ScienceDaily: Earth & Climate News

A research team has found that gravid tobacco hawkmoths (Manduca sexta) show an unusual preference for Datura plants that are already infested with leaf beetles when laying their eggs. The beetles and their larvae actually compete with tobacco hornworms, the larvae of Manduca, for food. Plants infested by beetles change their odor profile and increase the production of the substance alpha-copaene, making them, however, more attractive to tobacco hawkmoths. Despite food competition, tobacco hornworms seem to benefit from their mothers' choice of such host plants because in the presence of beetles and their larvae they are better protected from parasitic wasps that avoid beetle-infested plants. The researchers were also able to identify the tobacco hawkmoths' olfactory receptor that controls this behavior.

The starlet sea anemone Nematostella's growth, development, and feeding ability are drastically impacted by present levels of common pollutants found in one of its native habitats, the U.S. East Coast.

The world faces an increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and a shortage of carbon in the soil. However, bioenergy sorghum can provide meaningful relief from both problems, according to a new study.

We can now tell the difference between a wide range of plastic types and thereby separate plastics according to their chemical composition. This is absolutely ground-breaking and it will increase the rate of recycling of plastics immensely. The technology has already been tested at pilot scale and it will be implemented at an industrial scale in spring 2022.

Among our closest living relatives -- the great apes -- we humans are unique: We have larger brains, reproduce more quickly and have longer life spans. These traits are obviously valuable, but the extra energy required to sustain them is quite significant. So how did we manage to afford them?