notify farm-working families about the feedback period, and national groups also cited the brief window. In its announcement of the public comment period, the CDPR listed only an email address for feedback. A CDPR spokesperson, responding to Popular Science’s request for comment, stated that the department is working to provide additional opportunities for public input, including a second comment period that will be announced at a later date. The spokesperson noted that the CDPR always takes public comment by phone, email, or letter and that this would be clearly stated in its next communication with the media, stakeholders, and the public.

At DMVCD’s monthly board meeting in May, about a dozen farmworkers living and working in Tulare County, a community that has wrestled with exposure to agricultural pesticides, voiced concerns about an Oxitec release and gaps in the firm’s communication. Some held signs, one of which was marked in Spanish: “#No somos ratas de laboratorios”—“We are not lab rats.” Cecilia Andrade, secretary of a local group affiliated with Californians for Pesticide Reform, who was there, points out that many rural residents, including her, do not have robust internet connections or any service at all, making it difficult for them to learn about Oxitec’s plan. “A lot of the information references the website, but a lot of people in this community don’t go to the website to get their information,” she says.

Oxitec responded to Popular Science via email that all its community outreach materials and web content are available now in English and Spanish. It stated it has been canvassing door to door, distributing informational flyers, pushing to social media, rolling out booths at local farmers markets and events, and hosting monthly webinars, some in collaboration with DMVCD. “We’ve probably knocked all together on thousands of doors,” says Oxitec US programs director Vaidyanathan. “The real story is that people are overwhelmingly well informed and supportive of this technology. In both Florida and California, we typically get two to three times as many people signed up to host [release boxes] than we actually need.”

AS SUMMER TEMPERATURES climbed into the 90s in Tulare County, the CDPR proceeded with its regulatory review for Oxitec’s permit application. The department hasn’t made public a timeline for its decision, only that the review process will take at least several months. But while it waits, Oxitec is building a research facility in Visalia and hiring field and lab techs. DMVCD, in its collaborative role, has been supplying historical local mosquito data to the company and directing residents to Oxitec’s information.

The long game for Oxitec’s US trials is to gather as much data as possible to turn in to the EPA with an application for product registration and eventually market the genetically edited bugs to mosquito control districts and consumers. If it does gain that approval, however, Oxitec will likely face competition.

MosquitoMate, a company based in Lexington, Kentucky, produces a lab-created strain of male Aedes albopictus infected with a species of the naturally occurring bacteria Wolbachia. When these males mate in the wild with females of the species, which can carry dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses, the eggs that are produced don’t hatch. A large-scale trial in 2018 in Fresno County, north of Tulare County, showed a 95 percent reduction in targeted populations. These bacteria-laden mosquitoes are currently priced between $699 and $1,199 depending on the size and type of property.

UC San Diego’s Akbari and his team are using the genetic-engineering tool CRISPR to try to create a sterile male Ae. aegypti. They’ve done surveys, online focus groups, and interviews to better understand the public’s reaction to emerging genetic technologies applied to mosquito control. Responses were across the board, he says, but it was grounding to hear hesitations over the release of an organism that researchers might not be able to control. “We need to take these concerns into our designs,” Akbari says.

Oxitec, with its genetically modified mosquitoes, he says, “is in a way paving the yellow brick road. They’re first to market, they’re going to deal with all these difficult things, but as long as they’re successful, it makes space for the next technology that might be better than Oxitec’s.”

DMVCD head Debboun says he’d be interested in adopting Wolbachia and Oxitec’s method if the data show they work—and if they are sustainable and attainable. “We’re not a private organization that has a lot of money,” he says. “Sometimes you do the best you can with what money you have.” As the new technologies advance, he hopes they will become inexpensive enough to add to the inventory, alongside mosquitofish and larvicides. “As they come into the market and then become affordable, this is what we’re going to be doing,” he adds.

In the meantime, the team at DMVCD continues to monitor and battle the enemy. Bryan Ruiz is redoubling his efforts to thwart Ae. aegypti: Earlier this year, he was assigned to help lead a new program to educate the public on lowering the bloodsucker’s population. That’s why this summer he’s going door to door, educating residents and doing a bit of detective work to find potential breeding sites.

As for new technologies that may be on the horizon, he says, “If you’re able to implement them, then you do. But right now it’s all about house to house.… If we weren’t here, it’d be worse, so I say we are making a difference.”

This story originally ran in the Fall 2022 Daredevil Issue of PopSci. Read more PopSci+ stories.

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When I first started my job as a biologist at the University of South Florida, I drove my Jeep to a grassy field, dug up a mound of fire ants and shoveled it into a 5-gallon bucket. Immediately, thousands of ants swarmed out of the soil and up the walls of the bucket headed for freedom. Luckily I had a lid.

How do ants make climbing walls, ceilings and other surfaces look so easy? I’ve been studying ants for 30 years, and their climbing abilities never cease to amaze me.

Worker ants–who are all female–have an impressive toolbox of claws, spines, hairs and sticky pads on their feet that enable them to scale almost any surface.

Human hands vs. ant feet

To understand ant feet, it helps to compare them with human hands. Your hand has one broad segment, the palm. Sprouting from your palm are four fingers and an opposable thumb. Each finger has three segments, while your thumb has only two segments. A hard nail grows from the tips of your fingers and thumb.

Humans have two hands–ants have six feet. Ant feet are similar to your hands but are more complex, with an additional set of weird-looking parts that enhance them.

Ant feet have five jointed segments, with the end segment sporting a pair of claws. The claws are shaped like a cat’s and can grip irregularities on walls. Each foot segment also has thick and thin spines and hairs that provide additional traction by sticking into microscopic pits on textured surfaces like bark. Claws and spines have the added benefit of protecting ant feet from hot pavement and sharp objects, just as your feet are protected by shoes.

But the feature that truly separates human hands from ant feet are inflatable sticky pads, called arolia.

Sticky feet

Arolia are located between the claws at the tip of every ant foot. These balloonlike pads allow ants to defy gravity and crawl on ceilings or ultrahard surfaces like glass.

When an ant walks up a wall or across a ceiling, gravity causes its claws to swing wide and pull back. At the same time, its leg muscles pump fluids into the pads at the end of its feet, causing them to inflate. This body fluid is called hemolymph, which is a sticky fluid similar to your blood that circulates throughout an ant’s body.

After the hemolymph pumps up the pad, some of it leaks outside the pad, which is how ants can stick to a wall or a ceiling. But when an ant picks up its foot, its leg muscles contract and suck most of the fluid back into the pad and then back up the leg. This way an ant’s blood is reused over and over–pumped from the leg into the pad, then sucked back up the leg–so none is left behind.

Ants are feather-light, so six sticky pads are enough to hold them against the pull of gravity on any surface. In fact, at home in their underground chambers, ants use their sticky pads to sleep on the ceiling. By sleeping on the ceiling, ants avoid the rush-hour traffic of other ants on the chamber floors.

A unique gait

When you walk, your left and right feet alternate so one is on the ground while the other is in the air, moving forward. Ants also alternate their feet, with three on the surface and three in the air at a time.

The walking pattern of ants is unique among six-legged insects. In ants, the front and back left feet are on the ground with the middle right foot, while the front and back right feet and the middle left foot are in the air. Then they switch. It’s fun to try to copy this triangular pattern using three fingers on each hand.

The next time you see an ant crawling up a wall, look closely and you might witness some of these fascinating features at work.

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