Predators as diverse as snakes, scorpions, spiders, insects and snails manufacture venoms to incapacitate their prey. Most venoms contain a cocktail of neurotoxins and each neurotoxin is designed to target specific receptors in the nervous and muscular systems. Most neurotoxins act peripherally and interfere with the ability of the prey's nervous system to generate muscle contraction or relaxat...

A tumorigenic culprit in ES cells n the debate over whether ES cells or somatic stem cells have better prospects for stem cell therapies, ES cell proponents admit that their pluripotent cells carry an increased risk: ES cells can form teratomas. have found that a newly discovered Ras gene may be at the heart of this problem. ERas, previously thought to be a pseudogene, was found by the group as...

The survey and identification of social wasps, mainly in predominantly agricultural environments, is the first step to identify ideal species be used biological pest control programs. present work aims inventory wasp fauna an agrosystem Cerrado, Minas Gerais with potential control. Through active search, 478 wasps 8 genera 17 were collected. dominance some such as Protopolybia sedula, Polybia i...

Trachypus Klug is a Neotropical genus of crabronid wasps comprising 31 ground-nesting species. Its species can be solitary or communal, and two diet ranges are known: they forage on several bee subfamilies wasps; specialists stingless bees. Natural history observations scarce nowadays but essential to contextualize ecological evolutionary studies. Here we report new records give biological note...

Many animals use signals of fighting ability to minimize the costs of competition. Theory predicts that signals must be costly to remain reliable indicators of their bearer's abilities, but many signals of fighting ability lack obvious developmental costs. Instead, receivers are thought to maintain signal accuracy by behaving aggressively towards individuals with inaccurate signals (i.e. social...

A recent study suggests that aggression between wasps depends upon the costs and benefits of fighting, as determined by the position of individuals in a dominance hierarchy.