But the links in that post are malformed, and even when I looked in the source to find where they’re supposed to go to, the site is gone. And now this post is missing the links entirely. Maybe Google will help me find Gal Haspel’s name on your site. But you should have your webmaster figure out which of your old links to your posts is breaking.

Is that a deliberate joke, Carl?

CNN reports that wasps may be used in the war on terror:

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2006/02/wasps-enlisted-in-war-on-terror.html

The have a great sense of smell, and can be trained to detect nerve gases.

Brian

1) Has a neuroactive chemical been isolated from the wasp venom? One would imagine it would not be a voltage-gated channel blocker (like most other venoms) because it would not have such a subtle effect but perhaps something like a monoamine receptor antagonist (although I don’t know alot about roach CNS pharmacology). A large number of venoms have been isolated and there are numerous examples of sodium, calcium and potassium voltage gated channel modulators as well as some serotonergic and nicotinic examples but I’ve never heard of a dopaminergic venom, which is what this example conjurs up. Of course i am likely way over speculating, but what is science without fun what ifs??

2) The effect of the venom injection appears to be either quite long lived (for a receptor/channel modulator), a specific neurotoxin to a particular type of neuron (6-hydroxy-dopamine for roaches??), or the larvae also creates the chemical to keep the roach highly unmotivated for the full time course. Any clues as to which it might be.

1) Has a neuroactive chemical been isolated from the wasp venom? One would imagine it would not be a voltage-gated channel blocker (like most other venoms) because it would not have such a subtle effect but perhaps something like a monoamine receptor antagonist (although I don’t know alot about roach CNS pharmacology). A large number of venoms have been isolated and there are numerous examples of sodium, calcium and potassium voltage gated channel modulators as well as some serotonergic and nicotinic examples but I’ve never heard of a dopaminergic venom, which is what this example conjurs up. Of course i am likely way over speculating, but what is science without fun what ifs??

2) The effect of the venom injection appears to be either quite long lived (for a receptor/channel modulator), a specific neurotoxin to a particular type of neuron (6-hydroxy-dopamine for roaches??), or the larvae also creates the chemical to keep the roach highly unmotivated for the full time course. Any clues as to which it might be.