Results tagged “Insects”

Photograph by Polka Dot Images via Photolibrary


Gross but true: Maggots help wounds to heal faster. Some hospitals use maggots to help difficult wounds like ulcers and burns to heal. The maggots eat dead tissue around the wound that can prevent healing and cause infection. Doctors know it works, but how? A new study suggests that maggots secrete a special fluid that helps them to eat the dead tissue. What does this mean? In the future, doctors may be able to harness the bacteria-busting power of maggots without having to put the creepy-crawlies on people. David Pritchard, a researcher working on the project at the University of Nottingham School of Pharmacy in the U.K., says that putting the liquid in a gel or ointment is the most likely way the liquid will be used. Such a treatment would probably be just as effective as using the maggots.

Read more about the study on National Geographic News.

Read about plants that eat flies on National Geographic Kids.

Scientists are using transmitters the size of three or four grains of rice, powered by a tiny hearing-aid battery, to track bees. The transmitters are small and light enough to attach to the backs of bees from two larger bee species with just a bit of eyelash glue and superglue.

Even loaded up with these backpacks, nearly a third of their body weight, "they fly beautifully," says zoologist Martin Wikelski, a 2008 National Geographic Emerging Explorer and director of the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany.

Honeybees have been disappearing and scientist hope that using radio transmitters may be a way to find out where they are going and why and they may help scientists explore native bee behaviors and understand the best ways to use native bees as crop pollinators instead of domestic honeybees.

Read about the disappearing honeybees here.

Learn more about the tiny transmitters on National Geographic News.