Word: insects
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...moldboard plow, which laid the earth open to wind and water erosion. Instead farmers leave residue from the previous year's crops in place to hold soil and moisture, then scratch or chisel in seeds, which sprout through the decomposing residue. Crop rotation is used to break insect cycles. Weeds are targeted, controlled by new herbicides that quickly break down and vanish. In this rare and happy story that emerges from centuries of anguished agriculture practices and policies, there is the touch of God's hand soothing the earth and nudging it back a bit toward the condition in which...
With huge doors covered with giant insect sculptures, the Museum of Comparative Zoology features fossil invertebrates, whale skeletons, the largest turtle shell ever found, and extinct birds. It, too, is housed in the Peabody Building. The natural history museums are open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday...
While pollen is the No. 1 troublemaker for allergy sufferers, hundreds of other substances can provoke the immune system into an irrational IgE response. Among the more formidable and difficult to avoid are the droppings of the dust mite, a microscopic insect that thrives by the millions wherever dust collects in a house. Living on sloughed-off flecks of human skin (dander) and other unappetizing protein, it leaves droppings that are about the size of pollen grains -- and just as easy to inhale. Mite dung, unfortunately, is an allergen that produces the familiar sneezing, coughing, itching symptoms in half...
Equally lethal to some are insect bites, which cause a fatal allergic reaction in some 40 Americans each year. As many as 20% of people in the U.S. have a severe local response to bites from yellow jackets, hornets, honeybees, wasps and fire ants. An arm swollen to twice its normal size is not unusual. Of the 2 million annually whose reactions to stings spread throughout the body, a few hundred thousand will break out in hives and suffer shortness of breath. Yet, according to the estimate of Dr. Martin Valentine, an allergist at Johns Hopkins, half of those people...
Being aware offers little protection to those who fall prey to the kissing bug in Southwestern states. The dark brown insect, featuring a protruding proboscis and a splash of orange at the edge of its wings, strikes at night, quietly feasting on the blood of the slumbering victim. Most involuntary donors awaken the next morning itching from what seems to be a mosquito bite. But some immediately develop alarming and occasionally fatal allergic symptoms. Dr. Jacob Pinnas of the University of Arizona suggests that kissing- bug deaths may be underestimated. Some people who die in their sleep and have their...