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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
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NEWS ABOUT: beetle

beetle stories: 8 news summaries

 Jewish Engineer Designed 
 Beetle: Historian 

Hitler ordered Porsche to replicated Josef Ganz's prototype

(Newser) - Adolf Hitler took the original design for the Volkswagen Beetle from the brainchild of a Jewish engineer, the Jerusalem Post reports. Historian Paul Schilperoord claims in his forthcoming book The True History of the Beetle that a prototype Josef Ganz designed in the late '20s had many of the Beetle’... More »

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Germany Jews Switzerland Adolf Hitler Nazi World War II Volkswagen beetle Josef Ganz Ferdinand Porsche

(Newser) - When you’re an endangered species jockeying for federal funding, good looks are historically a plus. That may be changing, the Washington Post reports. In the past, researchers note, “there has been a very heavy bias toward ‘charismatic megafauna’—relatively large, well-known birds and mammals.” But... More »

 Scientists  
 Name Beetle 
 After Colbert 

Researchers honor comedian on his birthday

(Newser) - Scientists who bestowed names of Bush administration officials on a trio of bugs have named a new Venezuelan beetle after Stephen Colbert, the Washington Times reports. "Last year, Stephen shamelessly asked the science community to name something cooler than a spider to honor him," said one of the... More »

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television science bug late night talk show Stephen Colbert The Colbert Report name comedian beetle

As Temperatures Rise,
West's Trees Dying Faster

New study paints dire picture for US forests which are releasing carbon dioxide—not storing it

(Newser) - America’s trees are dying at an alarming rate in the nation's western forests, a new study says. Death rates have more than doubled over the last two to three decades, Time reports, even in seemingly healthy locales. All types and sizes of trees, and at all elevations, have been... More »

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climate change global warming study science ecology Forest Service carbon emissions beetle

 Greenies Fight to Keep 
 Beetle-Ravaged Trees 

Environmentalists, bureaucracy slow Forest Service efforts

(Newser) - A massive swath of trees from Colorado to British Columbia is being ravaged by beetles that burrow beneath bark to lay eggs. But the real ecological battle is being fought not over how to protect the trees, but how to treat them once they’re dead. The Christian Science Monitor ... More »

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 Ravenous Beetles 
 Decimate West's Pines 

Harsh winter sole hope for containing insect that has affected millions of acres—and is moving east

(Newser) - Peanut-sized bark beetles have drilled into and killed millions of acres of green pines from New Mexico to British Columbia, threatening the Rockies’ iconic lodgepoles with extinction, reports the New York Times. With only costly and temporary fixes available, preservationists are hoping for an atypically frigid winter to contain the... More »

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Pine Beetles
Eat Through Western Forests

Huge bug infestation doing more damage than wildfires

(Newser) - The biggest infestation of mountain pine beetles in decades is devastating huge tracts of forest in the Western states, USA Today reports; forestry workers say the bugs are killing even more trees than the wildfires ravaging California's forests. The larvae consume the inner bark of trees, usually lodgepole pines, killing... More »

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trees infestation insects forests beetle

 Hey Hey, My, My, It's Spider Man 

New arachnid species named for rock legend Young

(Newser) - A new spider species has been named for rocker Neil Young, an outspoken advocate for environmental issues, Reuters reports. A biologist and Neil Young fan who discovered the species named it Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi. It's not the first such honor for a singer. A beetle was recently named Orectochilus orbisonorum after... More »

8 Stories