Sharon Oosthoek

Learning what stresses queen bees could save their hives

WHEN HONEYBEE HIVES die, the most common cause is something called queen bee failure. That’s when queens produce too few babies to keep the hive going. Finding out why this has happened is not often easy. That has made it hard for beekeepers to prevent. But a new test may change things.

Researchers have found high levels of certain proteins in stressed queens. Which proteins were high varied with the type of stress.

Previous research showed temperature extremes or pesticides can kill sperm cells inside a queen bee. She needs live sperm — male reproductive cells — to fertilize her eggs and produce baby bees. With too few live sperm, her hive will die.

Alison McAfee, who works at the University of British Columbia

Help for a world drowning in microplastics

Researchers investigate plastic alternatives, special filters and new breakdown technologies

LOOK AROUND YOU. How many plastic items do you see? If you are like most people, there are probably a lot.

Research shows that people recycle only nine percent of plastic wastes. The rest — water bottles, pens, shopping bags — can end up in our water, air and soil. Exposed to light and waves, plastic breaks down into teeny-tiny bits. Known as microplastics, they have become a growing concern. That’s partly because when they end up in the environment, they also can end up in animals, our food and our drinking water.

The most recent estimate suggests that Americans alone eat or drink some 70,000 of these polluting microplastic bits each year.

Discarded plastic is not the only source of them. Some bits are made on purpose, for use in skin-care products and toothpaste. They’re used to scrub away dead skin and cavity-causing material on teeth. When we shower or rinse our mouths, those microplastics go down the drain. From there, they end up in our waterways.

Meat-eating pitcher plants feast on baby salamanders

Once trapped in the plants, the young amphibians can take more than two weeks to die

CARNIVOROUS PLANTS IN Ontario’s Algonquin Park don’t eat just bugs. These Canadian pitcher plants also snack on young salamanders.

Until now, scientists hadn’t thought that meat-eating plants in North America ate vertebrates. Those are animals with a brain, two eyes and a backbone. Vertebrates includes amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and fish.

Pitcher plants in Asia do eat vertebrates. Some make a meal of small birds and mice. But those in Canada and the United States feed mostly on insects and spiders. Those creatures fall into the plant’s bell-shaped leaves and then gradually decompose in the small pools of rainwater that these plants collect.

Scientists had recorded seeing the odd baby salamander trapped in a northern pitcher plant. Until now, however, no one had looked carefully enough to realize these plants might regularly dine on them. That’s probably because most biologists study pitcher plants in the spring and early summer, before it starts to get too cold, says Patrick Moldowan. He’s a graduate student at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Will chicken cologne guard you from malaria?

Chickens are not known for their courage. But it turns out they can defend people from the mosquitoes that transmit malaria. How? The bloodsuckers find the scent of these fowl too foul to tolerate. Malaria is a deadly disease. It’s caused by a parasite that lives in blood. Female mosquitoes can carry the parasite and share it when they bite people

Deep-sea mining could imperil rare, ghostlike octopus

Scientists released the first photos of a squishy, semi-transparent octopus last spring. Adults are about the size of an open human hand. Because of its haunting appearance, the scientists nicknamed it Casper, after the cartoon ghost. Now some researchers worry that these animals could

Deep-sea dump: Trash is collecting on the Arctic seafloor

Researchers and fishing crews have found a lot of trash floating in the world’s oceans over the past few decades. That trash has even shown up in the remote Arctic Ocean. Now a study shows there is also trash deep down on the Arctic seafloor. Though few people live nearby, researchers found plastic

City living makes trees grow fast but die young

City trees grow faster and die younger than trees in rural forests, a new study finds. Over their lifetimes, then, urban trees will likely absorb less carbon dioxide, or CO2, from the air than will forest trees. If confirmed, this trend would be important information for people charged with finding ways to slow global warming. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps energy from the sun as heat.

Rare-plant hunters race against time to save at-risk species

Somewhere on a windswept cliff on the edge of the Hawaiian island of Kauai grows a plant that looks like a cabbage on a stick. It’s the last wild plant of its kind, and its exact location is a closely guarded secret. Hawaiians call it alula (AH-lou-lah). Even on this island chain, known for its exotic

Bed bugs have favorite colors

Do you have favorite colors? So does a bed bug. And a new study shows that, like many humans, bed bugs change their color preferences as they age. “It’s just like when you were four, you might have liked the color blue. But when you get to eight, you might say, ‘I don’t like blue anymore. I like green.’ Then at 12, you say, ‘I really like black,'” explains Corraine McNeill.

Learning what stresses queen bees could save their hives

Help for a world drowning in microplastics

Researchers investigate plastic alternatives, special filters and new breakdown technologies

Meat-eating pitcher plants feast on baby salamanders

Once trapped in the plants, the young amphibians can take more than two weeks to die

Will chicken cologne guard you from malaria?

Deep-sea mining could imperil rare, ghostlike octopus

Deep-sea dump: Trash is collecting on the Arctic seafloor

City living makes trees grow fast but die young

Rare-plant hunters race against time to save at-risk species

Bed bugs have favorite colors

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