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<DIV>Thanks to Roy Pea who sent us this article.<BR class=Apple-interchange-newline><BR>
<DIV><A title=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/science/23observ.html?_r=1&oref=slogin href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/science/23observ.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/science/23observ.html?_r=1&oref=slogin</A></DIV>
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<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Arial color=#666666 size=2><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 10px">A dragonfly with a transmitter.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><B>May 23, 2006</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia color=#666666 size=3><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 11px"><B>OBSERVATORY</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 14px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=6><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 21px"><B>Follow That Fly</B></SPAN></FONT></P>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><B>By </B></SPAN></FONT><A title=http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/henry_fountain/index.html?inline=nyt-per href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/henry_fountain/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia color=#000666 size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><B>HENRY FOUNTAIN</B></SPAN></FONT></A></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">You won't see them flying overhead in a V formation, honking away like miniature Canada geese, but some species of dragonflies do migrate. Not much is known about their journeys, however. After all, there's no way to track individual insects over long distances, is there? Well, yes, there is. A </SPAN></FONT><A title=http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/princeton_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/princeton_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia color=#000666 size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">Princeton</SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px"> scientist and colleagues have done just that, attaching tiny radio transmitters to green darner dragonflies and following them using ground-based and airborne receivers. Their studies have revealed that dragonflies appear to act just like birds in deciding when to travel.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">"They follow really simple rules," said Martin Wikelski, an ecologist at Princeton and the lead author of a paper on the subject in Biology Letters. "They just use temperature and wind."</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">Radio tracking has been used to follow larger animals. But transmitters have gotten much smaller, and Dr. Wikelski, who has worked with them for years, wanted to see if they could be used on insects.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">He and his colleagues used a transmitter-battery package weighing about one-hundredth of an ounce ? about one-quarter of a dragonfly's weight ? and the insects are known to carry prey that weigh even more than that. The transmitters were attached to the thorax with false-eyelash adhesive and Super Glue.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">"Everybody thought this was totally crazy," Dr. Wikelski said, and even his team had doubts. "We didn't really expect it to work well."</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">But of 14 green darners that were tagged in central New Jersey last fall, the scientists were able to track 13, following them by car or small plane and using signal strength to chart location.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">The dragonflies headed south, generally, and were followed for about 35 miles, on average, over six days. (The tiny batteries die after about 10 days.) Like birds, they had days when they traveled (about every third day) and others when they rested. And like birds, they flew only when the winds were relatively weak (less than about 15 miles an hour) and when temperatures fell over successive nights (a sign of a cold front with prevailing southerly winds).</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">What is still a mystery, Dr. Wikelski said, is why these insects migrate. Presumably it's to find better breeding grounds, but only more and longer tracking will determine that. "It's a question we can only really answer if we can follow individuals," he said.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px"><B>Nocturnal, Without the Night</B></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">Light is one of the great forces of nature, the cycle of daytime and nighttime affecting the activities of countless plants and animals.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">Take the oriental army worm caterpillar, Mythimna separata, which infests corn plants. During the day, the bugs hide underground or tucked behind a leaf where it joins the stalk. At night, they emerge and munch away on the plant. So the army worm is nocturnal, and it's a good thing, too: that helps it avoid being infested by a parasitic wasp, Cotesia kariyai, that is attracted to corn plants during the day.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">There's only one problem. Researchers in Japan have discovered what makes the army worm nocturnal, and it's not light ? at least not directly.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">Instead, Kaori Shiojiri of Kyoto University and colleagues reported last week in The Public Library of Science Biology, the caterpillar is responding to volatile chemicals produced by the corn plant. Those chemicals differ between day and night.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">The researchers used a laboratory cage that exposed the caterpillars to the plant chemicals without exposing them to the plant directly. The cage had a food source on one side and a shelter on the other. When the caterpillars were exposed to the "daytime" plant chemicals they would hide, and when they were exposed to the "nighttime" chemicals they would feed. This behavior occurred regardless ? whether the caterpillars themselves were in light or dark.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">The researchers point out that the behavior makes sense given the presence of a third party, the parasitic wasp. As the researchers put it, by feeding only at night, the caterpillar encounters "enemy-free space."</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px"><B>Effect Unknown</B></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">Triclocarban is an antibacterial compound that has been used in soaps, cosmetics and other personal care products for years. It and a related compound, triclosan (used in many toothpastes and in kitchen equipment like cutting boards) work by blocking the activity of an enzyme that bacteria need to make membranes.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">About half a million to a million pounds of triclocarban are produced each year, and the chemical has been found in streams and in the water leaving sewage treatment plants. Now Johns Hopkins scientists have detected it in the sludge at a wastewater treatment plant. Since sludge is often spread on agricultural land, the finding means triclocarban may persist in the soil and accumulate in crops.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">In a study to be published June 1 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, Jochen Heidler, Amir Sapkota and Rolf U. Halden analyzed effluent and sludge from a large treatment plant that serves 1.3 million people. A special chromatography technique, developed by the researchers and used by Dr. Halden in the earlier stream study, was used to detect triclocarban.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">The researchers found that roughly 97 percent of the compound was removed from the wastewater coming into the plant, and that most of it was soaked up by the particles in the sludge. Sewage sludge usually undergoes anaerobic digestion to break down organic compounds and create a safer, more stable waste product. But the researchers found that anaerobic digestion did nothing to break down triclocarban.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">Little is known about the toxicity of triclocarban. And scientists don't know yet whether it is taken up by plants or remains bound to the sludge particles. But one concern is clear: an effective bactericide is being inadvertently spread on fields, with who-knows-what impact.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px"><B>Better Luck This Time</B></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">The Japanese space agency's asteroid mission, Hayabusa, may have been something of a bust last year, but another project is functioning smoothly. Akari, as it is known, is an orbiting telescope designed to survey the sky in six infrared bands, to see stars and other objects that are obscured by gas and dust clouds in the visible part of the spectrum.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 16px"><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Georgia size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">Launched in February, it has provided its first images in the past few weeks. The telescope, which is expected to operate for close to two years, will help scientists understand the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars and planets.</SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#004000 size=3 PTSIZE="12">Laurie Davies Adams<BR>Executive Director<BR>Coevolution Institute<BR>423 Washington St. 5th<BR>San Francisco, CA 94111<BR>415 362 1137<BR>www.coevolution.org<BR>www.nappc.org<BR><BR><B><I>Our future flies on the wings of pollinators.</B></I></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>