September 25, 2006, 6:20 PM CT

Wild Bees Better Pollinators

Up to a third of our food supply depends on pollination by domesticated honeybees, but the insects are up to five times more efficient when wild bees buzz the same fields, according to a study published Aug. 28 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

"As honeybees become more scarce, it becomes more important to have better pollinators," said Sarah Greenleaf, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis and first author on the study.

As a graduate student at Princeton University, Greenleaf carried out a two-year study of honeybees used to pollinate sunflower crops on farms in Yolo County, Calif., near UC Davis.

Compared to honeybees, wild bees did not contribute much directly to crop pollination. But on farms where wild bees were abundant, honeybees were much more effective in pollinating flowers and generating seeds, Greenleaf found.

There appear to be two reasons for that. Male wild bees, probably looking for mates, will latch onto worker honeybees, which are sterile females, causing them to move from one flower to another. Secondly, female wild bees appear to "dive bomb" honeybees, forcing them to move. Frequent movement between flowers spreads pollen around more effectively.

Greenleaf and her co-author Claire Kremen, now a professor at UC Berkeley, calculated that wild bees contributed about $10 million of value to the $26-million sunflower industry alone.........

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September 25, 2006, 6:13 PM CT

Travelers Differ In Handling Airport Security Hassles

A new UC Davis study of post-9/11 air travelers observed that men were more likely than women to be bothered by slow airport-security screenings, and lower-income earners were more likely than upper-income earners to be bothered.

In addition, the more reluctant airline passengers were to travel following the 9/11 attacks, the more likely they were to be bothered by slow screenings.

But overall, the study observed that people might be willing to endure long waits for airport security screenings, particularly if delays are consistent at specific airports and at particular times of day.

The study should be helpful to airlines and security providers as they try to strike a balance between traveler safety and customer service.

"There is no question the time air passengers spend waiting for security is important, but this is only a proxy for the underlying desire to have consistent procedures from travel experience to travel experience," said Deb Niemeier, a UC Davis professor of civil and environmental engineering. "Most passengers want to know how long it's going to take, and intrinsic to that is what they can expect".

Niemeier and two Purdue University scientists analyzed data from traveler surveys in 2002 and 2003. They found:

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September 25, 2006, 6:08 PM CT

Bugs In Fruits And Vegetables

A new method for ridding harvested fruits and vegetables of insect pests and microorganisms, without the use of ozone-depleting chemicals such as methyl bromide, has been developed by researchers at UC Davis.

The technique, called metabolic stress disinfection and disinfestation, effectively suffocates insects found in harvested produce. Inside sealed chambers, alternating vacuum forces and pressurized carbon dioxide applications cause irreversible changes in the animals' cell chemistry and respiratory structures. Ethanol gas also is applied briefly to accelerate killing of fungi and bacteria and to damage insect eggs.

In practice, the process would be applied to pallets of fruits and vegetables to prevent insect damage during storage and shipping, and to avoid transporting potentially invasive insects from one country to another. A patent is pending on the technology, which was reported in the recent issue of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

"All major fruits, including table grapes, citrus, apples, pears, bananas and kiwifruits, as well as vegetables and ornamental flowers, retain their quality when treated with this technology," said the developer, Manuel Lagunas-Solar, a research chemist at UC Davis' Crocker Nuclear Laboratory.........

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September 25, 2006, 5:49 PM CT

A Robot In The Intestinal Canal

The intestines are an extremely difficult area to navigate through with a medical device. Yet, many people need to have intestinal examinations done to determine if, for example, they have intestinal cancer. The medical device currently used for this is the colonscope, a long, thin and flexible tube that causes patients great discomfort and pain. For this reason, researchers have been trying to develop alternative medical devices, such as, for example, a small robot that moves independently through the intestinal tract. There is a layer of slime, called mucus, on the inside of the large intestine (colon). The robots, as they move forward under their own power, ignore this layer of mucus and try, if possible, to suck or grab on to the intestinal wall, which results in the walls being stretched and the patient feeling pain and discomfort.

A better method, according to TU Delft researcher Dimitra Dodou, is in fact to use this layer of mucus and allow the robot to imitate the forward movement of a snail. A snail leaves a trail of slime behind it on the ground. This slimy material works simultaneously as a lubricant for gliding on and as a glue which the slug can grip hold of.

An intestinal robot should also have a similar layer to use. To achieve this, an adhesive layer is added to the mucus-like properties, which allows the device to be stuck to the layer of mucus. The ability to be attached to a surface covered with lubricant is a great technological challenge, because most adhesives normally only work on 'clean' surfaces. The researchers discovered a group of polymers, so-called muco-adhesives, that are suitable for this. Dodou used a pig's intestine to evaluate how this material worked. Her findings revealed that muco-adhesives in the form of films provided by far the highest degree of friction.........

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September 24, 2006, 10:24 PM CT

Crickets on Hawaiian Island

In only a few generations, the male cricket on Kauai, one of the Hawaiian Islands, underwent a mutation a sudden heritable change in its genetic material that rendered it incapable of using song, its sexual signal, to attract female crickets, according to a new study by UC Riverside evolutionary biologists.

In addition, the researchers found that although the new male crickets' wings lack the file and scraper apparatus required for producing sound, the males are able to mate successfully with females, thus ensuring evolutionary success. They accomplish this by simply altering their behavior in an ingenious manner, suggesting that behavior can help what may seem like a harmful mutation spread.

The research team, led by Marlene Zuk, a professor of biology, found that greater than 90 percent of male field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) on Kauai shifted in less than 20 generations from having normal wings to mutated "flat wings" that inhibit the crickets from calling. The mutation occurred, the researchers conclude, to protect male crickets from a deadly parasitic fly (Ormia ochracea) that uses the cricket song to locate crickets as hosts.

Upon finding a male cricket, the fly deposits larvae onto it; these then burrow into the cricket, develop inside, and subsequently kill the cricket when they emerge from its body. Of three Hawaiian Islands (Oahu, the Big Island of Hawaii, and Kauai) where the cricket and fly co-occur, Kauai, where the rapid spread of this wing mutation in male crickets was observed, has the highest prevalence of the parasitic fly.........

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September 24, 2006, 10:08 PM CT

Alcoholics And Decision-making

New research has found that alcoholics with certain coexisting personality disorders (PDs) have decision-making abilities that are particularly impaired.

Results are published in the recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research

"Normally, we make choices by weighing immediate benefits of different options relative to possible negative consequences in the longer term," said Geert Dom, head of treatment at the Alexian Brothers Psychiatric Centre in Boechout, Belgium. "When these abilities are impaired, people are less able to cognitively evaluate the longer-term consequences of their choices. This is reflected in real life by choices that are socially inadequate and/or related to overtly negative outcomes. Substance or polydrug use/abuse is one example".

On a neuronal level, added Dom, decision making is believed to involve multiple brain structures in the limbic region. "These brain regions are very important in the processing of emotions, motivational processes and the processing of rewards and punishments," he said. "Earlier studies have indicated that individuals with lesions in these regions lose the ability to make advantageous decisions, reflected by severe social behavioral problems and impaired performance on decision-making tasks such as the Iowa Gambling Task, which was originally designed to study decision-making in neurological patients with brain lesions".........

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September 24, 2006, 9:54 PM CT

But Not For Diabetes

It is diabetes that puts people who are at risk of developing critical illness and dying early, not obesity. Without diabetes obesity does not do much harm. A study published recently in the open access journal Critical Care reveals that individuals suffering from diabetes are three times more at risk of developing critical illness and dying young than individuals who do not have diabetes. Obese individuals who do not have diabetes, by contrast, have the same risk of dying or of falling critically ill as non-obese patients who do not have diabetes. These results are surprising, as obesity is associated with diabetes. The authors of the study conclude that the relationship between obesity, diabetes and critical illness is complex and that obesity, per se, does not predict poor outcomes.

Katarina Slynkova and his colleagues from the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital collaborated with colleagues from Emory University School of Medicine to analyse data from 15,408 subjects aged 44 to 66, coming from four different US communities, who had originally been studied between 1986 and 1989. The authors analysed the subjects' body mass index (BMI), presence of diabetes (either type 1 or type 2) and the subjects' history of critical illness (acute organ failure) and mortality within 3 years.........

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September 24, 2006, 11:15 AM CT

What to Buy Fall 2006

Last week I had the pleasure of viewing Isaac Mizrahi's Fall and Holiday 2006 collections at the offices of their NY publicists. The collections represent a new maturity in mass market market fashions- better fabrics, solid construction, and affordable prices.

The Holiday collection was especially impressive, with long flowing empire waist evening gowns in chiffon like materials (perfect for spring 2007 as well) and a black tafetta evening coat dress that looked like something from Calvin Klein's Fall 2006 line (unfortunately, these items won't be available until early November/December, so they aren't feature in this post). Here's some of my favorite picks from the collections.........

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September 24, 2006, 10:25 AM CT

2007 BMW X5

ts predecessor paved the way for a brand-new type of vehicle. Now the new 2007 BMW X5 raises the Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV) driving experience to an even higher standard. Powerful eight and six-cylinder engines, unique suspension, enhanced BMW xDrive all-wheel-drive technology, as well as a weight-optimized bodyshell with extreme torsional stiffness all interact to ensure excellent agility and dynamic performance.

The new 2007 BMW X5 is the only vehicle in its segment available with both Active Steering, developed by BMW, and AdaptiveDrive (a combination of Active Roll Stabilization and Electronic Damping Control). It is also the first SAV fitted with runflat tires as standard equipment.

The powerful elegance of the exterior design, just like the flexible and elegant interior, clearly underlines the dynamic character of the new 2007 BMW X5.

The new 2007 BMW X5 will be available in the U.S. with either a 4.8-liter V8 capable of 350 horsepower or a 3.0-liter inline-six with 260 horsepower.

The all-new X5 has all the attributes that made the original Sports Activity Vehicle such an innovative concept, and elevates them to new standards.

The interior of the original X5 was one of its hallmarks. The interior in the new BMW X5 combines the most sophisticated materials with numerous innovative options, thus a first-class ambience.........

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September 23, 2006, 11:23 AM CT

Climate Shifted During Dinosaur Era

In this month's Geology, scientists from Indiana University Bloomington and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research present new evidence that ocean surface temperatures varied as much as 6 degrees Celsius (about 11 degrees Fahrenheit) during the Aptian Epoch of the Cretaceous Period 120 million years ago.

The finding is relevant to the ongoing climate change discussion, IUB geologist Simon Brassell says, because it portrays an ancient Earth whose temperatures shifted erratically due to changes in carbon cycling and did so without human input.

"Combined with data from the Atlantic, it appears clear that climate changes were taking place on a global scale during this time period," said Brassell, who led the study.

A previous study from an Atlantic Ocean site had suggested a changeable climate around the same time period. But it was not known whether the Atlantic data indicated regional climate change unique to the area or something grander.

"We had virtually no data from the middle of the largest ocean at that time period," Brassell said. "The data we collected suggest significant global fluctuations in temperature".

As part of the National Science Foundation's Ocean Drilling Project, the geoscientists voyaged in 2001 to Shatsky Rise, a study site 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) east of Japan and 3,100 meters below the ocean surface. Shatsky Rise is known to have formed at the end of the Jurassic Period immediately prior to the beginning of the Cretaceous, the last period of the Mesozoic Era.........

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