Dr. Paul Nealen
  • Home
  • Research interests
  • Student research colleagues
  • Recent teaching
  • Office hours
  • Science news blog

I often share, and interpret, science news with my students -
some of these reports are collected here.

‘Crypt keeper’ wasps, and echolocating humans

10/5/2019

0 Comments

 

Good morning everyone,

In the recent science news are articles related to several of the topics we have considered recently - this is a nice confirmation that our course topics are 'up-to-date'!

Early in the term we considered the behavior of parasitic wasps, that stun prey and then oviposit eggs within them so that their larvae have a ready food supply during early growth.  In the news this week is description of a different kind of parasitic wasp, one which parasitizes other wasps.

Here, the form of parasitism is less direct, in that the parasite deposits its eggs into the same plant gall that its host occupies.  The parasite larvae then can attack the host, and in doing so, they accomplish a form of behavioral and physiological 'hypermanipulation'.  Not only do they use the host tissues for their own nourishment, but they actually trigger a malformed version of the hosts normal escape behavior, which ensures that the host itself doesn't escape the gall but which provides the parasite an escape route.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/crypt-keeper-wasp-brainwashes-far-more-victims-thought
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/science/crypt-keeper-wasps-parasitic.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49692974

The degree to which parasites manipulate their hosts can be extraordinary.  We are used to thinking that parasites can make use of host tissues, but examples like this reveal more complicated interactions, with some parasites hijacking host behavior as well.  There are plenty of examples, such as these:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/10/141031-zombies-parasites-animals-science-halloween/

All are good reminders that host behavior, as well as host tissues, can be exploited by parasites. 


Even more recently, I sent you some information about humans who have developed some ability to perform echolocation.  Just this week came a report on this topic, suggesting real, functional remapping of the brain's visual cortex to support this new capability:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/echolocation-blind-people-reveals-brain-s-adaptive-powers

At some level, neural plasticity is responsible for all that we can learn, but to have whole-scale re-functioning of a part of the brain from one sense to another is very impressive.


Have a good weekend -
Dr. Nealen
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    August 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018

    Categories

    All
    Addiction
    Art
    Behavior
    Cancer
    Circulation
    Cognition
    Consciousness
    Conservation
    Coronavirus
    Defenses
    Diet
    Evolution
    Exercise
    Genetics
    Health
    Heredity
    Hormones
    Humans And Their Environment
    Immunity
    Mental Disorders
    Migration
    Neuroscience
    Nobel Prize
    Pain
    Physiology
    Pollution
    Regeneration
    Renal Function
    Reproduction
    Respiration
    Sleep
    Sociality
    Space
    Sport
    Stem Cells
    Temperature
    Vaping
    Vision

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Research interests
  • Student research colleagues
  • Recent teaching
  • Office hours
  • Science news blog