News Snippets: Grapes, Ginger, Beetles and Butterflies

Three snippets that I found interesting today follow: two are about food and one about butterflies. The second one also has to do with beetles. Woo, invertebrates! Could my day get any better?

• Grapes made the news again. Well, actually, resveratrol did. I have posted about this interesting compound a few times on Potspoon! and I am still waiting on the reveratrol beer. Well, besides the fact that this compound is good for its anti-aging properties, it also appears to display anti-obesity and anti-insulin resistance. You can read the article here. 

Fig 1. Yum

•  In an article published in Insect Conservation and Diversity, good news was found for the UK's incredible stag beetle and good news come in the form of a root. Ginger is useful in the kitchen, sure, but it is also useful as bait to lure stag beetles. Researchers have also devised a method using tiny microphones to hear larvae underground. This all helps determine numbers of the rare beetle and can aid in its conservation. You can read more on ScienceDaily as well.

Fig. 2 Not the right species of butterfly, but a butterfly nonetheless

• Squinting bush brown butterflies, Bicyclus anynana, seem to have a bit of role reversal in mating behaviors. This confusion only seems to occur when changes of weather happen. When it's cool, females act as the aggressors and flash their wing patterns. In this species the males and females have the same eye spots, but the UV patterns change dependent on temperature. In warm moist conditions, the males have more flashy designs while the females are dull, but when the temperature drops, new males and females are opposite. It's the females that are flashier and spend time displaying. You can read more here.

 Hope you all are having an awesome Monday!

Photos: Grapes from Google Creative Commons search and butterfly from Paraflyer's photostream. Both lisenced through Creative Commons.