NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, DALE GREENWALTA 46-million-year-old mosquito—and the first-ever fossilized blood meal discovered—show that blood-feeding insects may have originated much earlier than previously thought. Upon extensively testing the ancient specimen, researchers from the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and their colleagues found, among other things, traces of heme, suggesting that the blood-based molecule can persist longer than once expected.
NMNH paleobiologist Dale Greenwalt obtained the rare specimen while vacationing with his wife in Montana, near the insect fossil-rich Kishenehn Formation. “[The paper] shows that details of a blood sucking mosquito can be nicely preserved in a medium other than amber,” paleontologist George Poinar of Oregon State University, who was not involved in the work, told The Scientist.
FLICKR, JAMESZLinda Feighery, a medical writer who spent a decade in biomedical labs in Ireland and the U.S., is fed up with what she considers the wasteful nature of academic research. “In particular, I have serious concerns regarding the publication process, which is intricately linked to the acquisition of funding,” Feighery wrote in an opinion piece this week.
That most scientists do not publish negative results has led many to chase down dead-end leads, she said. And because publishing in top-tier journals is often tied to career status, researchers are investing plenty of time and money in doing so, rather ...
