Beetlemania: Invasive insect could become our billion-dollar problem | Grist

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Beetlemania: Invasive insect could become our billion-dollar problem | Grist



When the Khapra discovers a new food source, it does not pause to think about how it might live harmoniously and sustainably in this new ecosystem. Instead it lays its eggs in everything. A single female can lay 500 eggs, according to Andrew R. Cline, senior insect biosystematist at the Plant Pest Diagnostics Branch of the California Department of Food & Agriculture. The insect is so small that it can hide behind a fleck of paint on the inside of a grain silo, but eyewitness accounts of infestations describe looking down into grain stores that seemed to be alive, they were so thickly coated with wiggling larvae. The Khapra beetle doesn’t leave much behind. Other insects will maybe take 30 percent of a crop, Cline says. The Khapra will take 70 percent. Or all of it.

Statin Drug Safety Warnings - NYTimes.com

Statin Drug Safety Warnings - NYTimes.com


Now the Food and Drug Administration has agreed the concerns are valid enough to add new safety alerts to the prescribing information for statins, which are the most widely prescribed drugs in the world. As Gardiner Harris reports in today’s Times: