The influence of the physical environment on the self-organised foraging patterns of ants

Among social insects such as ants, scouts that modulate their recruiting behaviour, following simple rules based on local information, generate collective patterns of foraging. Here we demonstrate that features of the abiotic environment, specifically the foraging substrate, may also be influential in the emergence of group-level decisions such as the choice of one foraging path. Experimental data and theoretical analyses show that the collective patterns can arise independently of behavioural changes of individual scouts and can result, through self-organising processes, from the physico-chemical properties of the environment that alter the dynamics of information transfer by chemical trails.     

Prenatal diagnosis of mosaic 4p – in a fetus with trisomy 21

Mosaicism for the Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, del(4)(p16), is extremely rare and has not been reported in association with a numerical chromosome abnormality. We report the prenatal diagnosis of mosaic del(4)(p16) and non-mosaic trisomy 21 in a 16-week female fetus. The pregnancy ended in spontaneous abortion at 34 weeks secondary to fetal demise. The fetus had features of both 4p – and trisomy 21.     

Native fluorescence of unstained cryo-sections of the cervix uteri compared with histological observations

The excellent technical assistance of H. Führer and I. Leib is appreciated. Part of the work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie, and from the Leitz and Hoechst companies. This paper is part of the M. D. thesis of Ch.L.     

Cercaricidal activity of some essential oils of plants from Brazil

Extended screening tests on the cercaricidal activity of various plants from northeast Brazil have shown that the extracts of the leaves and fruits ofPiper marginatum,Protium heptaphyllum, andCapsicum annuum show a remarkable effect on the cercaria ofSchistosoma mansoni. In the case of the oils ofPiper marginatum andCapsicum annuum, 90–96% of the cercaria ofSchistosoma mansoni were killed within 15 min. According to the NMR spectra, the active principles of the extracts seem to be water-soluble unsaturated compounds from the oils or their hydrolysis products. Natural substances provide an attractive alternative for preventive actions against schistosomiasis, as the perturbation of the ecological equilibrium of natural waters can be avoided in this manner.