Kevin Burns, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
A colony-building fern that grows in treetops on Lord Howe Island has adopted a lifestyle similar to social insects, turning our understanding of the evolution of biological complexity on its head.
Insects aren’t known for having big brains, and slime moulds and fungi don’t have any. So how do they solve challenges that test the ingenuity of human transport engineers?
Many fruits, nuts and other crops rely on bees to pollinate their flowers at just the right time of year. Many farmers rent bees to get the job done at pollination time.
Saliou Niassy, University of Pretoria et Sunday Ekesi, International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology
Insects have often been described with words like “disgusting” and the idea of eating them horrifies some people. But this needs to change as they can be an important food source.
To understand why insects sting and why the stings of such tiny animals hurt so much, we first needed a way to measure the pain they cause. So I created a sting pain index.