Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle

Tag Archive for ‘bee’

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Discovered by accident: Queen bumblebees can hibernate underwater!

Dr. Sabrina Rondeau, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa, made a surprising discovery that has created quite the buzz. While checking on queen bumblebees hibernating in the refrigerator, she noticed that condensation had formed inside some of the containers housing the queen bumblebees. Interestingly, the bees survived the ordeal. Intrigued by how exposure to water might affect queen bees during hibernation, Dr. Rondeau conducted an experiment in Bombus […]

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Arizona physiologists gathered recently for their annual meeting

The Arizona Physiological Society, a chapter of the American Physiological Society, hosted their 15th annual scientific meeting this past weekend! Here are some highlights… The Keynote Address was presented by Dr. Harold D Schultz, Professor in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Nebraska. His talk focused on the physiology of heart failure and how the nervous system regulates blood pressure. This year’s Arizona Distinguished Physiologist […]

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Geriatric bees

Jacob Pithan, a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Kendra Greenlee (North Dakota State University), presented their research examining how aging affects exercise performance as well as oxidative health at last month’s Experimental Biology conference in Philadelphia. The oxidative stress theory of aging postulates that aging results from an overproduction of free radicals along with a decrease in antioxidants that can scavenge them. The problem with free radicals is […]

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Bee sting therapy – revisited

Bee sting therapy has been getting a lot of buzz lately. I have received a lot of questions about applications of so-called apitherapy to conditions other than multiple sclerosis, which we discussed awhile back. Let’s review the more recent evidence… While the practice of apitherapy dates back 5000+ years, only recently has this potential therapy been scientifically investigated. According to a recent review, bee venom has several peptides as well […]

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Physiology in Arizona – Part 1

This past weekend the Arizona Physiological Society held their 11th annual conference on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University. There were so many oral and poster presentations on comparative physiology that I will spend this entry focusing on the oral sessions. The Keynote address was given by Dr. Michael Joyner (Mayo Clinic, Rochester) who spoke about the importance of not just focusing research efforts on reductionist approaches, including many […]

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Pesticide confuses bees

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Guelph found that the use of certain pesticides impacts wildflower pollination by bees. According to a quote by study author Nigel Raine, published in CBCNews, the use of neonicotinoid-type pesticides “modify the way in which information flows through the nervous system.” The research team found that bees gather pollen more frequently, but less efficiently, when exposed to the pesticide compared to […]

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