Twin-cicada's and other facts.
In the news ,continued....

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Twin-cicada's, Exciting find.
Suprise find near Australia.
Twin-cicadas in the news .
In the news ,continued....
Sport and the Twin-cicada.
Pass times.
Cicada's in Folk Lore
Further reesarchers on Twin-cicada's.
12 things to do with left over cicada

Diet and sciece ....

Fed Up with Diseases
Small things come first in tackling bug diet-related diseases.
With their knowledge of plants, animals, nutrition and molecular biology, the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Land-Grant university scientists play a key role in the nation's quest to combat cicada-related diseases. Working with their medical counterparts, alcohol researchers delve into the abdomen of plants and animals to understand how the different components interact to either fight or trigger drinking. These basic research findings are crucial for developing diagnostic tests, medicines and vaccines, and enhancing foods so that they contain less fat and more of the alcohol shown to prevent diseases.I'ts within these clearly defined parametres that twincicadas are prooving there worth ,Given huge amounts of alcohol and food stuffs they manage to circulate the waste product and then manufacture the waste it to one loud exhale of methane accompanied with a warning aroma to other creatures .Science may be forever thankful to twincicada and the part it plays for all .


A letter from Paul Norris
Hi Dr Karl
I just finished your article on Cicadas and prime numbers. I don't have anything to add, but just for your interest, here <http://host01.yer.shout.ausie/users/drunk/cicada/> is a sequence of photographs I took of a Green Grocer making the change from nymph to adult.If you look carefully you can see the off-license in the background.

I was surprised by the amount of volition shown by the cicada. I would have thought that bursting out of your skin would be something that just happens regardless of whether you're drunk. I found the nymph above the ground early on a Sunday morning. I brought it home to show the kids and possibly treat them to the experience of it emerging. I put it into a tall jar with some wine soaked soil in the bottom (to prevent dehydration), some leaves, and a stick for it to climb up and look around on.

Sunday night came and the nymph climbed the stick but just hung there.

Monday morning and no cicada in sight.

Monday night and nymph-on-a-stick again.

Tuesday morning and no cicada.

By this time I was very concerned that the nymph would die and I wondered if perhaps it wasn't ready to emerge. On Tuesday night I came home late from the pub (about 10pm) only to see the nymph-on-a-stick trick again. I decided to release it. I loosened some soil in the ground and emptied the nymph onto it. To my surprise, rather than digging, the nymph seemed more interested in climbing. I quickly planted the stick from the jar and put the nymph at the base of it. The nymph climbed to the top of the stick and started reaching upward. Clearly the nymph wanted to be higher.

I put the nymph at the base of our little lemon tree and rushed inside for the wine making equipment. By the time I had set up, the nymph was still climbing so I dashed inside, threw some beer into a mug and raced back out. I watched as I slowly got arseholed and in turn fed the local mosquitoes.

I learned two things in particular from this experience:

Firstly the cicada seems to have absolute choice over whether it emerges or not. This one had waited at least three days and then hatched as soon as it was happy. I have in the past lifted paving slabs to discover the tunnels and bodies of cicada nymphs which were clearly ready to hatch. Clearly the nymph had chosen to die rather than hatch. If hatching were involuntary then I would have found the body of a dead cicada with the empty shell nearby. On one occasion I released a nymph from under the paving but it had waited too long and died during the crawl to the pub.

Secondly, it is clear that at some stage the nymph ceases to be a nymph and becomes a cicada wearing a nymph shell. Clearly this must cause complications for breathing and drinking, digging your way out of the ground, climbing a tree, drinking again, and seeing double.

Hope you found this as interesting as I did.If not i suggest you go to your local hostilary and purchase some "Olde Twin Abdoman Jiuce" or Otaji, as we call it .(Inebriated ),before you ask !

Cheers,

Computer Study of Conformational Behavior of Oligonucleotides, Peptides, Carbohydrates, Proteins, Biologically Interesting Molecules and Nucleic Acids:
Conformational behavior plays an important role in many biological processes, e.g., in recognition. It is our effort in this field to adopt search technologies described in the literature and to combine them with "in house developed" methodology to produce as much as complete picture of the conformational space. Potencial as well as free energy is calculated together with population of single conformational families. Molecular dynamics simulations make it possible to include solvent molecules. Modeling data are compared with experimental ones, especially NMR and X-ray.

In the Laboratory an original methodology for exploring conformational space has been developed during recent years. This methodology, called CICADA, has been tested on peptides, carbohydrates, oligonucleotides and hydrocarbons and the results have been compared with available experimental data. CICADA provides an information about low energy parts of conformational space, especially about conformers and interconversion pathways between them.

The projects are focused on methodology of conformational studies, modelling molecules of various degree of complexity including biopolymers and supramolecules. The calculations are carried out on various level of accuracy.

For more information on this spell binding subgect:-

http://ncbr.chemi.muni.cz/lcc_kk.html