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3 news posts in Frontiers in Insect Science

Seeing inside a dying brain: Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. What happens to the brain when we die? The mystery of what happens in the brain when we die has fascinated humans for centuries. Despite understanding gained from recent studies, there still are open questions – not lastly because obtaining data about the last moments of life is difficult. Researchers largely have to rely on descriptions of near-death-experience survivors. To fill knowledge gaps, these accounts are immensely valuable. Now, in a review article published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, an international team of researchers has reviewed the current knowledge on what neurophysiological changes occur in the brain during these experiences. They also examined what anatomical correlates to these changes are, and how drugs and metabolic factors are involved. Understanding the underlying neurophysiological changes in the dying human brain could be the only way to decipher the neurophysiology of death, the scientists noted. Descriptions from near-death survivors may be our only […]

Sugary poo could be used to lure destructive plant pests to their doom

By K.E.D. Coan, science writer Aggregation of spotted lanternflies, Lycorma delicatula. Image credit: Jana Shea / Shutterstock.com Spotted lanternflies send signals with their honeydew excretions, shows a new study. Scientists are researching how this damaging invasive species communicates in order to better manage the pest problem. This research provides knowledge of how these insects find each other, as well as the first evidence to show that these signals appear sex-specific. Spotted lanternflies communicate through their smelly excretions, called honeydew, reports a new study in Frontiers in Insect Science. This invasive species has been impacting crops in the northeastern US, but little is known about how these insects locate each other for reproduction or feeding. According to this latest research, the insects’ honeydew emits several airborne chemicals that attract other lanternflies. Surprisingly, these effects are sex-specific, which may be the first known case of such signals in insects known as planthoppers. “This research is important because the first step to managing any pest is to understand their biology and behavior,” said Dr Miriam Cooperband of the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Plant Protection and Quarantine Division (USDA APHIS PPQ) in the US. “As we learn […]

Environment

23 Sep 2022

Bees, blue light, and bacteria in beetles’ ‘back pockets’: Most viewed articles of August 2022

Image: Shutterstock.com by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Each month, Frontiers shines a spotlight on some of the leading research across a wide range of topics. Here are just some of the highlights that resonated strongly with readers on our news site in the month of August. 1. Modern pesticides make it hard for bees to keep on the straight and narrow Research published in Frontiers in Insect Science showed that common pesticides affected bees’ brains so that they couldn’t orient themselves properly. Bees exposed to sulfoxaflor and imidacloprid were tested on their ability to respond to stimuli that tricked them into thinking they’d been blown off course, a situation which required them to use their optomotor response to reorient themselves. Compared to control bees, they performed very poorly, reacting inappropriately or not at all to the stimuli. The problem seems to be caused by damage to the nervous system, but the exact mechanism is unclear. Since bees need this optomotor response to travel between different sources of pollen, and since these insecticides are widely used, this is a source of significant concern. The authors tested the optomotor response in walking bees rather than flying bees, so further research […]