Tokyo, Japan – Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have proposed a hypothesis for why insects are so rare in marine environments. They previously showed that insects evolved a unique ...

IN a recent communication 1, I provided evidence to show that the permeability of the outer ‘lipoid layer’ of insect cuticle to feebly dissociating substances of high dielectric constant may be ...

THERE is no doubt that the physiological significance of insect coloration has not yet been fully realized by ecologists, while its direct survival value has often been overstressed. From this point ...

The tough shells that protect insects can now be replicated in a lab as polymer composites that could be very useful in medical applications including sutures that bear high loads, such as in hernia ...

Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a new material that replicates the exceptional strength, toughness, and versatility of one ...

Beetles usually rely on the help of bacterial partners to survive. These symbioses can have different functions. Bacterial symbionts may help digest plant material, make the beetles more resistant to ...

Ch. 1. Friction and adhesion: fundamentals -- Ch. 2. Insect cuticle: structure and properties of the material -- Ch. 3. Cuticular protuberances of insects -- Ch. 4. Principles of cuticular attachment ...

Orb-weaver spiders produce fine threads made of nanofibers, arranged like beads on a string with puffs and intermediate zones. The spiders have an organ called a cribellum, which pushes out silk ...

Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have proposed a hypothesis for why insects are so rare in marine environments. They previously showed that insects evolved a unique chemical mechanism to ...