Insect

What would it take to get you into an electric car today? Forced by state regulators to sell more zero-emission vehicles, automakers are tripping over each other to offer consumers rock-bottom lease deals. For the first time, electric vehicles are penciling out cheaper than their gas-powered counterparts. Honda joined the price war this week by dropping the lease on its Fit EV from $389 to $259 a month. It threw in collision and vehicle theft coverage, maintenance, roadside assistance - even a charging station at your house.

The school health clerk took a comb and pointed to the near-microscopic bugs crawling up and down my daughters' scalps. I cringed. Then she checked my head for the pesky parasites. I held my breath. We had lice. Lots and lots of lice. My youngest daughter scratched her head and started crying. Embarrassed, we headed home. And that began the frustrating, icky, unending, exhausting, humiliating, disgusting battle against the bugs. Parents across the nation are terrified of lice - not because they cause disease, but because even one minuscule egg has the power to keep children out of school and their mothers and fathers out of the office.

Starbucks has declared that it will no longer use cochineal extract, an insect-derived red coloring, in its wares. If anyone is imagining that the use of this dye is rare or new, they're mistaken. At a UCLA “economic botany” website we learn, among other things, that cochineal bug, or Dactylopius coccus , if you want to address it formally, is an insect that sucks the sap of prickly pear cactus and was used by the early Mixtec Indians of pre-Hispanic Mexico as a red dye for clothing.

As the East Coast of the United States braces for the deafening invasion of the 17-year cicada, a motley collection of predators -- including some humans -- are licking their chops in anticipation of an immense insect feast. Billions of cicada nymphs will soon spring from their hiding place below ground and eventually fly to the treetops for a courting, mating and egg-laying ritual of biblical proportions. The massive emergence, which University of Maryland entomology professor Michael Raupp likened to a " huge tsunami ," will roll from North Carolina to New York.

They live almost everywhere--in the air, water and soil, in and on animals, including humans. Insects make up almost 90% of animal life on Earth. Without them, many plants could not survive. And though small insects such as flies, fleas and ants are the most familiar to us, much larger ones are common. The stick insect of the tropics can grow to a length of 14 inches. Want to learn more about insects? Use the direct links on The Times' Launch Point Web site. http://www.latimes.

Having just returned from a month in France, I didn't read Dr. Karl Neumann's article on insect bites (June 9) until now. As a well-bitten travel agent I would like to add my own, never-fail advice, which I give to all of my clients. Take along vitamin E capsules which, when punctured and applied to the bite, totally relieves itching. ROZELLE ZELDIN Wilshire Travel Los Angeles

U.S. researchers said this week that they have discovered what appears to be the oldest imprint of a prehistoric insect, made while the dragonfly-like creature was still alive. The imprint found at a rocky outcrop near a large shopping center in North Attleboro, Mass., is believed to have been made by a 3-inch-long insect as it stood on mud about 312 million years ago. The imprint shows the thorax and abdomen, along with six legs, two of which may have moved slightly to create drag marks that hardened into burgundy-colored stone.

Ron Taylor didn't ask for fame then or now. The appearances on the Johnny Carson show, "To Tell the Truth" and the front-page headlines in the late '60s were not his idea. He was simply a researcher in the UC Irvine entomology department when his long and unusual Odyssey began with a Rotarian who wanted him to say a few words on any topic at a club luncheon. Searching for an interesting subject, Taylor latched onto a file he compiled in graduate school on eating bugs.

The trek was arduous, the life style spartan. The first of many expeditions Edward S. Ross led in search of some of Africa's smallest game began in the late 1950s at the lower mouth of the Congo River, extended to Mombasa, zig-zagged south to the Cape of Good Hope and ended in Angola. For 325 days the expedition, led by the Mill Valley scientist, camped in isolated deserts, took sponge baths in water boiled over a camp stove and slept atop a truck. The climate was steamy.

As the East Coast of the United States braces for the deafening invasion of the 17-year cicada, a motley collection of predators -- including some humans -- are licking their chops in anticipation of an immense insect feast. Billions of cicada nymphs will soon spring from their hiding place below ground and eventually fly to the treetops for a courting, mating and egg-laying ritual of biblical proportions. The massive emergence, which University of Maryland entomology professor Michael Raupp likened to a " huge tsunami ," will roll from North Carolina to New York.

Humans could learn a thing or two from lowly sand termites about managing the Earth's natural resources. Mysterious African "fairy circles," up to 55 yards across, are created by these creatures, according to a study published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.  Fairy circles are formations that appear along a 1,200-mile belt that stretches along the southwestern edge of Africa, from the middle of Angola to Namibia to the northern edge...

A study published Wednesday on a dengue fever outbreak in Key West, Fla., has local health officials buzzing. The paper, which was published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and appeared in their journal,  Emerging Infectious Diseases , confirmed that the mosquito-borne illness had indeed returned to the U.S. mainland after an absence of decades. However, Monroe County Health Department Administrator Bob Eadie said the report may leave people with the mistaken impression that the dengue risk remains.

The remains of what was once one of Los Angeles' most coveted neighborhoods can be seen behind a fence topped with barbed wire. Weeds sprout through cracks along streets lined with majestic palms. Retaining walls and foundations of custom homes peek through the brush. Rusty utility lines that have wiggled their way above ground bake in the sun like scattered bones. Two throttled-up passenger jets simultaneously take off from LAX and soar overhead, the thundering cacophony a reminder of why the community of Surfridge was forced to disappear.

In "Jacob's Folly," Rebecca Miller has landed on a narrative voice that's antique, droll, racy and occasionally cutting - imagine an 18th century French rake being played by David Niven. But instead of putting an elegant, handsome man behind that voice, Miller has given it to a fly. A common housefly, yes, but more importantly, it's the proverbial fly on the wall. Embodying that metaphor so literally is silly but also brilliant; in a sense this is what writers do, spy on their invented worlds, eavesdrop on their characters.

When humans gaze up at the night sky, they may view the fuzzy streak of the Milky Way and contemplate their place in the universe. When dung beetles see the Milky Way, their thoughts turn to keeping their food source away from other insects. Scientists have found that these inch-long creatures use the glowing edge of the galaxy to guide them as they roll their balls of dung across the African landscape. The report, published online Thursday by the journal Current Biology, provides the first documentation of animals using the Milky Way for navigation.

WASHINGTON - The “spidernaut” has died. Just days after becoming a star attraction at the National Museum of Natural History's Insect Zoo, the spider that spent 100 days in space was found dead Monday. “The unexpected loss of this special animal who inspired so many imaginations will be felt throughout the museum community,” Kelly Carnes, a museum spokeswoman, said. The spider, named Nefertiti, died of natural causes, according to the museum. The spider visited the International Space Station in a science experiment proposed by an 18-year-old Egyptian student, Amr Mohamed, to examine how spiders would hunt prey in microgravity . Nefertiti, was indeed able to catch her prey - fruit flies.

Anxious for quick information, callers to an eastern Ohio poison-control line instead got this message this month: "The services of the Mahoning Valley Poison Center are no longer available. . . . Consult your physician." The nation's poison centers, beset by financial difficulties, continue to close, cut services and scrounge for money to stay in the business of saving lives. There were some 2.3 million calls to poison control centers last year seeking fast telephone help in treating people who had swallowed harmful substances, suffered animal, insect or snake bites or inhaled toxic fumes.

A study published Wednesday on a dengue fever outbreak in Key West, Fla., has local health officials buzzing. The paper, which was published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and appeared in their journal,  Emerging Infectious Diseases , confirmed that the mosquito-borne illness had indeed returned to the U.S. mainland after an absence of decades. However, Monroe County Health Department Administrator Bob Eadie said the report may leave people with the mistaken impression that the dengue risk remains.

Despite the fact that a katydid's ears are located on its hind legs, the rain forest insect's hearing works in a strikingly similar fashion to human hearing, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Science. Mammalian hearing is enabled by a three-part system. First, a sound arrives at the eardrum, causing it to vibrate. Then, those vibrations in the air are converted to vibrations in liquid by the middle ear, which is made up of those three bones everyone loved to memorize in middle school biology: the hammer, anvil and stirrup.

State agricultural officials have declared war on the Oriental fruit fly in the Santa Clarita Valley after five flies were trapped there over two days last month. The action is the first for the Santa Clarita area but is one of several in Southern California since the invasive flies turned up in Pasadena in 2010. Slightly larger than a housefly and marked by a black "T" on its yellow abdomen, the fly is typically found in Hawaii and Micronesia. It poses a threat to scores of fruits and vegetables here, including dates, avocados, tomatoes and peppers.