For African bat bugs, the battle of the sexes is quite literally a violent struggle—and now it appears that the bugs are using gender-bending tactics to defend themselves.
Bat bugs are small, reddish-brown parasites related to bed bugs that suck the blood of bats and sometimes bite humans.
Researchers have long known that male bat bugs ignore females’ conventional parts and instead use their sharp penises to stab the females’ abdomens, injecting sperm directly into the bloodstream.
So the females evolved a defense: structures called paragenitals that guide a male’s needle-like member into a spongy reservoir of immune cells. Read more
A striking image of seaweed shows the complexity of even the simplest organisms.
Seen here is Irish moss—Chondrus crispus—a common Atlantic red alga that is routinely harvested for its carrageenan. The chemical is used as a thickener in many processed foods.
Andrea Ottesen of the University of Maryland’s Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture shared a first place prize in the photography category of the 2007 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge for the natural light photo.
The awards are given out each year by the National Science Foundation and the journal Science for the imagery that best conveys complex scientific information and concepts. This year the winners are announced in the September 28 issue of Science. Read more
Japan’s August industrial output increased for the first time in two months, driven by higher production of transport equipment, electronic parts and devices and general machinery, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Friday.
The ministry upgraded its assessment of industrial output saying, ” Industrial Production is on a moderately upward trend.” In July, the ministry said that Production appeared to be flat.
The industrial production index increased 3.4% in August from the previous month compared to a decline of 0.4% in July. This marked the highest growth in eight months.
On an annual basis, industrial output rose 4.3% in August, after climbing 3.2% in the previous month. Commodities that mainly contributed to the increase are large passenger cars, drive, transmission and control parts and small passenger cars. Read more
As manager of the Port Hedland visitor’s center, Kelly Howlett’s main responsibility these days is telling travelers to bring a tent if they plan to spend a night in the area.
“I feel awful when people walk in here,” she said. “I have no choice but to tell them to get back on the road, because there’s no place to stay.” Port Hedland, the biggest town in the region of Western Australia known as the Pilbara, is at the epicenter of a massive Australian mining boom.
The rush to extract minerals like copper, aluminum, iron, and gold to feed skyrocketing Asian demand has provided billions of dollars in revenue for mining companies, millions in royalties for the government, and a boom in high-paying jobs.
One of its unforeseen consequences, however, is that hotels and youth hostels are completely filled with the flood of mining company employees who work in nearby iron-ore pits. Read more
Indian shares are likely to see further upside on Friday on the back of a healthy rollover of September futures. Global cues are mixed with the U.S. and European markets ending higher overnight and the major markets open for trading in the Asia-Pacific region showing a mixed trend on the final trading session of the week. Some degree of profit taking cannot be ruled out as the markets have been gaining consistently for the last eight trading sessions.
As per market data, rollover from September 2007 series to October 2007 series stood at 84% compared to rollover of 82.30% from August 2007 series to September 2007. Nifty rollover from September 2007 series to October 2007 series was 71% as compared to 70% rollover from August 2007 series to September 2007.
The Indian stock markets surged to new all-time highs on short covering, with the Sensex settling firmly above 17,000 and the Nifty breaching the 5,000 mark. The 30-shares BSE Sensex ended at 17,150.56, up 229.17 points or 1.35%. The broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty climbed 60.05 points or 1.22% to close at 5,000.55. Read more
JAKARTA (Thomson Financial) – Indonesian shares closed higher Thursday, tracking Wall Street’s gains with coal giant Bumi Resources and nickel miner Inco leading the rise.
Buying interest in Bumi was underpinned by expectations that the recent spike in oil prices will increase demand for coal.
Meanwhile, the rally in nickel prices on the London Metals Exchange spurred buying of Inco .
The rally was capped by profit-taking in selective stocks, including coal mining contractor Darma Henwa. Investors locked in part of the 69 percent rise the stock enjoyed on its first day of trade on Wednesday.
The composite index closed up 17.82 points or 0.8 percent to 2,378.82, off an intraday high of 2,381.08. Read more
ORSK, Russia, — /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Mechel OAO , one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, announces it has commissioned new self-propelled drilling rigs at the open pit mines of its subsidiary, Southern Urals Nickel Plant OAO. Commissioning of the new equipment will enable Mechel to increase nickel ore mining efficiency while reducing production costs.
The new Russian-made self-propelled drilling rig, UKB-5S, was commissioned at the Sakharinsk open pit mine at the Southern Urals Nickel Plant OAO this month. A similar unit was delivered to the Buruktal open pit mine administration last week.
The cost of commissioning two UKB-5S drilling rigs was more than RUR12.0 million (approximately US$480 thousand). The designed capacity of each unit is approximately 400 running meters per month.
The acquisition of the drilling rigs will allow the plant to carry out independent operational Read more