Word: moth
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...foundering in the brothers and streets of Paris during the '30s was more gullible. But self-consciousness wasn't in his nature, and when he let it impinge on his novels, Nin's analysis paralyzed the frowzy romanticism of his vision as an entomologist pins the wings of a moth. Mailer is right in pointing out that Miller was "without philosophy--he had only sentiments, at their best likely to be some of the most eloquent sentiments voiced in English. Still there was nothing near to an underlying idea which might contain his characters...
...entomologist at the U.S. Forest Service's research labs in Corvallis, Daterman has been battling the Douglas-fir tussock moth, a major pest to the lumber industry in the Far West. In their larval stage, the voracious little insects can destroy a whole stand of valuable fir trees. For the past two years, Daterman and his colleagues at the Forest Service have been setting out forest traps baited with a man-made duplicate of the female moth's chemical sex-attractant pheromone. The object: to lure males, who can sniff out a mere trace of the powerful stuff...
Daterman knows the pheromone's power from personal experience: "You can take a shower, shave, wash your clothes, and the moths will still find you." Nonetheless, Daterman is willing to suffer the indignity of the moths' affections for the sake of insect control. After all, he says, "it's only embarrassing in the presence of another scientist who knows what the moth has on his mind...
...rock face leading up to it. But I came in the back way, and wandered through dark and clammy passageways that occasionally opened into dark and clammy rooms, until I saw a patch of light up ahead. Careful not to bump my head, I approached it, drawn as a moth to a flame. When I got here, I sat down and waited for my eyes to adjust...
...same species for miles around. Other pheromones identify members of a colony, trigger fight or flight reactions, or are used to mark a path toward food sources. At Beltsville, Jacobson has identified the sex pheromones of the American cockroach. Oriental fruit fly, Mediterranean fruit fly and southwestern pine tip moth. Synthetic forms of such chemicals could, if spread in large quantities over an insect-infested field, so confuse male insects that they might never find females and mate with them...