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Source: Science - The Huffington Post
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Total 16 results found since Jan 2013.
Trump's Hiring Freeze Could Imperil Breakthrough Discovery On Bees
Julia Fine was all set for the next chapter. She’d packed her bags and moved out of her apartment, and was days away from making the drive from Pennsylvania to Utah, where she planned to start work as a postdoctoral scholar with the Agricultural Research Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s research agency.
“I had made all the plans,” said Fine, a bee researcher who recently completed her doctorate in entomology at Pennsylvania State University. “I was supposed to start as soon as possible.”
But on Jan. 23, just three days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration,...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - February 6, 2017 Category: Science Source Type: news
Moth Species With Trump-Like Hair Named After Donald Trump
A newly discovered species of moth received a fitting moniker, given the helmet-like cluster of yellow-white scales atop its head.
Meet Neopalpa donaldtrumpi, named after President-elect Donald Trump “because of the resemblance of the scales on the frons (head) of the moth to Mr. Trump’s hairstyle.”
And while the resemblance to Trump is uncanny, the visual similarity was not the main motivation behind the naming, Dr. Vazrick Nazari, the evolutionary biologist who discovered the species, told The Huffington Post in an email.
“With the new administration taking office very soon, and the uncertain...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - January 18, 2017 Category: Science Source Type: news
WATCH: This Is How Butterflies Create Their Brilliant Color
Working in the Amazon rainforest has its challenges. To name an obvious one, it can be difficult to lug equipment into remote field sites to conduct research. Fortunately we live in a time when technology is rapidly becoming both cheaper and more portable. I'd like to describe a couple tools that I used to examine the butterflies below. Then I'll discuss the fascinating ways these creatures create color.
Macro shot of a Heliconius butterfly wing. The different colors (oranges, yellows, blacks) are caused by pigment production in each individual scale.
For starters, digital SLR cameras and macro lenses are powerful hand...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - June 23, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
WATCH: This Butterfly and Ant's Relationship Is... Complicated
TAMBOPATA, Peru -- It was late 2014 when Phil Torres first showed me the photos from his recent trip to the Peruvian Amazon. Among them were amazing images of the tropical wildlife, from brilliant macaws to elusive pumas. But there were a few critters in that album that stood out to us in particular. Flipping through his camera, Phil said something like, "Check out this butterfly dude. It hangs out with ants on bamboo."
Butterfly on a bamboo stalk in the presence of ants.
Butterflies and ants feeding from the sap secretions emitting from the bamboo shoot.
Phil and I both have backgrounds in entomology, and yet we h...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - June 21, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
The Latest Report On Bees Is A Total Buzzkill
Bees, the earth's most important pollinators, took another devastating hit last year, despite increased efforts to reverse the decline.
U.S beekeepers lost 44 percent of their total colonies from April 2015 to March 2016, an increase of 3.5 percentage points over the previous year, according to the findings of an annual survey released Tuesday.
Colony loss during winter jumped to 28.1 percent, from 22.3 percent a year earlier. In addition, beekeepers experienced a second straight year in which summer loss rates rivaled those of the colder months, which typically are more extreme.
The summer losses, in particular,...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - May 11, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
The Color Of Your Sheets May Attract Bedbugs Because Life Isn’t Fair
Do bedbugs prefer their hiding places to be a certain color?
Researchers conducted a series of tests in a lab to see if bedbugs (Cimex lectularius) would favor different-colored harborages, or places where pests seek shelter. The scientists found that bedbugs strongly prefer red and black, and typically avoid colors like green and yellow.
But don't rush out to replace all of your linens just yet.
"I always joke with people, 'Make sure you get yellow sheets!'" study co-author Corraine McNeill, an assistant professor of biology at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska, said in a statement. "But to be very honest, I think that w...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - April 27, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
The Web Is Freaking Out Over This No-Kill Spider Catcher
Some people use bug spray, others use a boot but there's a more humane way to catch spiders. My Critter Catcher has been making videos about its product since 2012, but since Insider picked up on it and posted a video of the amazing arachnid eliminator on its Facebook page on April 12, it has gone viral, receiving over 61 million views and over 800,000 shares. So what gives this device a leg (or eight) up? It’s the insect-friendly invention’s brilliantly benevolent nature. Instead of killing a spider (or wasp, grasshopper, roach, scorpion or any of the other pests the gadget’s site claims to be able to na...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - April 15, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
Honey Nut Cheerios Wants You To Know About Our Threatened Bee Population
With a smartly redesigned cereal box, Honey Nut Cheerios in Canada is calling attention to the massive decline of the bee population. The brand has removed its iconic mascot, Buzz the bee, from its box and is calling for a solution to stabilize the honey bee species with its new campaign #BringBackTheBees. "Buzz is missing because there’s something serious going on with the world’s bees," the campaign website reads. "With deteriorating bee colony health, bees everywhere have been disappearing by the millions and it’s time we all did something about it." Along with the striking design that will bring the i...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - March 15, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
The Reason Bed Bugs Won't Go Away
• Bed bugs can be resistant to chemicals found in some of the most common treatments.• The little bugs can take weeks to fully disappear.• "Heat alone does not work," says a pest controller of over 30 years. It seems like bed bugs are everywhere lately. And the truly scary part? A recent study found that bed bugs can be resistant to some of the most popular chemicals we use to kill them. Instead of working, the chemicals can actually make bed bugs significantly harder to kill. Of course, with proper care, bed bugs can be exterminated from your home. But now more th...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - February 12, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
We're Losing The War On Bedbugs
In the ongoing battle between bedbugs and the humans whose blood they suck, it seems the bugs may be winning -- at least in some parts of the country. New research conducted on bedbugs from homes in Cincinnati, Ohio, Jersey City, New Jersey, and Troy, Michigan, shows the pesky little bloodsuckers have become resistant to the insecticides commonly used to kill them. "While we all want a powerful tool to fight bedbug infestations, what we are using as a chemical intervention is not working as effectively as it was designed to," Dr. Troy Anderson, an assistant professor of entomology in the Virginia Tech College of Agricultur...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - January 29, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
This Is What It's Like to Make a Discovery in the Amazon Rainforest
"Huh, that's weird," I muttered as I trudged through a muddy trail in the Amazon rainforest. Even though the sun was setting, the heat was still sweltering and sweat dripped into my eyes as I stared at something I had never before seen -- a tree covered with bizarre yellow outgrowths. Some sort of fungus? That was my first thought. After all, I've seen tons of strange looking fungi in the Amazon. But something about these yellow bulby-looking things piqued my curiosity. A tree covered with strange yellow bulbs in the jungle. Inspecting them closer only made things more confusing. They didn't really look like fungi, at le...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - December 4, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news
Ig Nobel Awards Flush Out The Year's Weirdest Scientific Studies
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Source: Science - The Huffington Post - September 18, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news
My Q and A With Roger Ekirch on the Way We Sleep, and How It's Changed Over the Centuries
Roger Ekirch is a professor of history at Virginia Tech and the author of At Day's Close: Night in Times Past. He is also a leading scholar on segmented sleep -- the idea that for much of history people slept into two separate chunks separated by a waking period, as opposed to a single span of sleep. In answer to my questions, he shared his insights on "normal" insomnia, how technological advances have changed the way we sleep, and why in many ways we're living in a golden age of sleep. 1) How was the waking time between the two sleeps spent? In myriad ways, from the spiritual to the profane, in addition to more mundane ta...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - June 24, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news
'Neonics Not Key Driver of Bee Deaths'--USDA Study May Clash With White House Poised to Restrict Pesticide
Even as a special White House created task force is poised any day now to address concerns over supposedly vanishing honeybees, new research suggests that the very premise of the federal investigation may be misplaced.
Last summer, President Obama asked the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate conflicting reports that pesticides, and in particular a class of chemicals known as neonicotinoids, were the probable cause of mysterious bee deaths and declining numbers of beehives.
The latest headline on farmers' critical pollinator? The numbers of beehives are actually growing, continuing a multi-year improvement--g...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - March 25, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news
