BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant

Subject: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 11:45 PM

Acoustic stress may disrupt insects, even cause them to kill each other

By Jennifer Viegas|
Discovery Channel
updated 1:11 p.m. CT, Wed., Feb. 10, 2010

Beetles are destroying ponderosa, pinyon, lodgepole pines and other trees important to the ecosystem. ... The beetles have their place in the ecosystem too, of course, but climate change and human activities have allowed beetles to take over more than they should.

To combat such infestations, scientists thought up the "nastiest, most offensive sounds" they could. The scientists then played these recordings near beetle-infested trees that they brought into a lab setting. The sounds disrupted tunneling, mating and reproduction for the beetles, making it harder for the insects to eat through the trees.

The project, dubbed "Beetle Mania," concluded that acoustic stress may disrupt the tenacious insects' feeding and even cause the beetles to kill each other, according to a presentation recently at the National Meeting of the Entomological Society of America.

Sounds cited as most destructive to the beetles, in ascending order, appear to have been:

- - recordings of Guns & Roses, & Queen

- - Rush Limbaugh

- - manipulated versions of the insects' own sounds.

Richard Hofstetter, an entomology professor at Northern Arizona University who worked on the project, told Discovery News that "the most annoying sound" his colleague, Reagan McGuire, "could think of was Rush Limbaugh or rock music."

McGuire started to pump the sounds of Limbaugh into portions of infested tree trunks brought into their lab, but Hofstetter said McGuire "could not bear listening to Limbaugh, so he ended up playing Rush backwards, which still kept the voice and intonation the same, but the words were meaningless." [just like when played forward?]

Details of the methods at the link.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 11:48 PM

We are facing a serious Pine Beetle infestation. I'll pass this news along to Forestry. Thanks, JiK.

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 12:00 AM

LOL!

Listening to Rush Limbaugh makes me want to chew my own ears off.

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: mousethief
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 12:09 AM

So we really need is Rush Limbaugh singing "Sweet Child of Mine" (b/w "Another One Bites the Dust").

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 03:32 PM

If an infested tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it because we've been deafened the loud music, is there any sound?

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 03:38 PM

The Rolling Stones did pretty well at sonicaly upsetting the Beatles if I remmnber rightly...

:D (eG)

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 03:39 PM

I take it they prefer Johann Sebastian Bark to RL?

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 05:13 PM

ahem... aren't plants also sensitive to sounds?

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: bubblyrat
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 05:20 PM

Yes ; just get The Duke of Sutherland to talk to the beetles, that should do the trick !

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 05:24 PM

It does kind of explain the behavior of people who listen to Rush, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: Gurney
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 10:56 PM

Better think deeply about this. If there is one thing that entomology teaches us, it is that God loves beetles!

Subject: RE: BS: Sonic Beetle Repellant
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:02 AM

Yeah Yeah Yeah