Cockroach Cyborgs Get Their Own Power Source

Equipped with tiny sensors, insects could scout out buildings filled with noxious chemicals, check under rubble after an earthquake and go places no human spy ever could. In a first step toward making these technologically enhanced insects a reality, scientists have devised a way to power bug-robot hybrids by tapping into their own metabolism. The secret: an implantable biofuel cell powered by a sugar the cockroaches make from their food. The device doesn't appear to harm the insect either.

Neurobiologists on the team implanted the tiny device into the abdomens of five immobilized cockroaches independently, measured the power it produced and removed it. The cockroaches appeared to behave normally afterward, said Daniel Scherson, the senior researcher and a professor of chemistry at Case Western Reserve University. Although the device converted the sugar into energy slowly, the electricity it generated could be stored in a battery and used in bursts, Scherson said.

Continued: http://www.livescience.com/17956-insect-cyborg-biofuel-cell.html

Cockroach Hookup Signal Could Benefit Endangered Woodpecker

ScienceDaily (Dec. 19, 2011) — A North Carolina State University discovery of the unique chemical composition of a cockroach signal -- a "Let's hook up" sex pheromone emitted by certain female wood cockroaches to entice potential mates -- could have far-ranging benefits, including improved conservation of an endangered woodpecker.

Dr. Coby Schal, Blanton J. Whitmire Professor of Entomology at NC State and the corresponding author of a paper describing the discovery, says that the study, published the week of Dec. 19 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, advances the knowledge of fundamental biological and chemical properties of an important North American cockroach genus that serves as both a beneficial forest insect and as a pest in homes.

Parcoblatta lata is the largest and most abundant of the wood cockroaches. It also serves as the favored meal of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. Schal says that the study, which characterized the pheromone and produced a synthetic version of it, could help scientists determine whether certain habitats have enough woodpecker food. If the synthetic pheromone attracts large numbers of adult male P. lata cockroaches, Schal says, then the roach supply is probably ample. Provided that other aspects of the habitat are also right, the area could be a suitable home for red-cockaded woodpeckers.

Read more at:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111219152516.htm

Roaches are forever as novel Valentine's gift

NEW YORK | Fri Feb 11, 2011 7:20pm GMT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In what is described as the perfect Valentine's Day gift, New York's Bronx Zoo is offering the chance to name a Madagascar hissing cockroach after that special someone in your life.

"Flowers wilt. Chocolates melt. Roaches are forever," the zoo said on its website about the name a roach gift, which was also billed as a limited Valentine's Day offer.

More than 1,000 people chose the cockroach option for their Valentine in the first 24 hours of the offer this week, a zoo spokesman said.

The recipient of the present gets a certificate explaining that there is a special insect living at the zoo with his or her name on it.

The $10 (6 pounds) donation for the gift will go to helping preserve wildlife and forests in Madagascar, according to the zoo, which has some 58,000 Madagascar specimens that need names.

The Madagascar is the largest and noisiest variety of cockroach.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/02/11/oukoe-uk-valentine-cockroaches-idUKTRE71A67920110211

How cockroaches 'talk' about food

Cockroaches "recommend" good food sources to each other by communicating in chemicals, according to scientists.

The much-maligned insects appear to make a collective decision about the best food source.

The study, carried out by a team from Queen Mary, University of London, helps explain why the creatures are often found feeding en masse in our kitchens late at night.

It was published in the journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology.

Dr Mathieu Lihoreau from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences led the research. He pointed out that people tend to "kill cockroaches rather than study them".

"I can understand that," he told BBC News. "But it means we don't know very much about their behaviour."

It was generally accepted that the insects foraged individually, "but that's definitely not true," said Dr Lihoreau. "Anyone who has cockroaches in their home will tell you that's wrong - you see them in groups."

To test his suspicion that the creatures were in fact communicating with each other, he and his colleagues gave a group of cockroaches a food choice test.

"We released them into a small arena where there were two identical food sources," he explained. "If they didn't communicate, we would expect that they should just distribute on the two food sources equally."

But the majority of the hungry cockroaches (Blattella germanica) fed solely on one piece of food until it was all gone.

By following individual insects, it also emerged that the more of cockroaches there were on one piece of food, the longer each one would stay to feed.

"We don't know how they communicate, but we know they're using chemicals," Dr Lihoreau explained. "That will be the next step - to find the chemicals involved in the communication.

"These observations coupled with simulations of a mathematical model indicate that cockroaches communicate through close contact when they are already on the food source."

He believes that the insects signal to each other using a "foraging pheromone" - possibly a chemical in their saliva or a hydrocarbon on their bodies.

"We think they encounter another cockroach, touch it and say 'ok, that's another cockroach, its eating good food, I'll stay'," he said.

Once identified, a man-made foraging pheromone could be used to improve pest control, making insecticide gels more effective or be used to create an insecticide-free trap.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10236515.stm

Amorous slug, orange snake among finds on Borneo

RIGHT: Dendrelaphis kopsteini

By VIJAY JOSHI, Associated Press Writer Vijay Joshi, Associated Press Writer – Thu Apr 22, 1:20 am ET

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A lungless frog, a frog that flies and a slug that shoots love darts are among 123 new species found in Borneo since 2007 in a project to conserve one of the oldest rain forests in the world.

A report by the global conservation group WWF on the discoveries also calls for protecting the threatened species and equatorial rain forest on Borneo, the South China Sea island that is the world's third-largest and is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

"The challenge is to ensure that these precious landscapes are still intact for future generations," said the report released Thursday.

The search for the new species was part of the Heart of Borneo project that started in February 2007 and is backed by the WWF and the three countries that share the island.

The aim is to conserve 85,000 square miles (220,000 square kilometers) of rain forest that was described by Charles Darwin as "one great luxuriant hothouse made by nature for herself."

Explorers have been visiting Borneo for centuries, but vast tracts of its interior are yet to be biologically explored, said Adam Tomasek, leader of WWF's Heart of Borneo project.

"If this stretch of irreplaceable rain forest can be conserved for our children, the promise of more discoveries must be a tantalizing one for the next generation of researchers to contemplate," he said.

The scientists' discoveries include the world's longest known stick insect at 56.7 centimeters, a flame-colored snake and a frog that flies and changes its skin and eye color. In total, 67 plants, 29 invertebrates, 17 fish, five frogs, three snakes and two lizards and a brand new species of bird were discovered, said the report.

Borneo has long been known as a hub for monster insects, including giant cockroaches about 4 inches (10 centimeters) long.

Notable among the species discovered are:

• a snake that has a bright orange, almost flame-like, neck coloration that gradually fuses into an extraordinary iridescent and vivid blue, green and brown pattern. When threatened it flares its nape, revealing bright orange colors.

• A frog that breathes through its skin because it has no lungs, which makes it appear flat. This aerodynamic shape allows the frogs to move swiftly in fast flowing streams. Although the species was discovered in 1978, it was only now that scientists found the frog has no lungs.

• A high-altitude slug found on Mount Kinabalu that has a tail three times the length of its head. They shoot calcium carbonate "love darts" during courtship to inject a hormone into a mate. While resting, the slug wraps its long tail around its body.

The Heart of Borneo, the core island area the conservation effort targets, is home to ten species of primate, more than 350 birds, 150 reptiles and amphibians and a staggering 10,000 plants that are found nowhere else in the world, the report says.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100422/ap_on_sc/as_malaysia_borneo_s_bounty