Popular Science dubbed researcher Gaby Maimon of Rockefeller University as one of its “Brilliant 10” for 2011 for his monitoring of neurons in the brains of fruit flies.
Maimon first had to immobilize the flies’ brains in saline and outfit their tiny neurons with even tinier electrodes — so that he could track which neurons were firing as the flies flapped their wings and carried out other activities — work that he believes can be useful in treating human autism and attention-deficit disorder.
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An Associated Press dispatch from New Orleans warned that “Caribbean crazy ants” are invading five Southern states by the millions, and because their death triggers distress signals to their pals for revenge attacks, up to 10 times as many might replace any population wiped out.
Said a Texas exterminator, of a pesticide he once tried, “In 30 days I had 2 inches of dead ants covering an entire half-acre,” and still the ants kept coming, crawling across the carcasses.
Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi are currently the most vulnerable.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa Fla. 33679 or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.)