Word: insectes
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...kidnaped. Go to bed with a woman you work with, and maybe she dies. These are New Hollywood's scary metaphors for sex in the high-risk '80s. Last year The Fly said that a woman could get involved with a nice guy who metamorphoses into a slavering insect. The current hit Fatal Attraction preaches that no man is safe from a fling who gets flung: her jealousy cuts like a knife. Scott's film, cooler, less apocalyptic, says only this: Know your place -- Manhattan or Queens, restlessness or security -- and stay in it. Alien worlds should never collide...
...laboratory, Chinese scientists have been unusually successful in developing hearty strains of crops. Several hybrid rice varieties yield up to five tons per acre, as much as 180% more than a standard American strain. The Chinese have also improved crop yields by pioneering the biological control of insect pests, using ducks, frogs and even other insects. Farmers employ wasps, for example, to control stinkbug infestations of fields...
...surprisingly, scientists last week quickly slapped down the suggestion that the pesky insects may be infecting humans with the AIDS virus. For one thing, the virus does not reproduce inside mosquitoes, as it does in human blood. Nor is it found in insect saliva, which generally transports insect- borne infections. Even under perfect laboratory conditions, researchers have been unable to produce an AIDS infection by a mosquito or another biting insect...
What triggers the insect's emergence from the ground exactly on cue in the final months of its life cycle is one of nature's continuing mysteries. Scientists assume that hormones play a role. The creatures also appear at about the time the soil temperature reaches 68 degrees F to 70 degrees F, which is why they are first seen in the South. Says University of Michigan Biologist Thomas Moore: "It's an amazing demonstration of biological complexity...
...long sojourn underground, subsisting on sap in tree rootlets, the cicada nymph passes through five growth stages, or instars, each of which ends with the insect throwing off its carapace. About two months before it is ready to emerge, the nymph tunnels its way upward, lying at the surface and building a protective earthen turret if the ground is too damp. This final rest stop is truly character building: it apparently enables the insect to develop adult claws and flight muscles to help it cope with life aboveground. "Their bodies undergo a major transformation, especially of muscle structure," says Miller...