Word: insection
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...because there was a sudden vacuum." For whatever reason, the early mammals, although they arose at about the same period, remained bit players for the next 150 million years. "Mammals during this time," says Hans-Dieter Sues of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, "were nothing more than small, insect-eating organisms...
...performance. If any characters stand out, it is the stepsisters and that is for reasons beyond the level of dance. In fact, the fairy godmother's role seems disappointing and anticlimactic. She enters as a mysteriously draped witch-like figure, yet when she throws off her cape, her tiny insect-like wings and simplistic dance movements, which at best included numerous bourres pointe across the stage, brought Tinker Bell to mind rather than a sublime maternal figure. Similarly, Gelfand's performance as Cinderella lacks the strength called upon by the role, relegating her stage presence to the ranks...
What gives spider silk its impressive array of qualities? What, for that matter, lends crack resistance to horses' hooves and adhesiveness to the secretions of mussels and barnacles? What makes rats' teeth sharp and insect cuticle hard? By answering such questions, Lewis and other researchers hope to usher in an exciting new era in materials science, one based not on petroleum products like nylon and plastic but on proteins synthesized by living, growing things. "Why go to an organic chemist for new materials," asks University of Mississippi biochemist Steven Case, "when nature has already produced some beauties...
MOST HOMEOWNERS WOULD READILY AGREE THAT the only good termite is a dead termite, but the one unearthed on a dig in the Dominican Republic was better than most. The insect, trapped between 25 million and 30 million years ago in a blob of tree sap that hardened into amber, has yielded genetic material that is the oldest ever studied, by at least 8 million years. It has also resolved a long-simmering dispute over the family tree of cockroaches...
After a two-hour drive northward, we visited one of our Global 2000 agricultural projects. At the end of their second year in this program, farmers were weighing, storing and treating their corn harvest to prevent insect damage. Still produced with rudimentary hand tools, their yields were three times as large as any they had seen before. Directed by Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, the staff of one Senegalese scientist has trained and supervises 131 native agricultural-extension workers. We have found the 150,000 farmers in this program in six African countries to be eager to learn, hardworking, regular...