Science in Brief: Fungal cowboys, King Corn and ant prophylaxis
A group of German scientists published in this week’s Science their discovery of fungus preserved in Cretaceous Period amber that used a unique means of trapping its prey. This fungus used what essentially looks like a hyphal lasso to rope in its prey of choice, a species of roundworm (see the image to the right). Mostly this is just an evolutionary curiosity - and an opportunity to make jokes about moldy cowpokes.
As a fellow that got a Ph.D. in maize genetics it hurts me to say that the ethanol fuel hype is a boondoggle. In a story of rich irony, one scientist points to ways in which increased ethanol production is beginning to induce environmental consequences worse than those it was supposed to curtail. Because of generous government subsidies, U.S. corn production has risen 19% since 2006. At the same time, soy production has dropped 15% resulting in a near doubling of soy prices. According to William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, in a letter to Science this week, this has led to a sharp increase in Amazonian deforestation either directly by clearing for soy farms, or indirectly by pushing ranchers further into the forests. In case anybody is still not clear - ethanol is not the magic bullet to end our fossil fuel crisis.
Finally, another German group have discovered how ants - who live in very close quarters - deal with potentially epidemic diseases. The research, published a couple of weeks ago in Current Biology, demonstrates that ants are pretty clever in the ways that they deal with exposure of the colony to a disease - in this case a fungal parasite. Workers exposed to the parasite were not isolated from other adult ants. In fact exposure to the infected ants provided a beneficial immunity to subsequent infection. Infected ants did stay away from larva and eggs in the brood chambers and their uninfected cohorts took over childcare duties from the sick workers. Just another example of how societies can work well from social insects, who continue to prove that they’re better at this whole civilization thing than we are.
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December 15th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Interesting post. It is amazing that insects work better together than humans. Could you imagine what we could do if we worked together in areas of medicine or other crucial research areas?
December 15th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Chris, I think it’s a bit short-sighted to blame subsidies on the rise in corn production since 2006. The subsidies have been there for years, but the price per bushel of corn was under $2. Demand has driven up the price more than 80%, and that more than anything caused the acres/production spike.
And one of the references for that Slate article has Big Oil funding…not exactly fair and balanced. Not to say that corn growing associations put out great info either. I think, as with most things, ethanol (both grain and cellulosic) is one of the many things we need for energy independence. The article also mentions the problems with ethanol’s volatility and energy content…one alternative is biobutanol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biobutanol). If a commercially-viable production system is developed, biobutanol will definitely replace ethanol’s place in the biofuels marketplace.
December 15th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Nathan, I don’t know about whether the subsidies have anything to do with increased production. I do know that any politician with presidential ambitions (i.e. most of them) can never vote against subsidies as long as Iowa plays such an important role in the primaries. It’s kind of the same way that no politician with presidential ambitions can vote against the Cuban embargo as long as Florida remains a “purple” state. There’s no logic to either of these programs - just politics.
There are certainly some uses for ethanol as an alternative energy source - sure. But, I think that the ethanol craze is being partially fueled by shortsighted politicians who aren’t looking at more viable options - that maybe wouldn’t get them votes in the Midwest.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
[...] that corn-based ethanol may not be the green giant that folks thought. Just before Christmas a letter to Science by a respected ecologist suggested that the jump in corn farming in the U.S. has led to increased [...]