Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire.  Sometimes, survival of the fittest means dependence on weak links.

Widely distributed fruit fly species have a temperature-sensitive step in the manufacture of a key part in their biological clocks. http://louis8j8sheehan8esquire.wordpress.com The heat-sensitive stumbling block may be the reason Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans have been able to spread to temperate zones while their cousins haven’t, a new study in the Dec. 26 Neuron suggests.

HE WAS found dead, hanging by his belt in Palermo’s Pagliarelli jail. The apparent suicide of a 52-year-old Sicilian, Gaetano Lo Presti, on December 16th put a grisly end to what investigators claimed was a drive by the Sicilian Mafia to give itself a new leadership. Mr Lo Presti was among 89 alleged mobsters detained in one of the biggest-ever police operations in Sicily. Around 1,200 semi-militarised Carabinieri were deployed in raids there and (as an indication of Cosa Nostra’s long

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire .  While airborne dust is known to be an abundant component in the formation of rain and snow, a study [pdf] in February found that bacteria lofted into the atmosphere might also be a big part of the rainmaking mix.

For more than 20 years, scientists have tossed around the idea that bacteria play a role in precipitation. The speculation began because of the curious case of the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, a plant pathogen that promotes frost damage on crops.

 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire.  U.S. agriculture has developed a heavy reliance on chemicals to safeguard crops from yield-robbing weeds. However, many of those herbicides can pose substantial health risks to people, pets, and wildlife, which is why laws prescribe how some of these chemicals are handled in fields. A study now finds that trace quantities of such agricultural chemicals nonetheless find their way into consumers' homes—not on the fruits and vegetables they buy but