Wolbachia
edyong | December 24, 2009This is an updated version of the first post I wrote this year. The scientists in question were looking at ways of recruiting bacteria in the fight against mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever. They've just published new results that expand on their earlier experiments.
Mosquitoes are incredibly successful parasites and cause millions of human deaths every year through the infections they spread. But they are no match for the most successful parasite of all - a bacterium called Wolbachia. It infects around 60% of the world's insect species and it could be our newest recruit in the…
edyong | September 10, 2009The drawers of the world's museums are full of pinned, preserved and catalogued insects. These collections are more than just graveyards - they are a record of evolutionary battles waged between animals and their parasites. Today, these long-dead specimens act as "silent witnesses of evolutionary change", willing to tell their story to any biologist who knows the right question to ask.
This time round, the biologist was Emily Hornett, currently at UCL, and her question was "How have the ratios of male butterflies to female ones changed over time?" You would think that the sex ratios of…
edyong | July 30, 2009This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science.
A humble species of fruit fly is the genetic equivalent of a Russian doll - peer inside its DNA and you will see the entire genome of a species of bacteria hidden within.
The bacteria in question is Wolbachia, the most successful parasite on earth and infects about 20% of the world's species of insects. It's a poster child for selfishness. To further its own dynasty, it has evolved a series of remarkable techniques for ensuring that it gets passed on from host to host. Sometimes it gives infected…
edyong | February 9, 2009This is the third of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial.
In our world, there is (roughly) one man for every woman. Despite various social differences, our gender ratio remains steadfastly equal, so much so that we tend to take it for granted. Elsewhere in the nature, things are not quite so balanced.
Take the blue moon butterfly (Hypolimnas bolina). In 2001, Emily Dyson and Greg Hurst were studying this stunningly beautiful insect on the Samoan islands of Savaii and Upolu when they noticed something strange - almost all the butterflies were females. In…
edyong | January 1, 2009The mosquito Aedes aegypti sucks the blood of people from all over the tropics, and exchanges it for the virus that causes dengue fever - a disease that afflicts 40 million people every year. The mosquito has proven to be a tough adversary and efforts to drive it from urban settings have generally failed in the long-term. So how do you fight such an accomplished parasite? Simple - use a better parasite. In fact, try the most successful one in the world, a bacterium called Wolbachia.
Wolbachia's success rests on two traits. First, it targets the most diverse group of animals on the planet,…