magazines that have caught up to me

[bunrab]

So I'm reading 4 issues of Science News in a row, which definitely scrambles the brain. Herewith what I consider the highlights:
1. It appears that for at least one species of fire ants, the males and females are actually separate species. How can this work, you ask? Males cannot, after all, reproduce themselves alone. Well, apparently the daughters are all clones of their mother, and the sons are clones of their father. How this is accomplished seems to be that when sperm arrive at the eggs, if it's a female sperm, it acts only as a catalyst, and the egg absorbs none of the sperm genes; all the sperm does is stimulate the egg to develop into a clone of the egg-layer. If the sperm is a male sperm, then it acts more like a virus: it enters the egg, tosses out the queen's genes, and the egg develops using only the male's genes, thus turning into a clone of the father. Is that weird, or what? (And shades of John Wyndham!!)
2. Ready to eat salad greens in bags contain a whole lot of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. I will cross-post this info to the rabbit communities.

Comments

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

Ready to eat salad greens in bags contain a whole lot of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
~~~~~~~~~~~
No! Say it isn't so! I love salad-in-a-bag! Makes a great and CHEAP lunch, not to mention less waste at home. Crap. Does the article give any clues on getting rid of the bacteria? Rinsing the already-rinsed greens, for instance?

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they suggest washing them even though they say pre-washed, and if you can steam them quickly and then cool them off again, even better. But washing takes care of most of it.
Here's what I posted to the rabbit groups:
Full article: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050625/note16.asp (accessible only to subscribers; that's why I'm putting such a large excerpt here, but I want you to know that I *am* acknowledging where it's from!!!)

Ready-to-eat spinach bears tough microbes
Christen Brownlee

From Atlanta, at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology

People who eat bagged salad may be getting more than they bargained for. Researchers have found that some ready-to-eat spinach contains a significant number of bacteria, many of which are resistant to several antibiotics.

The popularity of convenience foods, such as prewashed salads, has surged. "People assume that 'ready-to-eat' means that it's clean" and relatively free of bacteria, says Sonia Walia of Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Mich. She and her colleagues set out to test that assumption by investigating several bags of Dole Ready-To-Eat Baby Spinach, a popular bagged salad.

The researchers pureed the spinach from each bag in a sterile mixer, then spread spinach extracts onto petri dishes containing nutrients that encourage bacterial growth. Within days, they had identified several types of bacteria living in the spinach mixture, including Staphylococcus, Enterobacter, and Escherichia species, which can infect people. By challenging these bacterial cultures with some common antibiotics, such as ampicillin and ciprofloxacin, Walia's team found that about 95 percent of the colonies they tested were resistant to two or more antibiotics.

Walia and her colleagues plan to perform similar studies on other types of bagged salads, such as iceberg lettuce, as well as on loose produce, such as spinach found in vegetable bins. They suggest that consumers can avoid eating antibiotic-resistant bacteria in bagged spinach by washing it, even if it's labeled as prewashed, and by cooking it.