Common chemical causes locusts to swarm

WASHINGTON - A chemical that affects people's moods also can transform easygoing desert locusts into terrifying swarms that ravage the countryside, scientists report.
"Here we have a solitary and lonely creature, the desert locust. But just give them a little serotonin, and they go and join a gang," observed Malcolm Burrows of the University of Cambridge in England.
The brain chemical serotonin has been linked to mood in people. It plays a role in sexual desire, appetite, sleep, memory and learning, too.
Under certain conditions, locusts triple the amount of serotonin in their systems, changing the insects from loners to pack animals, Burrows and his co-authors report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
These packs can be devastating. They affect 20 percent of Earth's land. Last year a swarm nearly four miles long plagued Australia. They also occur in Africa and Asia and have affected the western U.S.
"Serotonin profoundly influences how we humans behave and interact, said co-author Swidbert Ott of Cambridge, "so to find that the same chemical in the brain is what causes a normally shy anti-social insect to gang up in huge groups is amazing."
Block that swarmNow that they know what causes the swarming behavior, scientists can begin looking for ways to prevent it.
"It opens up a whole line of inquiry into what we could to break apart these swarms before they develop," said co-author Stephen M. Rogers, who is affiliated both with Cambridge and the University of Oxford in England.
But, he added, "you need to get it at an early stage. Once you have several million or billion locusts, there is a limit to what you can do."
Calling the report a "breakthrough," Paul Anthony Stevenson of Leipzig University in Germany said it "harbors considerable potential" for finding ways to block swarming. But that will require a lot more research, said Stevenson, who was not part of the research team.
Dr. Jekyll to Mr. HopperResearchers led by Michael L. Anstey of Oxford were studying the changes in locust behavior and tested them for a variety of chemicals. The only change they found was that when the insects were swarming, they had about three times more serotonin in their systems than when they were living as solitary creatures.
So the scientists took some solitary locusts and injected serotonin into them. Sure enough, they changed in appearance and flocked together.
The Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde transformation took only a few hours.
It turns out that locusts produce more serotonin when circumstances force them together and they are stimulated by the sight, smell and touch of many other locusts. This can happen, for example, when drought reduces their food supply and causes locusts to gather at a few remaining sources of food.
Indeed, the scientists found that tickling the insects' back legs for a couple hours could induce the locusts to make more serotonin

4G cell phones: Don't hold your breath

It’s one of the things iPhone owners and those holding out to buy the device have been clamoring for: 3G, or third-generation wireless development, which basically allows for faster Web surfing.
Indications are 3G is coming to the next version of the iPhone, now 2.5G, possibly in a few months. But it’s 4G, the next generation, that’s on the minds of many at CTIA-The Wireless Association’s annual conference this week in Las Vegas, and is on the industry trade show’s agenda.
Among the 4G issues are what tech standards should be used for it, how existing cell systems can be “backhauled” to put it into effect, and at what cost to network operators — and ultimately — customers.
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“Discussions in 2008 tend to get people a little too keyed up about what will happen in 2009,” said David Chamberlain, principal analyst covering wireless for In-Stat research.
“The reality is, even after you have an accepted standard for a wireless network, it’s at least four or five years before anyone starts using it on a commercial basis.”
In the United States, he said, sales of 3G phones “have just topped 50 percent,” with the remainder being 2.5G or 2G phones.
“The networks aren’t built out yet,” for 3G, he said, and, so far, less than half of cell customers whose phones are equipped for 3G are using its capabilities.
Cost factor is an issuePart of the reason is cost. Data plans, for e-mail and Web use, add to a cell customer’s monthly bill by at least $30 to $60 and often more, depending on usage.
While AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA recently announced $100-a-month unlimited calling plans, those plans are not unlimited when it comes to data usage.
Sprint Nextel, which has been losing subscribers, not only matched the deal, but threw in unlimited e-mail, text messaging and Web browsing.
In a time of slowing cell phone sales, monthly costs are an issue, and may be a deterrent to a push to create 4G phones.
A recent comScore Wireless Report surveyed 2,000 U.S. cell phone users from Feb. 20 to March 5, and found that compared to a similar survey in fall, 2006, “consumers’ focus on price has increased, while coverage (quality/range) does not have the commanding lead it once had as a factor.”
However, the survey also found that of those mobile Internet subscribers, 36 percent are using that service more than once a day, compared to 18 percent in 2006.
Speeds of different generationsIn terms of speed, 2.5G can offer Web access at a rate of between 144 and 384 kilobits per second.
3G is even faster. Verizon Wireless’s 3G, EV-DO Rev. A technology, for example, is billed as offering transmission rates of between 500 kilobits per second and 1.4 megabits per second. The reality might depend on whether a cumbersome file, like a video, is being downloaded, or a simple text e-mail is being sent.
4G holds the promise of routinely delivering the higher end of that transmission rate, and much faster, in some cases, up to 100 Mbps for downloading, and 50 Mbps for uploading.
“Most of us haven’t tapped the capabilities of 3G yet,” said Avi Greengart, Current Analysis’ research director for wireless devices.
“The big thing that 3G and 4G will bring, with faster upload speeds, is enabling richer social networking and plain, old Web browsing,” he said. “Those are likely to be the applications that really drives some of this, in terms of consumer usage.
“If you take a video with your camcorder phone now, uploading that to a social networking site is rather painful,” in terms of the time it takes. “That’s where faster speeds really make a difference,” he said.
Differing over technology, standardsPart of the issue with 4G among phone companies and engineering gurus is that there is not agreement about what 4G technology and standards should be.
Included in 4G’s acronym soup of technologies are LTE (Long-Term Evolution) WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, a faster Wi-Fi standard) and UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband).
Sprint Nextel plans is doing limited testing of Xohm, its WiMax-based 4G network, in Washington D.C., Baltimore and Chicago. AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which favor LTE, are expected to launch 4G networks “in the next couple of years,” Greengart said.
The market for smartphones, such as the iPhone, BlackBerry and Treo, which offer e-mail and Web access, will grow from around 10 percent of the cell market in 2007 to 31 percent in 2013, according to a new study from ABI Research.
It’s a bright spot in an otherwise tepid cell phone market, where the growth rate is starting to slow.
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“It took a long time for 3G handsets to get to the point where they were competitive with 2G-type phones,” said Fred Wright, Motorola’s senior vice president who oversees cellular networks and WiMax, in a recent interview about 4G with FierceWireless.com.
“That clearly comes from volume and scale. It’s a chicken-and-egg scenario. It takes time to deploy these technologies, and someone ultimately has to pay the higher price for devices. Once you get the volume, you see the prices come down to volume and scale economies. That is natural with any consumer electronics device.”