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My Picks from ScienceDaily

By clock on October 11, 2007.

Herding Aphids: How 'Farmer' Ants Keep Control Of Their Food:

Chemicals on ants' feet tranquilise and subdue colonies of aphids, keeping them close-by as a ready source of food, says new research. The study throws new light on the complex relationship between ants and the colonies of aphids whose sugary secretions the ants eat.

Discovery Of Retinal Cell Type Ends 40-year Search:

A research team combining high-energy physicists from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and neuroscientists from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., has discovered a type of retinal cell that may help monkeys, apes, and humans see motion.

Ticks Don't Come Out In The Wash:

Before venturing into tick-infested territory, you used a topical repellent on exposed skin and outer clothing. When you returned, you did a body check and threw your clothes in the wash. But clean clothes may not be tick-free clothes. When he found a live lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) on the agitator of his washing machine, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologist John Carroll decided to find out how tough ticks are. So he bagged up nymphs from two species--the lone star tick and the deer tick, (Ixodes scapularis), the creature that transmits Lyme disease--and put them in the washing machine.

In Biology, Polarization Is A Good Thing:

Using a molecular cellular compass, individual cells in complex organisms know which way is up or down, in epithelial cells known as apical-basal polarity. Determining the orientation is essential for an individual cell to perform it's designated tasks. Now it appears that the same compass also defines the direction of cells when migrating by establishing a morphological back and a front.

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