North Carolina's blueberry farmers may have a beetle problem. A new study from North Carolina State University has identified destructive beetles inhabiting North Carolina blueberry fields as Prionus imbricornus, a species of longhorn beetle. Known for their long antennae, the wood-boring beetles are an emerging pest in NC blueberries. Female adults typically lay their eggs in the soil near the roots of hardwood trees; their larvae, which can grow up to five inches long, then consume and destroy those roots, potentially killing the tree. Adults do not feed.

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have discovered a microscopic organism that can transform into a cannibalistic "supergiant" that drastically changes size, shape, and behavior, and abandons filter-feeding to hunt and consume their genetically identical relatives.

Sometime between 5.5 and 5.6 million years ago, two shell crushers squared off in the languid currents of an ancient Florida river. The fossils they left behind, discovered by paleontologists at the Florida Museum of Natural History, reveal the identity of the combatants and the outcome of their encounter.

As soil health becomes a defining goal of the EU Soil Strategy for 2030, researchers at Aarhus University are rethinking how we model what lives beneath our feet. Their new spatially explicit population model for the soil invertebrate Folsomia candida (springtails) marks a significant step beyond standard laboratory testing.

Common beans use a leaf receptor to turn caterpillar spit into a wasp-attracting scent.

Common beans use a leaf receptor to turn caterpillar spit into a wasp-attracting scent.

NASA is holding a news conference on Wednesday, January 18th to announce its next steps for the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project. The project aims to develop a new generation of lower-emission single-aisle airliners and to validate green technologies related to the project. The conference will be led by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and other agency […]

The post NASA to Announce Major Eco-Friendly Aviation Project Update appeared first on Science Bulletin.

By using clearcutting, industrial forestry has caused a large-scale decline of hair lichens in Sweden's forests. In a large-scale field-experiment, researchers from Umeå University, University of Northern British Columbia, Canada, and Norwegian University of Life Sciences have shown that partial cutting can increase the abundance of hair lichens. The study is published in Forest Ecology and Management.