Dark Banquet
Page 26
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*93Those of you looking for a more detailed explanation on the concept of evolutionary constraints should read Stephen J. Gould and Richard Lewontin’s terrific essay, “The Spandrels of San Marcos and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptionist Programme.”
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*94Pheromones are sprayed or otherwise released into the environment by a variety of creatures, including insects and many mammals. Different pheromones communicate information on territorial boundaries, availability of females for breeding, and location of trails (to food or back to the nest).
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*95Bed bug copulation is actually quite dangerous for the female since it entails a violent exercise known as traumatic insemination. During this process, the male pierces the female’s abdominal wall with his intromittent organ and injects his sperm into the wound. This practice, in which the female’s external reproductive structures are not involved at all, may have evolved as a way to circumvent female mating resistance. Not surprisingly, traumatic insemination has some negative effects on female bed bugs, increasing the risk of infection and reducing life span and reproductive output.
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*96Various insects and other arthropods prey on bed bugs. These include several species of ants, including Pharaoh ants (Mnomorium pharaonis), a bug called the “masked bed bug hunter”(Reduvius personatus), spiders (Thanatos flavidus), centipedes (Scutigera forceps), and pseudoscorpions (Chelifer cancroids). Finally, although an 1855 paper reported that cockroaches fed on bed bugs, this claim has not been supported and the two insects may, in fact, “live happily together in the same house.”
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*97 The owners of Advanced K9 Detectives (out of Milford, Connecticut) claim that their certified Bed Bug Dogs can sniff out infestations within minutes.
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*98Parasites switching hosts is a common occurrence in nature—and it’s one of the ways that new species emerge. Recently, scientist David Reed and his co-workers compared the DNA in species of sucking lice that prey on either humans or gorillas. They hypothesized that gorillas actually spread these blood-feeding parasites (arthropods belonging to the order Anoplura) to ancient human ancestors around 3.3 million years ago. Since that time, the lice evolved alongside their new hosts (i.e., underwent coevolution), eventually becoming different enough to be considered a separate species from the gorilla lice. For example, as humans lost most of their body hair, the lice became adapted to live in thatches of human pubic hair, where, unlike gorilla lice, they are transmitted mainly through sexual contact. The researchers believe that the lice were originally spread to humans via one of three routes: sexual contact between gorillas and early humans, ancient humans killing and handling gorillas (parasites often spread from one host to a predator of that host), or gorillas and humans sharing communal areas.
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†99 Bed bugs ’n’ beans was apparently a popular medicinal dish (showing up in Pope John XXI’s Thesaurus Pauperum ). But here, rather than mixing the two ingredients together, those suffering from fever were instructed to place the bugs into a hollow bean before swallowing it.
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*100 This was two years before Pliny (a scholar, historian, and naturalist) choked to death on volcanic gas and dust at Stabiae, shortly after the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
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†101 According to Usinger, both of the Quintus Serenus verses were quoted by T. Mouffet in 1634 and translated by E. Topsel in 1658.
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*102 Hopefully the name referred to the French translation (“peerless”) and has nothing to do with those chocolate drops covered with little white pellets of sugar.
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†103 Firr is an Old English take on the word fir and refers to evergreen conifers of the genus Abies. These trees are generally considered unsuitable for use as timber.
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*104 There are significant parallels between blood feeding and sap feeding in bugs. They both employ hypodermically sharp mouth parts to tap into nutritious fluids, pumped under relatively high pressure, through special vessels (blood and phloem vessels, respectively). Additionally, both techniques commonly transmit pathogens to the food source—harming them.
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*105 Other vestigial organs of note include hind limb claws (or spurs) in pythons and boa constrictors and teeth in the developmental stages of toothless baleen whales (like the blue whale) and some anteaters. In humans, there’s the coccyx (formerly caudal or tail vertebrae in our distant ancestors) and the vermiform appendix (the remains of a larger, endosymbiont-laden, intestinal out-pocket called the cecum). Additionally, wisdom teeth are an indication that natural selection had an easier time making our jaws shorter than it did decreasing the number of teeth in those jaws. And stress-induced goose bumps apparently functioned to raise the hairs of our ancestors, making them look larger in the presence of predators, potential enemies, or competitors.
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†106 The term bug bear (Henry IV) was an early term for “scarecrow” or “bogeyman.”
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*107To some researchers, this makes them blood-feeding predators and not parasites.
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*108Remember this little factoid the next time you come across a bird’s nest and are tempted to bring it home to show your kids. And, on a related topic, any newly dead animal is likely to be crawling with ectoparasites—and many of them will gladly jump off their deceased hosts and on to you (at least temporarily), should the opportunity arise. You should also think about this one the next time your cat brings home a recent kill.
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*109According to pest-control experts, developing hobbies like dusting and vacuuming are solid preventive measures, while storing stuff under your bed is bad juju. They also recommend sealing all cracks and crevices in your home with silicon or caulking compound. (Potential harborage sites for bed bugs include cracks in hardwood flooring, bed frames, moldings, as well as the spaces between walls or floors and semipermanent structures like bookshelves.) You should also paste down or replace peeling wallpaper or contact paper, fill in nail holes, and seal all holes in floors and walls where bed bugs might enter from outside. And before you sit down, check your toilet paper tubes and curtain rods.
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*110Pest-control experts do suggest that you cover your mattress with an airtight, hypoallergenic cover, which not only prevents bed bugs from getting out (if you did have them) but also prevents new ones from getting in.
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†111 According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the easiest way to determine whether a mattress is new or refurbished is to look for an attached label. New mattresses should have a white label stating that it contains “all new materials.” Depending on the state, used mattresses may have a tag warning consumers that the mattress contains used materials. In New York, for example, sellers of used bedding must attach “a 15 square inch yellow label…which contains the phrase ‘Used Material’ in prominent print.” With this in mind, purchasing a mattress with no tag should be avoided and the FTC recommends that you not let the heavy plastic wrapping dissuade you from locating the tag when your mattress is delivered. The FTC further suggests that refusing delivery of untagged mattresses is a wise move, as is getting the salesperson to write “new” on your receipt at the time of purchase.
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*112 According to integrated pest-control specialist, Dr. Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, as of 2007, one major bedding company covers the mattresses it removes from homes in plastic before placing them in their trucks.
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*113Basically, this refers to all of your property except pets, plants, and food.
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*114As it turned out, all three of
these compounds were extremely toxic to humans and most other forms of life. As vividly portrayed in Rachael Carson’s landmark book Silent Spring, pesticides like DDT caused long-term environmental and health effects. Eventually, the alarm raised by Silent Spring over DDT would launch the modern environmental movement, and by the mid-1970s malathion, lindane, and other compounds known as organophosphates and carbamates were banned from use as pesticides in the United States and other countries.
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*115On a related note, “sticky traps” used to trap insects like cockroaches don’t work against bed bugs, which are more likely to travel and hide under the trap than run across its gooey surface.
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*116Essentially, you start with one cell, its genetic material divides, its cytoplasm divides, and you end up with two identical daughter cells.
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*117According to the Scrub Typhus Information Paper, published in 2005 by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, there were 5,441 cases of scrub typhus, resulting in 283 deaths among U.S. Army personnel in the Asia-Pacific theater during World War II.
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*118Using this same rationale, it’s easy to see why bootleg antibiotics or antibiotics of unknown quality are a very bad thing.
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†119 In addition to differences in diet, chiggers are smaller than adult mites and have six legs rather than eight.
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*120Ontogeny is the development of the individual from fertilized egg to adult.
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*121DNA replication (i.e., DNA synthesis) is the process by which the double-stranded DNA molecule is copied before cell division (resulting in two identical double-stranded DNA molecules and thus ensuring that each of the two resulting cells contains a full copy of the original genetic blueprint).
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†122 Alternately, as we’ll see, mutations that affect the sequence of developmental events can also provide variation that serves as the raw material for evolutionary change.
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*123Long before anyone else figured it out, Lamarck actually nailed down the fact that an environmental change like the one just described was necessary in order for evolution to occur.
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†124 Much later, a group of couch-bound scientists came up with an equally tricky question: “Why aren’t the children of professional bowlers born with super bowling skills?” Presumably this question arose in the mid-1960s, when pro bowling became a wildly popular televised sport—a phenomenon in itself that has troubled many evolutionary biologists.
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*125 And just as important, only if those changes occurred in that individual’s gametes (their sperm or egg cells). Somatic mutations (like cancer), which occur in nonsex cells (like those of the skin), are not passed on to the next generation, although inherited mutations in a person’s DNA could predispose him or her to develop skin cancer.
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*126According to entomologists R. Chapman and H. Shepard, “Mites infest foodstuffs to such an extent that the entire mass may appear to be in motion…If some of the flour which is suspected of containing mites is piled in the light, the mites will crawl away from the light and the pile of flour will usually flatten out.” And in a quote that immediately reminded me of Lou Sorkin and his citronella-scented bed bug colony, the authors stated that “when present in large numbers they give off a sweetish, musty odor, which is so characteristic that one who has had experience can detect their presence without having seen them.”
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*127The word scabies comes from the Latin scabere,“to scratch.”
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*128These include apples, pears, blueberries, almonds, pumpkins, and squash.
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*129The malnutrition hypothesis posits that bees forced to pollinate large monoculture farms are missing something in their diets in much the same way that a dog fed nothing but bread would experience physical harm from such a diet and eventually starve to death. On a related note, weather (e.g., drought) can also negatively affect pollen-producing plants, resulting in pollen that is deficient in the nutrients the bees require.
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*130Researchers have identified both of these viruses in nearly all hives with CCD but not in control hives.
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*131In a development eerily similar to CCD, White Nose Syndrome has been killing thousands of hibernating bats in upstate New York and Vermont. The most obvious symptom is a white fungus around the nose of stricken and dead bats. Experts suspect that the fungus may be a secondary problem and that something else is killing the animals. In a press release from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, bat specialist Alan Hicks said, “What we’ve seen so far is unprecedented. Most bat researchers would agree that this is the gravest threat to bats they have ever seen. We have bat researchers, laboratories, and caving groups across the country working to understand the cause of the problem and ways to contain it. Until we know more, we are asking people to stay away from known bat caves.” The DEC statement went on to say that, “Bat populations are particularly vulnerable during hibernation, as they congregate in large numbers in caves—in clusters of 300 per square foot in some locations—making them susceptible to disturbance or disease.” Adding to the problem, most of the bats known to hibernate in New York do so in just five caves and mines. “We have lost more than 90 percent of the animals at the two sites for which we have good survey data,” Hicks told me. “The problem is also expanding into new sites and now involves hibernacula harboring over 200,000 animals.” Bat biologist John Hermanson was also deeply concerned about what was taking place. “We’ve got caves with eight bats in them. There used to be thousands.”
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*132Fleas are blood-feeding insects belonging to the order Siphonaptera (which numbers around 2,100 species). Like the chiggers that normally prey on rodents, but transmitted pathogenic bacteria to troops in Asia and the Pacific, fleas preying on rats transmitted the Black Plague to fourteenth-century Europeans. Following trade routes and the humans that plied them, black rats (Rattus rattus) spread across the world. As rat populations exploded, the fleas they carried began to encounter (and bite) humans on a regular basis. The plague struck with wavelike regularity throughout the Dark Ages, spreading inland from major ports, where it devastated cities and erased the inhabitants of entire towns. With no cure, the Black Death wiped out a significant portion of the human race (with estimates running as high as seventy-five million people killed). What saved civilization, apparently, according to one hypothesis, was that black rats were eventually replaced by another species, the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), whose fleas were less likely to bite humans.
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*133Tick and chigger researchers actually collect their specimens by attaching a piece of rough fabric (like fleece or flannel) to a rodlike handle. These “flags,”“drags,” or “drag cloths” are then passed across the tops of tall grass or other low-lying vegetation in the hope that questing parasites will latch on.
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*134Unlike insect respiratory systems, ticks have only two spiracular openings. Additionally, many ticks have a gill-like structure called a plastron that extracts oxygen from water, thus explaining why ticks can survive long periods of submergence. Although the mechanism is still being investigated, it appears that oxygen diffuses into the plastron and then into the tubelike tracheal system where it travels to supply the tick’s body.
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*135Around 15 percent of patients who contract Lyme disease also report long-term neurological problems ranging from memory loss and diminished cognitive function to Bell’s palsy (which is characterized by temporary facial paralysis), and even meningitis—a sometimes life-threatening infection of the pro
tective tissues (the meninges) covering the outer surface of the spinal cord and brain. Meningitis can produce stiff necks, sensitivity to light, excruciating headaches, and far worse. The question of whether these long-term effects are actually caused by Lyme disease is a matter of current and heated debate.
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*136Synovial fluid is found within the articular capsules that enclose joints like the knee, hip, and elbow. Bathing the cartilaginous surfaces where the bones meet, this slippery substance has the consistency of egg whites. It functions as a lubricant and also provides nutrients to the surrounding tissues of the joint. Apparently, some researchers (like Dr. Yeh) believe that synovial fluid also provides a safe haven for the corkscrew-shaped Borrelia burgdorferi, allowing it to elude the body’s immune system (as well as administered antibiotics) and produce the chronic symptoms sometimes associated with Lyme disease.
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†137 Most notable was a multicenter study led by Dr. Mark Klempner of Boston University School of Medicine.
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*138Lymerix, the “breakthrough” vaccine for Lyme disease, was produced by the drug company GlaxoSmithKline and available between 1998 and 2002, when it was suddenly withdrawn from the market.
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†139 On a related note, a recent lawsuit claims that the makers of Lymerix neglected to alert physicians and the public that around 30 percent of the population has a predisposition to an incurable form of autoimmune arthritis that can be triggered by the high concentrations of a specific bacterial surface protein contained in the vaccine.
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*140My students were convinced that Kilometer 41 had been named for how far it was to the nearest flush toilet.
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*141The Victoria Amazonica crewmember who lost a chunk of his thumb to a black piranha on our first trip to Brazil may have a slightly different opinion on the matter.
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*142During a recent interview, candiru expert Dr. Stephen Spotte voiced extreme skepticism that this garb had anything to do with preventing candiru attacks and plenty to do with avoiding pests like ticks and sharp objects such as thorns.