Following different paths, two research teams have finished successfully managed to convert sugar, potentially derived from agricultural waste and unfit for eating plants, into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and a wide range of other valuable chemicals. (more…)

A new species of ant blind, subterranean, predatory, discovered in the jungles of the Amazon by Christian Rabeling evolutionary biologist at the University of Texas, probably a descendant of the first ants significant as such.

The new ant is named Martialis Heureka, and has a combination of characteristics never before recorded. It is adapted to live in the soil, is two to three millimeters in length, is pale, has no eyes, and Rabeling and his colleagues suspect it uses its jaws to capture prey.

The ant also belongs to its own new subfamily, a total now of 21 ant subfamilies. This is the first time since 1923 that reveals a new subfamily of ants with living species. Other subfamilies have been discovered since then, but always from fossilized individuals. (more…)