Insects

I suffer from digestive upset when taking antibiotics, and I'd like to counter that with the probiotic bacteria in yogurt. Does taking antibiotics with yogurt affect absorption of antibiotics? It depends to a certain extent on the antibiotic, but many should not be taken within a few hours of yogurt or other calcium-rich foods. That includes antibiotics in the tetracycline family and drugs such as ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin, but not ofloxacin. Fruit juice fortified with calcium also can interfere with antibiotic absorption.

Google on Tuesday is noting the 366th anniversary of Maria Sibylla Merian's birth with the gift of the Google Doodle. So what makes Merian special? Her work was a marriage of art and science in a time of few female scientists and little documentation of pupal insects. The 17th century artist and naturalist (thus, the search engine's name spelled out with curled flora, fauna and critters), was captured by butterflies and other pupal insects. PHOTOS: Google Doodles of 2013 The daughter of an engraver and publisher and stepdaughter of a botanical painter, she started studying silkworms as a child in her native Frankfurt, Germany.

Conditions are nearly ideal as John Fales heads briskly out the front door with his butterfly net and a worn green canvas bag slung over his shoulder. It's 75 degrees on a mostly sunny afternoon in the early fall. A gentle breeze ripples the waters of Chesapeake Bay, a short walk from Fales' home at Plum Point in Calvert County, Md. Fales records the temperature from a gauge atop a pole in his yard and writes down the time. Ready now, he scans the shrubs in his yard and the sky overhead.

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...

Monthly preventive sprayings and dustings for cockroaches and ants are among the pest control industry's biggest businesses. Experts agree that ridding homes and restaurants of cockroaches would cut down the incidence of food poisoning. "If (cockroaches) were to walk over a sewer or over a dead animal, and they were to walk into your house, they would carry certain organisms" on their feet, said Frank Hall, a vermin expert with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

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.

In a powerful piece about global hunger , Kenneth R. Weiss shows readers the landscape in Dadaab, Kenya, where people are suffering and dying from chronic undernourishment and hunger-related conditions. In this third installment of a five-part series about the global population explosion, Weiss writes: "Across Africa and in parts of South Asia and Latin America, hundreds of millions of people live on the edge of starvation. A drought, flood or outbreak of violence can push them over the brink.

If you think houseflies are a nuisance now, imagine flies with a wingspan of 28 inches. Such gigantic insects were common 300 million years, but fortunately did not survive to pester us today. And the primary reason why? The evolution of birds from dinosaurs, which caused insects to become smaller and more maneuverable to escape predation, new research suggests. Primordial insects were able to grow so large because of high concentrations of oxygen in the ancient atmosphere, about 30% compared with 21% today.

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. To learn more about insects, go to http://www.latimes.com/launch

Thomas Eisner, who became known as the "father of chemical ecology" as a result of his pioneering studies of how insects use chemicals to mate, elude predators and capture prey, died March 25 at his home in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 81 and had Parkinson's disease. Eisner, who spent his entire professional life at Cornell University, combined the observational skills of Charles Darwin with an inquisitiveness that caused him to look far beyond superficial characteristics. At a 2000 celebration of Eisner's career, biochemist John Law of the University of Arizona said: "Thousands of people can look at the same plant or animal and see the same thing, and there is the one person, like Tom, who comes along and sees something different.

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.

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.

If "Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo" sounds like some retro Japanese creature feature, guess again. This is, in fact, a gentle docu-tribute to Japan's age-old connection to the insect world, a meditative piece that is by turns hypnotically beautiful and painfully slow. It's the kind of film perhaps best appreciated in smaller doses, in the same way bench rest can help sustain a tiring museum visit. Written and directed by American filmmaker-botanist Jessica Oreck, "Beetle Queen" follows no firm structure as it mixes fascinating shots of Japan's most popular insects — dragonflies, fireflies, crickets, butterflies and, of course, beetles — with related (or not)

The first evidence that insects can have an immune system similar to that found in animals was presented last week at a meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) by researchers from the University of Cincinnati. The results contradict the longstanding belief that insects have much more primitive defenses against disease. Immunologist Richard D.

An elephant weevil, a tiny insect that attacks wine crops and fruit trees, was intercepted last month at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex in a container of oranges from Australia, officials said. It was the first time the pest had been found in the United States. It attacks roots, stems and fruits of cultivated vines, and also feeds on citrus, blueberry bushes and fruit trees. "Had this pest gone undetected, it could have had a serious impact on the California wine industry," Todd C. Owen, Customs and Border Protection director of Los Angeles field operations, said in a statement last week.

In a powerful piece about global hunger , Kenneth R. Weiss shows readers the landscape in Dadaab, Kenya, where people are suffering and dying from chronic undernourishment and hunger-related conditions. In this third installment of a five-part series about the global population explosion, Weiss writes: "Across Africa and in parts of South Asia and Latin America, hundreds of millions of people live on the edge of starvation. A drought, flood or outbreak of violence can push them over the brink.