Termites' powerful weapon against extermination? Their own poop

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO (Reuters) - Scientists trying to understand why destructive wood-eating termites are so resistant to efforts to exterminate them have come up with an unusually repugnant explanation.

Termites' practice of building nests out of their own feces creates a scatological force field that Florida scientists now believe is the reason biological controls have failed to stop their pestilential march all over the world.

A nine-year study concluded that termite feces act as a natural antibiotic, growing good bacteria in the subterranean nests that attack otherwise deadly pathogens, according to the findings published this month in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"When they make a poop, it's not like they can throw it away and say forget about this. And over the millions of years of evolution it somehow evolved to take advantage of the poop there," said Nan-Yao Su, a University of Florida entomology professor and lead scientist and co-author of the study, along with Thomas Chouvenc, a University of Florida research associate.

Su also is the inventor of the popular Sentricon termite baiting and control system, which in 1995 became the first major alternative to liquid chemical treatments.

The findings could put an end to 50 years of failed research attempts to find a species of fungi that could kill termites when introduced into nests. Research repeatedly showed that fungi killed termites in a petri dish but not in the wild, Su said.

"Nobody was able to make it work in the field, but nobody would admit it," he said.

Su's goal was to find out why biological control never worked. His research colleagues determined that Streptomyces bacteria that are found in the nests and feed on fecal matter may be producing beneficial antimicrobial compounds that protect the termites from other potentially toxic matter.

Termites, mostly the voracious Formosans, cause $40 billion worth of damage a year worldwide, eating through wood structures particularly in Japan, China and the United States, Su said.

By the time a house is infested, the underground termite nest typically is 300 feet in diameter, hosting several million termites with a biomass weight of approximately 30 pounds, the weight of a medium-sized dog.

In one example, termites took nine months to bring down a new house in Hawaii built in the 1970s inadvertently on top of an untreated termite colony, Su said.

Further research will attempt to discover a way to bypass the protective compounds to destroy the termites, and to determine whether the findings can lead to new antibiotics for humans to replace those which have become ineffective.

(Editing by David Adams and Leslie Adler)

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North Dakota town pushes back against white supremacist takeover try

A small town in North Dakota has reportedly formed a legal defense fund to stop a longtime white supremacist from taking over the town-- population 24-- and turning it into an all-white enclave.

"We need people from across the state to come alongside of us and show support that they don’t believe in what this guy is doing," Lee Cook, a Leith City Council member told The Bismarck Tribune. "There are a lot of people who could speak up. It’s not tricky. Silence, to me, means that whatever he’s doing is OK."

Cook was talking about Craig Cobb, a 61 year old, self-described white supremacist, who moved into a house in Leith in Grant County. The county has a 97 percent white population.

"I only need 17 people. You have to have a majority to win an election. If we get 22 we've got a landslide."

- Craig Cobb, a 61 year old, self-described white supremacist

The Southern Poverty Law Center says Cobb has been on something of a real estate shopping spree, buying more than a dozen lots in the town for a few hundred dollars each.

The report says Cobb announced his plans last year on Vanguard News Network, which was described as a white supremacist online forum.

Cobb, who is wanted in Canada for willfully promoting hatred, even made a sales pitch to the like-minded. He praised the area's good paying jobs and the selection of satellite TV providers.

Some white supremacists have already been buying up property from Cobb.

This weekend, state residents have planned a "peaceful show of solidarity" with the town.

"We cannot accept this racist hatred they are bringing here. Leith is in a crisis and is crying out for help," Jeremy Kelly, a resident of Bismarck told The Tribune.

Cobb spends his days in his ramshackle two-story home with no running water, posting online comments advocating for white supremacists to join his settlement.

"I only need 17 people," he said with a chuckle. "You have to have a majority to win an election. If we get 22 we've got a landslide."

Cobb's neighbors across a back alley are Sherrill Harper, who is white, and her husband Bobby, who is black. Bobby Harper, a 52-year-old welder, said he has spoken to Cobb only once, and that Cobb's plans don't bother him much.

"The most extreme thing you can do is hate another man because of the color of his skin, (but) I don't think we should get too excited," he said. "I believe right will prevail."

Ryan Lenz, a writer with the Alabama-based nonprofit law center, said his organization has long tracked Cobb, who is wanted in Canada for willfully promoting hatred in Vancouver in 2010 via a blog.

"It's a pipe dream for white nationalists to have an entire area in which their neighbors are Aryan," Lenz said.

That's hard to achieve, Lenz said, but Cobb has made strides because he has gobbled up land — even transferring some to Tom Metzger, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and founder of the White Aryan Resistance.

That doesn't mean he's any closer to enacting his plan. Metzger said he likes Cobb but that declared plans for white enclaves never work and that he will not be joining Cobb in Leith.

"I think it's better just to have people move in quietly, have a job, operate a regular daily life and get along with their neighbors," he said. "I wouldn't go into a town pushing my weight around."

Cobb, a native of Missouri, fled prosecution in Canada and chased the promise of high-paying jobs in the booming western North Dakota oil fields. He said he was fired from a job because of a dispute with a co-worker and that he lost a job with a Fargo-based paving company after media coverage of his settlement plans.

Canadian authorities have not approached the U.S. to extradite Cobb. Cpl. Normandie Levas of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the white supremacist can't be extradited because the charge against him in Canada doesn't exist under U.S. law.

Deputy North Dakota Attorney General Tom Trenbeath said authorities are aware of Cobb, and the Grant County Sheriff's Office has increased patrols in the area. But Cobb hasn't broken any laws there, and Schock acknowledges that he has a right to live in Leith, no matter his views.

Cobb's comments and writings indicate he believes in a superior white race, distrusts both Jews and Christians, and questions the intelligence of women. He declines to talk about his upbringing and gives no indication as to why he adopted his supremacist platform.

In an interview outside his house, he was calm, cheerful and even jovial, making comments that raised questions about whether he believes his plan could succeed — or if he's just seeking publicity.

"If I'm the only one in Leith forever, white consciousness has already been raised," he said.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report

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Harvested seaweed could help protect Texas shoreline against future hurricanes

Seaweed could provide a natural defense against future hurricane damage (WikiCommons)Texas officials are hoping that the harvesting of seaweed might actually help protect the city of Galveston from hurricanes.

In 1900, Galveston was a booming metropolis and arguably one of the more important cities in the United States. But a massive hurricane submerged the city, killing about 6,000 people on its way to becoming the greatest natural disaster in American history.

And now, the Galveston Park board of trustees has agreed to invest about $140,000 on a project that will use harvested seaweed to strengthen sand dunes so that they can better withstand the impact of future storms.

"It's part of our ecosystem, so any kind of beneficial use we can find for that material would be highly advantageous, both from an environmental and management standpoint, to make sure our beaches are clean and enjoyable for all of our beachgoers," board executive director Kelly de Schaun told the Houston Chronicle.

Over the years, the natural sand dunes along Galveston’s shoreline have eroded, making the area more susceptible to damage from future storms. A 2007 paper from Texas A&M University showed how using sargassum can help protect the shoreline and even rebuild the dunes over time.

The "seaweed-enhanced sand dunes” will be packed with harvested sargassum, which can grow to 50 feet in the ocean. It also reportedly does not smell very good. Nonetheless, it could save homes, businesses and even lives along the Texas coastline.

And it’s an environmentally sound approach as well. Officials say they will simply gather seaweed that has washed up on the shore to use in the project. They will then bale the sargassum and press it into sand dunes. Along with physically strengthening the dunes, officials say, the compressed seaweed will help spur the growth of natural dune vegetation.

As the implanted seaweed deteriorates over time, it will serve as fertilizer for natural vegetation that grows along Galveston's coast. The new vegetation is expected to provide a sustainable natural barrier against future hurricanes.

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