World Demographics Profile

"There is a strong tendency for countries with lower national IQ scores to have higher fertility rates and for countries with higher national IQ scores to have lower fertility rates."[21] _Wiki

Wiki

A world map showing countries by fertility rate. Period 2005-2010

   7-8 Hijos / Children

   6-7 Hijos / Children

   5-6 Hijos / Children

   4-5 Hijos / Children

   3-4 Hijos / Children

   2-3 Hijos / Children

   0-2 Hijos / Children

Source: Swivel

Rank	Country	Total fertility rate (children born/woman)
1	Niger	7.75
2	Mali	7.29
3	Uganda	6.77
4	Afghanistan	6.53
5	Somalia	6.52
6	Burundi	6.33
7	Yemen	6.32
8	Burkina Faso	6.28
9	Congo, Democratic Republic of the	6.2
10	Ethiopia	6.12
11	Angola	6.12
12	Sierra Leone	5.88
13	Congo, Republic of the	5.84
14	Liberia	5.79
15	Malawi	5.59
16	Oman	5.53
17	Mayotte	5.5
18	Benin	5.49
19	Sao Tome and Principe	5.33
20	Chad	5.31
21	Rwanda	5.25
22	Guinea	5.2
23	Mozambique	5.18
24	Zambia	5.15
25	Madagascar	5.14
26	Equatorial Guinea	5.08
27	Djibouti	5.06
28	Gambia, The	5.04
29	Gaza Strip	5.03
30	Senegal	4.95
31	Nigeria	4.91
32	Comoros	4.84
33	Togo	4.79
34	Eritrea	4.72
35	Gabon	4.65
36	Guinea-Bissau	4.65
37	Kenya	4.56
38	Sudan	4.48
39	Tanzania	4.46
40	Mauritania	4.45
41	Laos	4.41
42	Cameroon	4.33
43	Samoa	4.16
44	Central African Republic	4.14
45	Cote d'Ivoire	4.12
46	Kiribati	4.04
47	Iraq	3.86
48	Saudi Arabia	3.83
49	Haiti	3.81
50	Paraguay	3.75
51	Zimbabwe	3.69
52	Ghana	3.68
53	Papua New Guinea	3.62
54	Pakistan	3.6
55	Marshall Islands	3.59
56	Solomon Islands	3.52
57	Guatemala	3.47
58	Belize	3.36
59	American Samoa	3.29
60	East Timor	3.28
61	Honduras	3.27
62	Philippines	3.27
63	Swaziland	3.24
64	West Bank	3.22
65	Bolivia	3.17
66	Syria	3.12
67	Libya	3.08
68	Cape Verde	3.07
69	Lesotho	3.06
70	Cambodia	3.04
71	El Salvador	3
72	Tajikistan	2.99
73	Turks and Caicos Islands	2.95
74	Malaysia	2.95
75	Tuvalu	2.91
76	Micronesia, Federated States of	2.89
77	Nauru	2.85
78	Kuwait	2.76
79	Dominican Republic	2.76
80	Israel	2.75
81	Bangladesh	2.74
82	India	2.72
83	Namibia	2.69
84	Egypt	2.66
85	Fiji	2.65
86	Kyrgyzstan	2.65
87	Nepal	2.64
88	Botswana	2.6
89	Nicaragua	2.57
90	Guam	2.54
91	Panama	2.53
92	Morocco	2.51
93	Ecuador	2.51
94	Vanuatu	2.5
95	Bahrain	2.5
96	Cook Islands	2.49
97	Venezuela	2.48
98	Colombia	2.46
99	Qatar	2.45
100	Faroe Islands	2.44
101	United Arab Emirates	2.42
102	Jordan	2.39
103	South Africa	2.38
104	Bhutan	2.38
105	Peru	2.37
106	Argentina	2.35
107	Mexico	2.34
108	Indonesia	2.31
109	Saint Kitts and Nevis	2.26
110	Jamaica	2.25
111	Tonga	2.25
112	Grenada	2.23
113	Mongolia	2.23
114	Turkmenistan	2.22
115	Turkey	2.21
116	Brazil	2.21
117	Greenland	2.19
118	New Caledonia	2.18
119	Costa Rica	2.14
120	New Zealand	2.1
121	Bahamas, The	2.1
122	Dominica	2.09
123	Antigua and Barbuda	2.07
124	United States	2.05
125	Azerbaijan	2.04
126	Guyana	2.03
127	Albania	2.01
128	Bermuda	1.99
129	Sri Lanka	1.99
130	Suriname	1.99
131	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	1.98
132	France	1.98
133	Netherlands Antilles	1.97
134	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	1.97
135	Korea, North	1.96
136	Uzbekistan	1.95
137	Seychelles	1.93
138	Chile	1.92
139	Uruguay	1.92
140	French Polynesia	1.92
141	Brunei	1.91
142	Iceland	1.9
143	Maldives	1.9
144	Burma	1.89
145	Cayman Islands	1.88
146	Kazakhstan	1.88
147	Wallis and Futuna	1.87
148	Virgin Islands	1.85
149	Ireland	1.85
150	Lebanon	1.85
151	Aruba	1.85
152	Saint Lucia	1.84
153	Vietnam	1.83
154	Palau	1.82
155	Mauritius	1.81
156	Algeria	1.79
157	China	1.79
158	Australia	1.78
159	Luxembourg	1.78
160	Norway	1.78
161	Monaco	1.75
162	Anguilla	1.75
163	Denmark	1.74
164	Finland	1.73
165	Tunisia	1.72
166	Trinidad and Tobago	1.72
167	British Virgin Islands	1.71
168	Iran	1.71
169	Puerto Rico	1.71
170	Barbados	1.68
171	Sweden	1.67
172	United Kingdom	1.66
173	Netherlands	1.66
174	Belgium	1.65
175	Thailand	1.65
176	Gibraltar	1.65
177	Man, Isle of	1.65
178	Cuba	1.61
179	Canada	1.58
180	Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of	1.58
181	Jersey	1.57
182	Saint Helena	1.56
183	Liechtenstein	1.52
184	Malta	1.51
185	Portugal	1.49
186	Switzerland	1.45
187	Georgia	1.44
188	Estonia	1.42
189	Croatia	1.42
190	Bulgaria	1.41
191	Russia	1.41
192	Germany	1.41
193	Guernsey	1.41
194	Romania	1.39
195	Austria	1.39
196	Greece	1.37
197	Armenia	1.36
198	San Marino	1.36
199	Slovakia	1.35
200	Hungary	1.35
201	Andorra	1.33
202	Italy	1.31
203	Spain	1.31
204	Latvia	1.3
205	Slovenia	1.28
206	Poland	1.28
207	Moldova	1.27
208	Ukraine	1.26
209	Bosnia and Herzegovina	1.25
210	Belarus	1.24
211	Czech Republic	1.24
212	Lithuania	1.23
213	Montserrat	1.23
214	Korea, South	1.21
215	Japan	1.21
216	Northern Mariana Islands	1.15
217	Taiwan	1.14
218	Singapore	1.09
219	Hong Kong	1.02
220	Macau	0.91

Definition: This entry gives a figure for the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age. The total fertility rate (TFR) is a more direct measure of the level of fertility than the crude birth rate, since it refers to births per woman. This indicator shows the potential for population change in the country. A rate of two children per woman is considered the replacement rate for a population, resulting in relative stability in terms of total numbers. Rates above two children indicate populations growing in size and whose median age is declining. Higher rates may also indicate difficulties for families, in some situations, to feed and educate their children and for women to enter the labor force. Rates below two children indicate populations decreasing in size and growing older. Global fertility rates are in general decline and this trend is most pronounced in industrialized countries, especially Western Europe, where populations are projected to decline dramatically over the next 50 years.
Source: CIA World Factbook - Unless otherwise noted, information in this page is accurate as of January 1, 2009

Source: Index Mundi

The TFR can be used as an estimate of the fertility growth factor in a population, e.g., whether the childbearing population is replacing itself or not. A TFR of 2,000 or above indicates that, on the average, couples are producing at least two children to replace themselves. When the TFR exceeds 2,000 for an extended period, the next generation of childbearing age will probably be larger than the present population of that age if all other factors affecting the population, such as death rates and migration, remain constant. Pennsylvania's TFR has been under 2,000 since 1972. However, it has remained relatively stable since then, although still below replacement level. The TFR is not meant to be used as an absolute measure of population trends, but can be helpful in understanding and analyzing them. There are many other factors to consider when determining population trends, such as crude birth rates, death rates and migration patterns. In fact, it would take several generations of a childbearing population maintaining a replacement level to just stabilize a specific population, again given that other factors, mainly age-specific death rates, were also maintained.

To obtain the 1996 TFR for Pennsylvania, compute the following:

Age of Mother	Number of Live Births		Female Population				Age-Specific Rate
10-14	367	/	387,341	x	1000	=	0.9
15-19	15,267	/	408,422	x	1000	=	37.4
20-24	30,613	/	403,191	x	1000	=	75.9
25-29	42,245	/	397,398	x	1000	=	106.3
30-34	39,105	/	446,488	x	1000	=	87.6
35-39	17,378	/	469,810	x	1000	=	37.0
40-44	2,808	/	458,439	x	1000	=	6.1
45-49	94	/	413,377	x	1000	=	0.2
					Sum		351.4

The TFR is the sum of the age-specific birth rates multiplied by five or (351.4 x 5 = 1757.0).

Source of TFR computation

Population Pyramids

50 Best Blogs for Neurology / Psychology / Cognitive Sci?

According to the Radiology Technician Schools website, these are the 50 top blogs for Neurology students:

1. NeuroLogica Blog : This engaging blog by Steven Novella, MD covers some broad categories within neuroscience, but some of his more interesting postings dissect the role it plays in formulating conspiracy and supernatural theories.

2.Renegade Neurologist : Browse the archives or book recommendations to learn almost everything there is to know about how the nervous system and its related disorders operate.

3.Commissural Connections : Neurologist Samuel Pleasure, MD, PhD blogs about all the issues and news stories that impact his work as well as that of his contemporaries.

4.Neuro Notes : Dr. Andrew Wilner picks certain subject areas within the field of neurology and discusses his thoughts and opinions of whatever crops up.

5.Mind Hacks : An essential read for neuroscience and psychology students alike, Mind Hacks overflows with incredible postings on how the human brain functions.

6.The Law and Neuroscience Blog : Students hoping for a career in neurology and neuroscience must remain informed of the legal restrictions and ramifications of their work lest they face serious trouble.

7.Brain Blogger : Anything and everything related to the amazing human brain gets covered here, including neurology and neuroscience. Brain Blogger is an amazing resource for students wanting to see how their discipline relates to psychology and other subjects.

8.Talking Brains : Neuroscience students interested in the relationship between cognitive science, psychology, language and their chosen field will appreciate the insightful articles found on the Talking Brains blog.

9.Neurophilosophy : The blog postings available through Neurophilosophy are approachable to readers of all levels and cover a nice, impressive range of topics to keep everyone interested and engaged.

10.Neuroskeptic : One neuroscientist dissects all the latest news, views, and issues regarding the field, playing devil’s advocate for many of the topics at hand.

11.NeuroWoah! : This eclectic neuroscience blog offers well-researched, compelling articles on the diseases and conditions that affect the human brain.

12.N e u r o n a r r a t i v e : Anything and everything regarding the intricacies of the human mind, both scientific and theoretical, ends up covered on this essential resource.

13.Neuroanthropology : Neuroscience shares a staggering amount of overlap with the field of anthropology as well as psychology and sociology, and students curious about this ought to see what this blog has to say on the subject.

14.NCBI ROFL : Discover Magazine’s irreverent blog on neuroscience provides readers with some quirky, fun, and extremely educational stories and articles.

15.Neurotopia : 3 current and former neuroscience graduate students provide readers with general articles that broach a nice array of topics to help further knowledge and research.

16.Brainspin : David DiSalvo’s Brainspin is comprised of relevant articles that appeal to general readers, students, and professionals alike.

17.Prefrontal.org : Explore the research and opinions of Craig Bennett, whose inquiries into neuroscience revolve around cognitive development.

18.The Frontal Cortex : Unsurprisingly, many of the neuroscience blogs online tend towards articles regarding the brain and its behavior patterns. While this one is no different, that does not in any way dilute its value as a resource for students.

19.The Neurocritic : Neuroscience, neurology, and psychology students alike can benefit from reading this blog’s painstaking analysis of “sensationalistic findings” regarding their areas of expertise.

20.Channel N : Though mostly about psychology, the videos posted on Channel N’s blog quite frequently delve into issues of neuroscience, neuroethics, neurology, and neurotechnology.

21.Neuroethics & Law Blog : All neurology and neuroscience students hoping to do right by their patients ought to read through the laws that govern their practice.

22.Brain Waves : The field of neurotechnology continues to expand, and those hoping to land a career in the industry ought to keep track of all the latest news and developments.

23.BrainBlog : Learn more about the field of neuropsychology with the BrainBlog, which features some great posts blending the two disciplines together.

24.Brains On Purpose™ : Stephanie West Allen and Jeffrey M. Schwartz combine their resources and experiences to discover the intersections between neuroscience and resolving different types of conflict.

25.Brain Hammer : Operated by Pete Mandik, Brain Hammer opens students up to the world of neurophilosophy and challenges them to look at their chosen subject from multiple perspectives.

26.Perusing Psychology : Stay in touch with the latest news and developments in both neuroscience as well as psychology, which overlap with one another with understandable frequency.

27.Brain Windows : Neuroscience students with an interest in technology will appreciate this resource on all the latest developments in understanding the ins and outs of the human brain through machinery.

28.neurodudes : Discover how artificial intelligence relates to neurology and neuroscience through this intelligent and revealing blog, which blends organic and inorganic concepts together into one incredible field.

29.Eide Neurolearning Blog : No matter what aspect of neurology a student aims to focus upon, they still need a familiarity with development and cognition issues such as autism, dyslexia, and others.

30.Neuroethics at the Core : Any student hoping to pursue studies or a career in the medical or scientific industry must learn how to do so without violating any ethical guidelines.

31.Sharp Brains : One of Scientific American’s partner blogs dives headfirst into all the wonders of the human brain, offering neurology students an intimate glimpse at one of their career’s very cores.

32.Neurological Correlates : Psychosis, narcissism, and other dysfunctional attitudes have a physiological basis, as Neurological Correlates relates in its numerous intelligent posts on the subject.

33.Developing Intelligence : Chris Chatham blogs about the evolution of intelligence over time and in different species from a number of different angles, with neuroscience right there in the fray.

34.MindTweaks : Like Mind Hacks, MindTweaks appeals to general audiences and professionals alike by challenging them to think about their own brain’s functions and how to make it operate at its fullest possible potential.

35.Deric Bownds’ MindBlog : From its physiology to its psychology, Deric Bownds covers nearly every aspect of the human brain imaginable on his fantastic MindBlog.

36.Neuromarketing : Advertising and marketing rely on numerous psychological and neurological factors that the general public may not even know about, and this blog offers them some very interesting details on how these disciplines influence one another.

37.Neuroworld : Ryan Sager takes a laid-back look into how neurology shapes the world, from everyday minutiae to pop culture phenomena and everything in between.

38.Brain Science Podcast : Though a blog, the podcast offered here contains the real meat of Ginger Campbell, MD’s inquiries – making this a great resource for neurology students on the go.

39.The Brain Understanding Itself : Alex Doman may only post a few times a month – albeit consistently so – but what he has to say sheds some interesting light on brain functionality and the technologies that may help it prevent, alleviate, or cure serious problems.

40.The Neuro Times : In spite of not updating very often, The Neuro Times provides neuroscience and neurology students with recommendations for interesting books as well as a nice little history of their field.

41.Neurosurgery Blog : This daily digest of neurosurgery news covers a broad spectrum of topics aimed squarely at medical professionals and soon-to-professionals.

42.Neurospotlight: Illuminating the Nervous System: Even beyond the blog, Neurospotlight sheds light on interesting facts and information about the brain and the central nervous system alike.

43.NeuroInterests : Much of what the bloggers at NeuroInterests cover revolves around psychology as it relates to the physiology of the nervous system.

44.A project of Pratt Institute’s Cognitive Psychology Course : Working as a collective, the writers of this blog look at cognitive science and development from a multitude of different perspectives.

45.Thoughts on Thinking : Even if it only updates a few times a month, Genes to Cognition Online provides an excellent resource on the relationship between physiology and neurology.

46.Cognitive Science Blog : This general cognitive science blog focuses on a few different aspects of the human brain that greatly help to supplement lessons in neurology.

47.Brains : Neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, and other topics collide in one amazing blog suitable for student perusal.

48.ICCI Blog : All neurology and neuroscience students and professionals should keep track of the numerous and extremely valuable postings made on the official blog of the International Cognition and Culture Institute.

49.Elizabeth’s Brain Tumor (Infection) Blog : Take an intimate look at neurology from a patient’s perspective as she relates her stories and struggles regarding life with a brain tumor.

50.National Brain Injury Foundation (NBIF) : Neuroscience and neurology students with an activist bent may find a worthwhile nonprofit to promote and support when exploring NBIF’s official blog.

H/T Scienceblips.com

Sonic Disruptor Technology Comes to Earth

You need Flash installed to watch this ideo

Stress waves traveling in a nonlinear acoustic lens and sound bullet formation in the adjacent fluid medium (numerical results). In the lens, the sphere colors are proportional to the contact-force amplitude. Waves emitted by the nonlinear acoustic lens reach the host medium (via an elastic interface), where they generate compact spherical pressure waves. The pressure waves coalesce in the host medium and form a sound bullet. The color bar on the right represents the scale of pressure intensity (Pa) in the host medium.

The system is still under development and has not yet been tested on living cells. It is likely to be some years before it is available for medical or other applications.

Source: Physorg

Some Important Reasons Why Oil Prices Change

Over the past decade or two, oil prices have experienced a whip-saw of fluctuations. It is instructive to look at some of the underlying causes and non-causes for oil price whiplash.

In late 2008, equity and commodity prices crashed. Oil prices fell from $147 per barrel to a low of $32 per barrel in December 2009. Those who all along maintained that China and India were the cause of oil and commodity price inflation must have been embarrassed by this crash. Surely, they could no longer defend their view that China and India were the key determinant of oil and commodity price inflation.

If rapidly increasing demand from China and India was behind the explosion in oil and commodity prices, a student of economics would have had to infer that demand from China and India had crashed, or possibly supply had exploded. But this is not supported by the facts. Despite a fall in oil prices by 82% in less than four months, oil output and oil demand remained stable at 86 million barrels per day (mbd) during September-December 2008.

Similarly, the acceleration of oil prices from $71 per barrel from August 2007 to $147 per barrel in July 2008 would have made the same student think that oil demand had increased dramatically or oil supply had fallen dramatically. Neither event took place nor realistically could they have. Oil demand and supply remained stable at 86 mbd during August 2007-July 2008.

... Speculators are interested in profits from short-term changes in commodity and equity prices. Traders in oil futures could be commercial traders, non-commercial traders, or others. Non-commercial traders could include banks, hedge funds, commodity funds, pension funds, and a number of other institutions; brokers could trade for their own account.

Non-commercial trade may account for 60% to 80% of traded futures contracts. A seller of an oil futures contract does not need to be Exxon, British Petroleum, Shell, or any other oil company. A hedge fund that buys oil futures contracts would become a seller of a futures contract when it closes a position to reap gains or prevent losses from its futures contracts. In fact, futures contracts are settled in offset cash settlement and very rarely through actual delivery of commodities.

Why were oil prices stable during 1983-2000 at about $18-$20 per barrel? Does it mean that there were no speculators in the market during that time? Or similarly, why did the New York Exchange not crash during 1920-1929? Were there no speculators during that time? Speculators are always operating in the market.

...It is cheap liquidity that fuels speculation. When central banks generously provide very cheap liquidity, speculation is fired up. The speed at which equity, commodity, and asset prices rise would depend on the speculative euphoria and the real economic activity. Buoyant real activity would accelerate the speed at which speculative prices rise. Nonetheless, a drop in real activity would not necessarily preclude a rapid rise in prices when interest rates are very low and liquidity abundant. For instance, oil prices rose from $32 per barrel in December 2008 to $82 per barrel in March 2010 even though oil demand declined from 86 mbd in December 2008 to 85 mbd in March 2010. In 2009, major banks posted large profits from trading in commodities and equities in spite of a sluggish economy and rising unemployment.

...Commodity markets rapidly transmit the inflationary effects of US Fed and other major reserve currency central banks monetary policies. Commodity prices are very sensitive to interest rates and availability of liquidity through borrowing. Cheap money policies have operated through a number of channels, including credit channel, exchange rate channel, and commodity channel. The commodity markets channel operates faster in comparison to other channels with instantaneous impact on consumer prices. For instance, while US banks are at present awash with $1.175 trillion in excess reserves, which they could not lend profitably and with reduced risk, futures markets have been on a speculative rise as illustrated by large rebounds in gold, oil, food, and many other commodity prices.

...Who is in a position to determine whether oil prices move to $100 per barrel, $147 per barrel, or even higher? It is not the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, China or India. It is not even the speculators. Speculators are simply microstructures that are risk-averse and seek to profit from opportunities for gains; they were not able to prevent a sharp decline in oil prices from $41 per barrel in 1981 to $8 per barrel in 1986, nor were they able to push oil prices beyond $18-$22 per barrel during 1985-2000.

...Fictitious money creation by reserve currency central banks was conducive to high oil and commodity price inflation. Since the US Fed could not push oil output above 85 mbd nor could it prevent a sharp drop in sugar output, its fictitious money creation has amounted to a real redistribution of purchasing power in favor of borrowers and speculators and imposed a heavy tax on workers, pensioners, and other fixed-income groups - and a cut in real incomes for millions of consumers around the world. By paying threefold to fourfold more for basic commodities, consumers are cutting dramatically their real consumption of these goods and at the same are being taxed directly through commodity price inflation by central banks.

__ATimes

The authors of the above article appear to believe that central banks can cause the world economy to become locked in a continuous spiral of oil and commodity price inflation. But we saw what happened in late 2008 and early 2009, and it was not pretty.

Today's oil prices -- hugely influenced by a weak US dollar -- are toward the high end of the historical scale. That means that very little price inflation would be required to produce a dramatic demand destruction and deflationary spiral.

The apparent close connection between quasi-governmental central bankers and big investment banking houses suggests that the big financial interests of the western world are in the process of picking the bones of the established economies. They have discovered some of their limits from the circumstances of the current world recession. But that will not stop them from continuing to probe for profitable lodes of salvageable gold.

It is important to understand the cynicism of those who have clawed their way to power over the giant institutions that have so much influence over our lives. That way, when we go about doing the things that we must to make those institutions unnecessary, we will not have to feel bad about their downfall.

Previously posted at abu al-fin and Al Fin Energy

Finding Your Own Way Out and Back

If you watched the "After Armageddon" videos in the previous post, you should have some awareness of how difficult it might be to get out of town at the exact same time as several million other would-be escapees. The HovPod featured in the video below was the recipient of the Al Fin 2009 Small Vehicle Survival Award.

The HovPod is a great all-terrain escape vehicle, but you can see from the topmost video that adding flight -- even low level ground effect flight -- to your escape vehicle's capabilities may make the difference between reaching the high ground and being stuck in a bad place.

The Terrafugia Transition is featured in the video below. It is a roadable aircraft capable of flying above the gridlocked freeways below. Finding a good landing spot may be problematic under some conditions, but a wise escape artist plans ahead.

The ICON A5 amphibious trailerable plane may be your best bet if you live near a lake, river, bay, or protected harbour. With the A5 you can take off from water and land on solid surface, or vice versa. Check it out below:

A personal helicopter may be your best bet if you live in the middle of a large city, and do not have access to a waterway or runway for your private airplane. The Helicycle demonstrated in the video below, is one example of a personal helicopter. Consider adding flotation for more versatility.

House Made of Beer Bottles

South of Buenos Aires lives a man, Tito Inginieri, who has built himself a house made of beer bottles and miscellaneous trash. The video demonstrates some of his construction techniques, and if you care to visit his home, Tito will happily fill you in on more details. Out of simple courtesy, you should bring the beer.

H/T ImpactLab

At War in the Forest: A Ballad of Bark Beetles

Bark beetles have killed nearly 80 million ponderosa, piñon and lodgepole pines in Arizona and New Mexico and tens of millions more across the West over the past decade. Years of punishing drought left the trees unable to protect themselves against the attacks, which carve ugly scars into forests, weaken the surrounding ecosystem and heighten wildfire danger.

Forest managers can apply insecticide to individual trees or small stands, but forestwide treatments are impractical and would be wildly expensive and potentially risky to other plants and wildlife.

Enter Reagan McGuire, a research assistant who wondered what would happen if the beetles were blasted with noise, creating an acoustic stress that might change their behavior. He sold Hofstetter on the idea, and the experiment was hatched at NAU's School of Forestry lab.

They collected tree trunks infested with bark beetles and sandwiched slices of the trees between clear plastic plates, creating what looked like the old ant farms once sold in the back pages of magazines.

Working in the lab, McGuire piped in the music through tiny speakers, the sort you might find in a singing greeting card. He watched the reaction of the beetles using a microscope. The rock music didn't seem to annoy the bugs, nor did Rush [Limbaugh] in reverse.

McGuire and Hofstetter decided to try something different. They recorded the sounds of the beetles and played them back, manipulating them to test the response.

Suddenly, every little thing they did seemed to provoke the beetles.

"We could use a particular aggression call that would make the beetles move away from the sound as if they were avoiding another beetle," Hofstetter said.

When they made the beetle sounds louder and stronger than a typical male mating call, he said, the female beetle rejected the male and moved toward the electronic sound.


Even more surprising was what the beetles did to each other. The researchers manipulated the sounds and, at a certain point, the male stopped mating and tore the female apart, McGuire said.

"This is not normal behavior in the natural world," he said. _AzCentral

Al Fin botanists and entomologists respond to McGuire: No shite Shirlock! If it were normal behaviour in the natural world, there would be no bark beetles at all by now. It is your job to make it common behaviour in the pine forest. Otherwise, give back all those grants!

Biomass companies had better grab up as many dead pines as they can, while they last. If the bark beetles are driven to distraction by the manipulation of their own sounds, pine forests may have a few years to recover -- until the next deadly pest comes along.