Comatose locusts may help relieve migraines

KINGSTON, ON. The way locusts react to stress may provide an important clue to understanding what causes human migraines and how to reduce their painful effects, says Queens University Biology professor Mel Robertson. With PhD student Corinne Rodgers, Dr. Robertson is using insect models to e...

One Fifth of Timor Needs Food Assistance: UN Report

... Persistent drought and plagues of locusts ravaged Timor-Leste's harvest in 2007, cutting production of major crops by as much as 30 per cent and leaving one-fifth of the population in need of ...

Locusts in Biological News

Ancient trans-Atlantic swarm brought locusts to the New World

Somewhere between three and five million years ago, a massive swarm of locusts took off from the west coast of Africa and made an unlikely voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to colonize the New World, says an international team of researchers. Using genetic evidence from more than 20 species of loc...

Penn State entomologists seek fungus to blunt mosquitoes' sense of smell

...ke eave curtains, hanging cloth or residual sprays in human dwellings with an insect infecting fungus like one already registered in Africa to control locusts and grasshoppers and infect malaria mosquitoes so that they no longer can smell and attack humans," the researchers said. ...

French scientist wins the Journal of Experimental Biology Outstanding Paper Prize

...foraging perspective, but not from a nutritional perspective. Simpson has a long-standing background in nutrition, having studied animals ranging from locusts to humans, but he had never studied the nutritional requirements of social animals. Dussutour comes from a strong ant behaviour background, having wor...

Climate change opens new avenue for spread of invasive plants

...xotic species, indicating natives were more vulnerable to natural soil-borne microbes. In addition, all plant species were exposed to North African locusts and a widespread species of aphid. These herbivores were not expected to show a preference for either the native or the exotic species. But they prefe...

What's bugging locusts?

...n and colleagues say that the collective motion of locusts is driven by "cannibalistic interactions." "Can...in marching bands of locusts," said Couzin. Desert locusts usually feed on vegetation, but individual locusts have been observed to feed on other live...

Killer fungus spells disaster for wheat

...worst storm there for 30 years. We know it changed the winds, says Wafa Khoury of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, because desert locusts the FAO had been tracking in Yemen blew north towards Iran instead of northwest as expected. We think it may have done that to the rust spores. This m...

New hope for horse lovers as effective control for killer ragwort is proposed

...ative for Ragwort. One example of CABIs work is the LUBILOSA project, which developed Green Muscle, a highly successful fungal product used to control locusts and grasshoppers in Africa. Mycoherbicide options for other UK weed species such as Buddleia, Rhododendron and Japanese knotweed are also being invest...

Feeling hot, hot, hot: New study suggests ways to control fever-induced seizures

...iologists Gary Armstrong and Mel Robertson exposed locusts to increasing heat while monitoring the neural cir...cted neural failure), the researchers injected the locusts with a PKG inhibitor. Compared to locusts who received a placebo injection, the treated...

Study reveals mass migration of mormon crickets driven by hunger, fear

...ves the mass migration of Mormon crickets in western North America. Throughout their seasonal migration, millions of Mormon crickets (relatives of locusts and grasshoppers) cover more than 50 miles of ground, destroying farmland and causing hazardous driving conditions along the way. The research tea...

Locusts' built-in 'surface analysis' ability directs them to fly overland

... Swarms of millions of locusts have, since Biblical times and until our very own ...te for Marine Sciences in Eilat to examine how the locusts were able to identify the gulf water and knew not ...ver it. The research focused on the ability of the locusts to identify polarized light. This is a trait which...

Locusts in Biological Definition

Abiogenesis

... "So may he (Sir Thomas Browne) doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated; or if beetles and wasps in cows' dung; or if butterflies , locusts , grasshoppers , shell-fish , snails , eels , and such like, be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive the form of that creature ...