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There are thousands of different kinds of beetles in Maine. But only one — the blister beetle — produces a toxic chemical that causes skin blisters if touched, is fatal to livestock, was once a common treatment for warts and gave us the term “Spanish Fly” for aphrodisiacs. “The big story with them is they do release a fatty material from the joints of their legs that is very toxic and causes severe blistering.” That fatty material is the chemical cantharidin. In addition to causing irritating skin blisters, it can be fatal if swallowed as it will form blisters inside...

A newly-discovered species of beetle has been named after young climate activist Greta Thunberg. Nelloptodes gretae bears little resemblance to its namesake - it is less than 1mm long, and has no wings or eyes. The insect does, however, have two long pigtail-like antennae. Scientist Dr Michael Darby said he chose the name because he was "immensely impressed" by the Swedish teenager's environmental campaigning.

CLAIM: There were not enough ambulances available to save the victims of a recent mass shooting in Odessa, Texas. VERDICT: FALSE. The City of Odessa said that its ambulances responded to the shooting quickly. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) received praised from his rivals onstage at the third Democrat debate at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas, on Thursday evening. But he is being criticized by local West Texas CBS affiliate KOSA-7, which says that his claim that there were not enough ambulances available is “absolutely wrong.” O’Rourke said during the debate (transcript via ABC News): When we see that...

Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke compared the rhetoric of President Trump to Nazi Germany Monday, before declaring, “Well, Jesus Christ, of course he’s racist.” O’Rourke joined MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to discuss his thoughts on the tragic mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio when host Joe Scarborough criticized Republicans who don’t condemn rhetoric used by Trump. “I mean the president has not been shy. He’s not been saying this behind closed doors. This is out in the open. All people of one religion, inherently defective ... should be banned from the shores of this country,” O’Rourke said on...

Beto O'Rourke held back tears as he spoke about Saturday's deadly shooting at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday. Multiple people were reportedly killed during the shooting at the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, O'Rourke's hometown where he was a three-term congressman up until the beginning of this year. Police said they have one suspect in custody. "We know there has been a lot of injury, a lot of suffering in El Paso right now," O'Rourke said with emotion during a 2020 campaign event in Las Vegas. "I am incredibly sad, and it is very hard...

Volkswagen is halting production of the last version of its Beetle model this week at its plant in Puebla, Mexico. It’s the end of the road for a vehicle that has symbolized many things over a history spanning the eight decades since 1938. It has been: a part of Germany’s darkest hours as a never-realized Nazi prestige project. A symbol of Germany’s postwar economic renaissance and rising middle-class prosperity. An example of globalization, sold and recognized all over the world. An emblem of the 1960s counterculture in the United States. Above all, the car remains a landmark in design, as...

A 99-million-year-old beetle has been found, trapped in amber, stunning scientists. The new beetle, known as Propiestus archaicus, was found in Hukawng Valley in the northern part Myanmar, near China's southern border. P. archaicus is a distant relative of today's rove beetles, found in South America and the southern part of Arizona, revealing that the continents shifted rapidly millions of years ago to what we now see today. "This is a very rare find," Shuhei Yamamoto said, a Field Museum researcher and lead author of a paper in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, said in a statement. Thanks to the...

According to the seller, this Beetle was purchased new in Beaverton, Oregon, in 1964 as a backup for the owner's 1957 Beetle; the car cost $1757 when new. Apparently, he never needed it, as it was promptly put into storage and never licensed, insured, or driven, and was only moved once: after two years of keeping the Beetle in a friend's storage unit, the owner constructed his own building and moved it there, where it sat from 1966 to 2016. The 23rd mile on the odometer rolled over as the Beetle was pulled out of storage, and the original battery...

“Beetle Bailey” comic strip artist Mort Walker died Saturday at age 94, his family said. According to his oldest son, Greg, who partnered with his father on that venerable cartoon take on the military life, the elder Walker died of old age at his home in Stanford, Conn. Walker was part of more than a half-dozen comic strips in his career, including "Hi and Lois," ''Boner's Ark" and "Sam & Silo." But his greatest success came from Beetle, his hot-tempered sergeant and the rest of the gang at fictional Camp Swampy, which he drew for nearly 70 years. After an...

Janis Zettel of Clearfield City, Utah was given a non-running ‘73 Volkswagen Super Beetle as a gift by her son. While neither her nor her son was that interested in getting the Beetle running, Zettel liked the car, which she named Lucy and painted to look like a ladybug. Deciding the car made her happier as lawn art, she had it placed in a tree in their front yard. Now, Clearfield officials are demanding it be removed because, I suppose, they hate fun. The Super Beetle had its engine removed and most of the interior stripped prior to being made...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California officials say some 482,000 Volkswagen and Audi diesels were engineered to falsify their emissions for federal tests—a violation that opens the German automaker to a theoretical fine totaling $18 billion. The EPA and California Air Resources Board say the affected models had software in its computer engine controls that could sense exactly when it was being tested for emissions quality. At all other times, it would run the diesels in a different mode with illegal levels of pollution; for example, spewing up to 40 times more nitrogen oxide, a key component of smog,...

Been living in the Bay Area (San Jose) since 1967 and have never seen one of these beetles until the last week or so. The pic is deceiving but this thing is pretty good sized. Sounds like a mini 747 when it flies. Also, has a bad ass shiny green color almost looks like it was green anodized.

WASHINGTON — Building the $5.3 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline across the middle of the United States will require thousands of workers and millions of pounds of steel. It will also require a lot of smelly dead rats. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service this month said that Keystone's proposed route across Nebraska put the endangered American burying beetle at risk. The agency said the black and orange-spotted insect could be spared, and the project move forward, if proper procedure is followed. That means pipeline builder TransCanada Corp. will have to trap and relocate the one-inch beetles, using frozen rats...

When progressives talk of government, it is in an alluring can-do spirit. Making the case for more spending, President Barack Obama invokes the 19th century as a heroic age that built government-supported railroads. MSNBC hosts pose in front of monumental 20th-century public-works projects and speak of what all of us can do together. This is all well and good as nostalgia, but is utterly detached from the spirit and the practices of 21st-century government. We don’t excel at building things. We excel at studying things, and putting up obstacles to building them. We delay, cavil, and sue. We protest and...

When dung beetles roll their tiny balls of poop across the sands of South Africa on a moonless night, they look to the glow of our Milky Way galaxy as a navigational aid, researchers report. "Even on clear, moonless nights, many dung beetles still manage to orientate along straight paths," Marie Dacke, a biologist at Sweden's Lund University, said in a news release. "This led us to suspect that the beetles exploit the starry sky for orientation — a feat that had, to our knowledge, never before been demonstrated in an insect."

The green community is readying to add to these Endangered Species Act injustices, fashioning a new weapon—the American burying beetle. As one liberal blogger puts it, the beetles “have earned the attention both of TransCanada and of environmental groups dedicated to protecting endangered species and interested as well in stopping the [Keystone XL] pipeline’s construction.” [emphasis added].

A group of Sacramento-area property owners and land managers on Wednesday threatened to sue the federal government if it does not proceed with removing a native beetle from the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initially proposed removing the valley elderberry longhorn beetle from the endangered species list in 2006. But the process has dragged along and the beetle remains protected. On Wednesday, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based nonprofit law firm, said the delay may have cost its clients millions of dollars over the past five years. Those clients include land owners, levee maintenance districts and...

(CNSNews.com) – In its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would create thousands of jobs and transport 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to Oklahoma and Texas, a State Department official said its investigation found “no significant impact to most resources” along the path of the 1,700-mile project. But the State Department also said the pipeline could adversely affect the American Burying Beetle, an endangered species. Kerri-Ann Jones, assistant secretary of the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the State Department, said during an Aug. 26 conference call...

One of the world's "most feared" pests was discovered on American soil. The Khapra beetle, in larva stage, was identified by customs officials last week in a 10-pound bag of rice that came from India. In a press release, Customs and Border Protection described the bug as "one of the world's most tenacious and destructive stored-produce pests because of its ability to damage grain." The beetles originated in South Asia but have invaded parts of northern Africa, the Middle East, and even Europe, Asia and South Africa. The Khapra beetle first invaded California in 1953. The infestation was not eradicated...

Federal officials will consider removing the valley elderberry longhorn beetle from the endangered species list, potentially lifting a significant burden from Central Valley landowners. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday there is "substantial information" that delisting the threatened beetle may be warranted. This came in response to a September 2010 petition by the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation.