bugs

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India's Famine Solution: We'll Eat Bugs

FAO discusses farming insects for food

(Newser) - Hopefully people in India like munching on crickets and other, um, delicacies. As the country's Food and Agriculture Organization warns a global famine will strike in 50 years, scientists are experimenting with an interesting source of alternative protein: bugs. "We are now doing a lot of work on...

Gifts Also Rule Animal Kingdom

They offer piggyback rides, share food

(Newser) - Many species of animals are just as into gift-giving as we are, though they may be better at avoiding that last-minute shopping rush. Often, the New York Times explains, the presents are tied to mating. "This is an incredibly cool and important topic in sexual selection that we’re...

Tree-Munching Bugs Wage War on Christmas

Adelgids deplete fir tree population

(Newser) - Talk about a war on Christmas: It's happening right now in southern Appalachia, and the aggressors are freckle-sized bugs with no natural predators. The balsam woolly adelgid, as the creature is known, is wreaking havoc on Canaan and Fraser firs, famed as Christmas trees. The onslaught is leaving trees...

ObamaCare Site's Re-Launch Stumbles Out of the Gate

1/3 of all enrollments reportedly screwed up

(Newser) - The new and supposedly improved HealthCare.gov isn't off to a great start. The site flooded with traffic yesterday morning, slowing it to a crawl and spiking its error rate, the LA Times reports. By 10am the government had turned on a "queuing" feature, essentially putting would-be applicants...

Itchy? Triple the Mosquitoes Buzz US This Summer

Three years' worth of them hatched in Southeast this year

(Newser) - If the mosquito attacks seem particularly vicious this summer, it's not because the bugs have grown meaner—it's just because there's more of them. Way more of them. Two years of drought in Southeastern states meant many eggs didn't get wet enough to hatch in 2011...

NYC Woman Sets Off Bug Bombs, Blows Up Building

Apparently, one should shut off pilot lights before setting off 2 dozen

(Newser) - You're actually supposed to try this at home, but apparently it's not for everyone: A New York City woman apparently battling a heck of an infestation in her hair salon set off 20 bug foggers in the Chinatown building last week, which was great. A day later she...

Corpse-Eating Flies Are Back From the Dead

Rediscovered after disappearing for over a century

(Newser) - Bone-skippers—flies that feast on large, decaying dead bodies—were believed to be extinct for more than a century. But three species of the fly have been spotted in Europe in recent years, sparking a renewed interest in these seriously creepy-crawlies, reports LiveScience . The first part of the name comes...

UN's Hunger RX: Let the World Eat Bugs

Though 'consumer disgust' could get in the way

(Newser) - The UN has a simple way to address world hunger: We should all eat more insects, it says in a new report . "Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly, and they have high growth and feed conversion rates and a low environmental footprint," the report says, per the...

Billions of Red-Eyed Cicadas to Swarm East Coast

Bugs will overrun Eastern states looking for sex in 'Brood II'

(Newser) - Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the East Coast. The insects will arrive in such numbers that people in the southern state of North Carolina to Connecticut in the northeast will be outnumbered roughly...

Your Christmas Tree: Home to 25K Bugs?

The good news is, they'll end up dead

(Newser) - Santa may be sneaking down your chimney, but he's not the only one making his way into your home. An avalanche of bugs is likely riding the Christmas Tree Express straight into your living room, reports the AFP . It spoke to a scientist who cited research that has found...

Starbucks to Stop Using Bugs in Drinks

Extract from crushed insects colored several products

(Newser) - Some 6,500 customers were bugged by Starbucks' insect-based food coloring , and the company is responding: It won't be using cochineal extract in its treats anymore, at least in the US. The dye, made from crushed insects, prompted a Change.org petition that sent an email to Starbucks HQ...

Starbucks' Frap in a Flap Over Dye With Insects

Crushed cochineal bugs make it pink, angering vegans

(Newser) - Note to vegans—and those grossed out by bugs: Starbucks' Strawberries and Creme Frappuccino is colored with insects. It gets its pink color from cochineal extract, which comes from ground-up cochineal bugs native to Mexico and South America. The coloring is nothing new: It's been used since the 15th...

Scientists Replicate Prehistoric Cricket Sound

Could be the world's oldest known song: researchers

(Newser) - Scientists have brought back a sound that hasn't been heard in 165 million years: the song of a prehistoric cricket. Using a remarkably intact fossil of a katydid—also known as a bush cricket—researchers were able to create soundalike replicas based on the creature's wings, AFP reports....

Maggots Clean Wounds Faster Than Doctors

 Maggots Clean Wounds 
 Faster Than Doctors 
study says
Dec 20, 2011 2:40 PM CST

Maggots Clean Wounds Faster Than Doctors

But they don't make wounds heal any better: experts

(Newser) - Maggots may work faster than any surgeon when it comes to cleaning large wounds that are slow to heal. Typically, doctors use scalpels and special enzymes to lift dead tissue from such wounds; researchers in France wanted to see if maggots could speed the process. They compared the two therapies...

New York's State Bug Reappears

Native ladybug had been missing for decades

(Newser) - It had been almost 30 years since anyone had seen New York’s state bug in New York—so long that legislators almost changed the official insect. But on July 30, a volunteer with the “Lost Ladybug Project” discovered a nine-spotted ladybug in Amagansett. Now, enough have been found...

Gmail Immediately Pulls Buggy iPhone App

Users complain it's 'unusable'

(Newser) - Google finally released its long-awaited stand-alone Gmail client for iPhones, iPads, and iPods today—only to immediately pull it down after a flood of complaints over bugs. “The iOS app we launched today contained a bug with notifications. We have pulled the app to fix the problem,” Gmail’...

Coming Soon: 13-Year Cicadas

It's gonna get loud in the South

(Newser) - We saw their parents in 1998; now the 13-year cicadas are emerging again from underground. Get ready for raucous mating calls and shells everywhere, advises the Herald-Review of Decatur, Illinois. (The 13-year cicadas stay mostly in the South but hit parts of Illinois and Indiana.) “They are out...

Save the World: Eat a Spider
 Save the World: Eat a Spider 
Apr 19, 2011 5:14 AM CDT

Save the World: Eat a Spider

Spiders, ants, locusts so much easier on the environment than cattle

(Newser) - It sounds creepy, but one of the best ways to save the world could be turning to creepy crawlies. Western gourmands generally find dining on bugs unpalatable, but for some 2.5 billion people in the world, especially in tropical regions, spiders and insects have long been part of the...

Stories 61 - 78 | << Prev