How Green Are Natural Insecticides?

Friday, April 24, 2009
By Corinna Underwood

S.C. Johnson & Son Raid's Earth Options Flying Insect bug spray.

You've just planted a garden, and you want to protect your crops and your home from an insect attack. You'll have no shortage of insecticides to choose from — but which are effective? More importantly, which are safe?
You're not short of options. There's a whole range of synthetic insecticides guaranteed to wipe out every bug known to man. Or you can opt for an integrated pest management (IPM) system, which incorporates preventive measures with sparing use of eco-friendly insecticides.
Of the 1 million named insect species on Earth, about 1,000 are pests — and more than half of those are already resistant to synthetic insecticides. (Click here for external link)



Scientists Develop Better Mosquito Repellent
Saturday, June 06, 2009
By Orlando Salinas

AP
A mosquito gets ready to eat.
Scientists may have come up with a better mousetrap when it comes to repelling mosquitoes.
The gold standard has been DEET, but now U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers at the University of Florida say they've identified 23 different compounds that work as well as, or better than, DEET.
It turns out that seven are the most promising, and are chemical cousins of a compound called piperidine, which is the same compound that gives black pepper its kick. In the lab, anyway, that mixture kept working for 73 days.
Scientists say this new compound could work wherever mosquitoes roam. They can fly as far as 30 miles over the open ocean, and they can smell people from 50 yards away. (Click here for external link)

Bee Swarm Traps Workers in NY Game Store

Saturday, May 23, 2009

AP

May 23: A bee specialist wearing protective gear collects a swarm of bees into a box outside a computer game store in New York.
NEW YORK — Thousands of bees have swarmed outside a New York City game store, trapping employees inside for hours, WABC-TV reported.
Worried employees looked out the window of the Manhattan store while talking on the phone as the bees clustered Saturday afternoon. A sign in the window warned: "Look! ... closed due to bee infestation." (Click here for external link)





Natural pest may bug borers
Chinese wasps may whip emerald ash borers in Midwest invasion

BY JILL TATGE-ROZELL
jrozell@kenoshanews.com
A Chinese wasp may be the answer to stopping the emerald ash borer from destroying trees throughout the Midwest, landscapers and gardeners at Gateway Technical College’s Winter Green conference learned Friday.
It’s an approach that got the room buzzing with questions and (Click here for external link)


Giant Bug Terrorized Ancient Seas
Monday, March 23, 2009

A fossil from famous shale deposits in Canada was thought to be unremarkable, but a new study finds that it's actually the remains of a 500-million-year-old monster-looking predator.
The Burgess Shale (a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia) has yielded exceptionally well-preserved fossils that present a remarkable snapshot of Cambrian marine life from 505 million years ago.
The first fragments of the monster fossil (a species called Hurdia victoria) were described nearly 100 years ago, and at the time, they were thought to be part of a crustacean-like animal, and other parts were subsequently described as multiple organisms including jellyfish, sea cucumbers and other arthropods.

Now it's clear that Hurdia was a relatively large predatory animal, possibly up to 1.5 feet (0.5 meter) in length. It had a segmented body with a head bearing a pair of spiny claws and a circular jaw structure with many teeth.
"Finding a complete fossilized animal is extremely rare. Soft tissues tend to decay rapidly after death, and harder parts tend to disarticulate or break into pieces, often leaving very few clues as to what the original animals looked like," said Jean-Bernard Caron of the Royal Ontario Museum, which houses many Burgess Shale fossils, including pieces of Hurdia. Click here for rest of story


'World's Deadliest Spider' Found in Whole Foods Produce Section
Friday, March 20, 2009

AP File: A Whole Foods store in Omaha, Neb.

One of the most deadly spiders in the world was found in the produce section of an upscale Oklahoma grocery store.
Or was it?
An employee of Whole Foods Market in Tulsa discovered what an expert said was a Brazilian wandering spider in a bunch of bananas from Honduras on Sunday and managed to catch it in a container.
The spider was given to University of Tulsa animal facilities director Terry Childs, who identified the arachnid and said that type of spider is one of the most lethal in the world.
Childs said a bite will kill a person in about 25 minutes, and while there is an antidote, he doesn't know of any in the Tulsa area.
But a Tulsa Zoo official disputed the findings, saying his analysis through video and photos he'd seen led him to believe that it was a Huntsman spider Click here for rest of story


Scientist: Terrorists Could Use Insects as Weapons

Tuesday, February 03, 2009
By Jeffrey A. Lockwood

The terrorists' letter arrived at the mayor of Los Angeles's office on Nov. 30, 1989.
A group calling itself "the Breeders" claimed to have released the Mediterranean fruit fly in Los Angeles and Orange counties, and threatened to expand their attack to the San Joaquin Valley, an important center of Californian agriculture.
With perverse logic, they said that unless the state government stopped using pesticides, they would assure a cataclysmic infestation that would lead to the quarantining of California produce, costing 132,000 jobs and $13.4 billion in lost trade.
The infestation was real enough Click here for rest of story

Ravenous Asian Beetles Devour New England Trees

Thursday, October 23, 2008

WORCESTER, Mass. — A wood-devouring beetle has gained a foothold in New England, and authorities plan to cut down large numbers of infested trees and grind them up to stop the pest from spreading to the region's celebrated forests and ravaging the timber, tourism and maple-syrup industries.
The infestation of Asian longhorned beetles in the Worcester area marks the fourth time the pests have been found in trees in the U.S. and the closest they have ever come to the great New England woods that Click here for rest of story

Study: Bee Species Outnumber Those of Birds, Mammals

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
By Andrea Thompson

There are more species of bees buzzing around the globe than there are species of mammals and birds combined, a new census shows.
This new count of bee species, conducted by John S. Ascher of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, comes from a list he compiled of more than 19,200 described bee species.
"Most people know of honey bees and a few bumble bees, but we have documented that there are Click here for rest of story