Queen in Biological News

A bee's future as queen or worker may rest with parasitic fly

Strange things are happening in the lowland tropical forests of Panama and Costa Rica. A tiny parasitic fly is affecting the social behavior of a nocturnal bee, helping to determine which individuals become queens and which become workers. The finding by researchers from the University of Was...

Why do some queen bees eat their worker bee's eggs?

Worker bees, wasps, and ants are often considered neuter. But in many species they are females with ovaries, who although unable to mate, can lay unfertilized eggs which turn into males if reared. For some species, such as bumble bees, this is the source of many of the males in the species. But in ...

Disease threat may change how frogs mate

...s: wild frogs in the UK may be changing their mating behaviour. Dr Teacher conducted her research with colleagues from the Institute of Zoology and queen Mary, University of London. The research followed concerns over the survival of wild frog populations in the UK. Ranavirus, which had its first report...

Parasitic worms make sex worthwhile

...al Institute of Technology biologists in this week's Current Biology . The scientists' report represents direct experimental evidence for the "Red queen Hypothesis" of sex, which suggests sexual reproduction allows host species to avoid infection by their coevolving parasites by producing genetically v...

From Jack the Ripper to great white sharks

...l foraging, and especially predation" says Dr Steven Le Comber, an expert on geographic profiling at the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at queen Mary, University of London. "Shark hunting patterns are extremely difficult to study and the work here will have important implications for our unders...

Temporary infidelity may contribute to the stability of ancient relationships

...have cultivated the same fungal crops for 50 million years. Each young ant queen carries a bit of fungus garden with her when she flies away to mate and est...periments, we found that there is a very short window of time--as the young queen establishes a new nest--when partner switching can occur." Ants in the ge...

Diet secrets of 'the Royals'

...ts and diet from early 2000 to early 2006. The study involved Victoria, Anastasia and Cleopatra three daughters of a mother elephant named queen Elizabeth, who died of old age the first year of the study. The findings are set for publication Monday, April 13, in the online edition of the journa...

Selected personal letters of Max Perutz are released in new book

...and grandchildren. Rounding out the book are many photos, a timeline of Max's life, a list of people with whom he corresponded (including the British queen and Prime Minister), and a memoir by David Blow, a research student who worked for Max for many years. Although some of the letters deal with scienti...

Team approach appears to work best for insect colonies

...a form of policing in honey bee hives, for example, any egg not laid by the queen is destroyed by worker bees, to ensure only the queen's offspring survive. ...hive, the workers are happy to help the community, even to die, because the queen carries and passes on their genes. "However, superorganisms are quite r...

Teeth of Columbus' crew flesh out tale of new world discovery

...ople who lived and sailed with Columbus, and who died on the shores of a strange and exotic new world. Histories of La Isabela, named after Spain's queen and Columbus's patron and located in what is today the Dominican Republic, suggest its population was made up only of men from the fleet of 17 vessels...

Cutting-edge amfAR grants fight HIV/AIDS in the lab and on the phone

... Sawyer of the University of Texas at Austin will base her study on the Red queen hypothesis, which suggests that organisms must continue to evolve just to k...tionary approach to identifying robust antiretroviral drug targets: The Red queen hypothesis in evolutionary biology predicts that organisms must continue to...

Frog's immune system is key in fight against killer virus

... Scientists from queen Mary, University of London have discovered how cha...o the virus. Working with her fellow scientists at queen Mary, University of London and experts at the Inst...rus. Her colleague Professor Richard Nichols, from queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences ...

UMMS researchers publish DNA identification of czar's children

...hondrial DNA as their mother, Empress Alexandra, who was a granddaughter of queen Victoria. Prince Philip of England is also a distant relative on his mother...d with mitochondrial DNA sequences from other distant maternal relatives of queen Victoria in their work. Czar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and their f...

Discovering the secret code behind photosynthesis

... Scientists from queen Mary, University of London have discovered that an ancient system of commun...e Royal Society:B , Dr Sujith Puthiyaveetil and Professor John F Allen from queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences report that these two-com...

Largest prehistoric snake on record discovered in Colombia

...ead and David Polly carried out much of the quantitative work behind the discovery whilst working in the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at queen Mary, University of London; they identified the position of the fossil vertebrae which made a size estimate possible. Now based at the University of I...

How your body clock avoids hitting the snooze button

... Scientists from queen Mary, University of London have discovered a new part of the mechanism whic...c with the changing calendar. Professor Ralf Stanewsky and his team from queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences study the circadian clock...

Research uncovers surprising lion stronghold in war-torn central Africa

...) nearly impossible right now, says Treves, action can be taken in Uganda's queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP). In an attempt to protect their livestock, c...ill serve as a call to action. "I don't want to see lions disappear from queen Elizabeth National Park the way that hyenas almost did, and the way cheetah...

Ants may help researchers unlock mysteries of human aging process

...nce of living in a particular type of environment investigating the genetic underlying differences in longevity, social behavior and brain aging among queen and worker ants. "Whether these modifications are indeed epigenetically inherited along with the gene is exactly what the team is seeking to disco...

Fountain of Youth to be found in the anthill?

...ies of ant where workers are able to perform either reproductive or helper tasks. A worker can become a reproductive functional queen, if the original queen dies or is removed. Such a trait is not found in "higher" order ants because these species have become structurally specialized. Carpenter ants, Campo...

Worker ants of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your fertility

...an the more advanced species," Abouheif explained. "That's because the workers have a much higher reproductive capacity and there is conflict with the queen to produce offspring." To their surprise, Khila and Abouheif discovered that "evolution has tinkered with the molecular signals that are used by t...

Favorite Thanksgiving dish gets 'upscale' breeding

... year earlier. Cranberry beds planted with Crimson queen hybrids come into full production in three to four...l harm. Vorsa received a patent for the Crimson queen hybrid in 2007. Rutgers licensed the hybrid and tw...state's economy, including agriculture. Crimson queen is only the second cranberry in the history of the...

Bee smart, bee healthy

...s are also better able to fight off infection, according to scientists from queen Mary, University of London and the University of Leicester. Dr Nigel Raine from queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, and Akram Alghamdi, Ezio...

Bumblebees learn the sweet smell of foraging success

... Bumblebees use flower scent to guide their nest-mates to good food sources, according to scientists from queen Mary, University of London. For any animal, finding food on its own can be time consuming and inefficient; social animals such as bees reduce these...

Molecular evolution is echoed in bat ears

...y have evolved more than once, according to research published this week by queen Mary, University of London scientists. Species of bat with the ability t... Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr Stephen Rossiter from queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, along with Professor Gar...

Large-scale investment catapults CAMH's mental illness and addiction research forward

...the workplace, women, the elderly, and children. "As we celebrate CAMH's 10th anniversary and officially open the first phase of our redeveloping queen Street site, we're also witnessing a turning point in the history of mental illness and addiction research, thanks to the generosity, support and fait...

Genes and nutrition influence caste in unusual species of harvester ant

...ong environmental component." The researchers found that the genetic makeup of the colonies they studied was quite diverse. The average P. badius queen had mated with at least 20 males (the norm for ants is one to five). The genetic analysis also suggested that the offspring of most males could develo...

Smells like bees' spirit

...arch for food according to how stocked their nests are, say scientists from queen Mary, University of London. When bumblebees return to the nest from a su...heromones elicited a standard response from all bees. But new research from queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences has shown that bees' resp...

Saving our bees

... Most of the world's plant species rely on animals to transfer their pollen to other plants. The undisputed queen of these animal pollinators is the bee, made up of about 30,000 species worldwide, whose daily flights aid in the reproduction of more than half of th...

New discovery proves 'selfish gene' exists

...For instance, in the honey bee colony, a complex social breeding system described as a 'super-organism,' the female worker bees are sterile. The adult queen bee, selected and developed by the worker bees, is left to mate with the male drones. Because the 'selfish' gene controlling worker sterility has ...

What makes life go at the tropics?

... motion of atoms and molecules. Such motion increases with temperature, presumably speeding up the biological processes. Fuhrman calls this the Red queen runs faster when she is hot hypothesis. Productivity also is thought to promote diversity by increasing the food supply. This is the larger pie can...

First 'rule' of evolution suggests that life is destined to become more complex

... and gills. The American biologist Leigh Van Valen coined the phrase Red queen for the evolutionary arms race phenomenon. In Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carrolls Red queen advises Alice that: It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the sam...

Royal corruption is rife in the ant world

...ave a royal gene or genes, giving them an unfair advantage and enabling them to cheat many of their altruistic sisters out of their chance to become a queen themselves. But what intrigued the scientists was that these royal genetic lines were always rare in each colony. Says Dr Hughes: The most likel...

Research uncovers the social dynamics of yellow jackets

...e family lives within a colony, each yellow jacket queen mates with several males, creating a complex famil...nstead of sterile workers. Turning a worker into a queen is easier than it seems it simply requires a comb... workers and if theyre young enough, put them into queen cells and they will develop into queens, explained...

Swedish university honors probiotics scientist

...for understanding how health and life quality can be preserved and reclaimed. Among rebros alumnae is the Swedish royal family. In 2006, the King and queen of Sweden presented Dr. Reids Ph.D. student, Peter Cadieux, with the Polanyi Prize. I dedicate my award to all the students who have had to work h...

Citizen Science -- a celebration of partnership between academia and local people

...genous communities around them. It involves research teams each year, led by scientists from Leicester and seven other partner universities Nairobi, queen Mary, London; Trinity College, Dublin; Bournemouth; Washington State USA; Insubria, Italy and Lodz, Poland. David Harpers own particular int...

Ants and avalanches: Insects on coffee plants follow widespread natural tendency

...ersity of Toledo, they set out to examine the system in detail. The ants, Azteca instabilis, have a natural history like that of many other ants. A queen establishes a colony in a tree, and once the colony reaches a certain size it splits and a satellite nest is established in a neighboring tree. Over t...

The surprising story of Charles Darwin and his homeopathic doctor

...rforce. Further, three prime ministers sought Dr. Gullys care, including William Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, and George Hamilton-Gordon, as well as queen Victoria herself. Hamilton-Gordon described Dr. Gully as the most gifted physician of the age. According to Ullmans book, other leading physician...

Greenhouse gas from English streams

...thane generated in the sediment beneath the plants to escape into the atmosphere. We found similar emissions to some UK peat bogs said Dr Trimmer from queen Mary, University of London. This changes our perception of the health of the ecosystem and it indicates another disadvantage of agriculture. Over 9...

Nitrous oxide from ocean microbes

...e denitrification that happens in the worlds oceans occurs in the Arabian Sea (an area equivalent to France and Germany combined) said Dr Trimmer from queen Mary, University of London. Oxygen levels decrease as you go deeper into the sea. At around 130 metres there is what we call an oxygen minimum zone wh...

Scientists unravel plants' natural defenses

... A team of researchers, led by the University of Sheffield and queen Mary, University of London, has discovered how plants protect their leaves ...there are other global implications of this research. Dr Alexander Ruban of queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, comments: As we seek to ...