Caterpillars

Wall Street closed mixed but mostly higher Friday, with Caterpillar's lackluster profit report dragging down the Dow Jones industrials while Google's soaring shares led Nasdaq higher. Friday's session closed out a turbulent week that raised new concerns about inflation and the outlook for corporate earnings but also saw oil prices at their lowest level since late July.

When the Arizona tiger moth caterpillar gets a bug, the medicine it needs suddenly tastes good. When the caterpillar is infected with potentially lethal parasites, it develops a hankering for plants that contain a toxin that kills the parasites, scientists at Wesleyan University and the University of Arizona reported last week in the journal Nature. "It's like if you got sick and penicillin started to taste good," said Elizabeth A.

In an unusual evolutionary adaptation, caterpillars infected by parasites developed an enhanced appetite for chemicals that killed the invaders, researchers reported in the journal Nature this week. Taste bud-like cells of the parasitized caterpillars grew more sensitive to the chemicals, researchers said, explaining previous observations that the caterpillars changed their eating habits when they got sick, actively seeking out plants to treat their infestation.

Biologists have discovered a new species of caterpillar in the Hawaiian rain forest that ensnares snails in silken webs, then feasts on them until nothing but the shell is left. It's the first time such behavior has been documented in caterpillars -- or any member of its biological order, Lepidoptera, which includes moths and butterflies.

Re "Jews Target Caterpillar Shareholder Effort," April 13: Protesting Israel's use of Caterpillar tractors to destroy terrorists' homes and sanctuaries is equivalent to protesting the fire department because it ruined your carpet and put a hole in your roof while putting out a fire. In both cases, look at the arsonist -- the terrorist -- as the real individual to blame. It is the action of the arsonist that creates the fire damage and the terrorist that leads to actions such as bulldozing homes.

Shareholders of Caterpillar Inc. have rejected a proposal that the company review its sale of bulldozers used to demolish houses and other property by Israel. The proposal was rejected by parties holding 97% of the company's shares, the firm announced at the heavy-equipment manufacturer's annual meeting in Chicago.

Targeting a Caterpillar Inc. shareholder resolution set for a vote today, many California Jewish leaders are intensely mobilizing against efforts to use stock market pressure as a tool against Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. California Jews representing such organizations as the American Jewish Congress and StandWithUs plan to attend a meeting at Caterpillar Inc.'s corporate headquarters in Peoria, Ill.

In a two-pronged legal attack, the parents of a young American activist killed two years ago while trying to block the demolition of a home in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip have filed lawsuits in Seattle and Israel, seeking compensation for their daughter's death. The suit filed in Israeli District Court in Haifa last week seeks damages against the state of Israel, the Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces, whose bulldozer crushed Rachel Corrie to death.

A rally in technology shares and flat oil prices helped Wall Street close broadly higher Thursday, but the dollar slid amid new worries about foreign investors' appetite for U.S. assets. Most key indexes rose in the session, led by the Nasdaq composite index, which gained 20.65 points, or 1.1%, to 1,953.62 as Internet, chip and software stocks zoomed, helped in part by some upbeat earnings reports. The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 2.83 points, or 0.3%, to 1,106.

Stocks rebounded Tuesday as investors snapped up shares of heavy-industry companies in sectors including energy, chemicals and machinery. Rising oil prices, which helped drive the Dow Jones industrial average to a six-week low on Monday, failed to keep buyers away on Tuesday. The Dow jumped 88.86 points, or 0.9%, to 10,077.40. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 6.54 points, or 0.6%, to 1,110.06, and the Nasdaq composite added 9.99 points, or 0.5%, to 1,869.87.