Side
of fungal compounds with wild boar
The industrial age has exposed people to numerous chemical
contaminants, but the ancient tradition of feasting on wild boar
did as well. When carrying out routine food-inspection tests on
wild boar meat, German researchers detected unusually high levels
of a previously unknown substance from a class of halogenated
compounds that typically persists in the environment and the food
chain. Further investigation revealed the suspicious compound is
made by a mushroom that boars delight in, the researchers report in
an upcoming Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
The team concludes that humans have likely been exposed to this
contaminant for as long as theyve been eating wild boar, an ancient
practice that continues today. Rachel Ehrenberg

Warming shifts forests carbon stores
As forest soils warm and theyre expected to, with climate change
they will release substantial amounts of carbon, a seven-year field
study finds. After experimentally warming the forest soil 5 degrees
Celsius, they showed this increase also fostered an increased
uptake of carbon by trees. By the end of the study the bonus
storage by trees almost totally compensated for soil carbon losses,
scientists in the United States and China reports online the week
of May 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences. Boosting the trees carbon uptake, the team says, was
a temperature-related increase in the availability of soil
nitrogen, a fertilizing nutrient. Janet Raloff

Weed killer confuses spiders
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in many weed killers, can make it
hard for male wolf spiders to sniff out a willing mate. Although
the chemical is not toxic to the spiders, researchers at Miami
University in Oxford, Ohio, show that it impaired a males ability
to detect a females scent. Through tests in the field and the lab,
the researchers showed that males normally ignore the weed killers
scent. Males are also twice as likely to ignore a female if shes in
a glyphosate-treated site. And fast-trekking males were most likely
to miss a virgin female, the team reports online in
Chemosphere, ahead of print. Janet Raloff

Cities alter storm intensity
Urban areas have a strong climatological influence on regional
thunderstorms, scientists conclude in the May Journal of
Applied Meteorology and Climate. An international team
analyzed 91 summer T-storms passing through the Indianapolis
region. Storms tended to be organized and exhibit a medium
intensity over rural regions. As storms approached the city, their
structure changed in 71 percent of daytime storms and 42 percent of
nighttime ones. Many storms broke or skirted the urban area.
Downstream, they typically remained tiny or coalesced and gained
energy, becoming huge super-intense events. The scientists suspect
the changes trace to urban areas tall buildings, pollution and
heat-island effect. Janet Raloff