Scientists Create Zombie Cockroaches

Reservoir Hill writes "Zombie insects might sound like a B-movie plot device (quicktime video) but to the emerald cockroach wasp (Ampulex compressa), they're a tried and tested way to provide food for their hungry larvae. The wasp relies on cockroaches for its grisly life cycle but unlike many venomous predators, which paralyze their victims before eating them, the wasp's sting leaves the cockroach able to walk, but unable to initiate its own movement. Researchers have discovered that the wasps sting the cockroaches once to subdue them, then administer another, more precise sting right into their victim's brain. The venom works to block a neurotransmitter called octopamine with a similar action to dopamine, which is involved in preparations to execute complex behaviors such as walking. Then the wasp grabs the cockroach's antenna and leads it back to the nest 'like a dog on a leash', says one researcher. The team found that they could restore spontaneous walking behavior in stung cockroaches by giving them a compound that reactivates octopamine receptors in the insects' central nervous system. Researchers were also able to create their own zombies by injecting unstung cockroaches with a compound that blocks the receptors producing a similar effect to that of the venom."

Comments

Eh?

[fyngyrz]

"Scientists create Zombie Cockroaches"

Yes, and then we elect them. Wake me up when the system changes.

Re:Credit where credit is due...

[Plutonite]

This is the most awesome thing I've read in some time. In highly complex behaviors like these, I often wonder how the hell the evolutionary development [of the wasp] proceeded in order for the organism to deal with its prey like that. Not just one carefully administered sting, but two, then drags it home as if it knows what it just did. Hot damn.

Re:Good

[One Childish N00b]

This should serve once and for all to dispel the myth of a benevolent creator.

Alright, you've posted with your real account, which has no history of trolling, so either this is a genuine statement or you forgot to hit 'Post Anonymously'.

I have to ask, at the risk of being modded troll myself... why?

People have been doing worse things than this to one another for centuries, usually in the name of one God or another, and you are taking the existence of a zombie cockroach as your final proof of a Godless universe? Is there a justification here I'm just not seeing?