Science news roundup – DEET, alligators, cats, tomatoes, Lake Baikal

How DEET works

The popular drug repellant keeps mosquitoes and other insect irritants from smelling human body odors. With that, chemists may be able to make better-designed repellants.

Alligators move lungs to dive

Gators move that and more to dive and swim:

Researchers said American alligators use their diaphragm, pelvic, abdominal and rib muscles to change their center of buoyancy, forcing the lungs toward the tail when they dive, toward the head when they surface, and sideways to roll.

The researchers said this may also explain why alligators have diaphragms, which are not common among reptiles.

Cat harbors drug-resistant staph, infects owner

In what is certainly scary news from the world of infectious diseases, German scientists have discovered a pet cat harbored methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA. Only after the cat itself was treated with antibiotics did the owner heal. Dogs can also have this effect, which should rightfully concern pet owners, researchers said:

“It remains unclear whether the cat was the source of the patient’s infection or vice versa," the researchers note — but said the strain was rare in humans.

“This case illustrates that MRSA transmission also occurs between humans and cats,” they added in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine.

“We conclude that pets should be considered as possible household reservoirs of MRSA that can cause infection or reinfection in humans.”

This makes me wonder further. Hogs are a major vector for diseases that infect humans, especially in southeast Asia because humans and swine live closely together. With ever-more pets in the developed world, even though cat- or dog-human genomic differences are greater than with hogs, could we see some degree of something similar?

Tomatoes – the delectable roundness of eating

Scientists have discovered a gene for giving tomatoes their shape.

Lake Baikal being polluted

Per long-held fears of Russian environmentalists, it appears a paper mill is polluting the world’s deepest lake.

Lake Baikal is so large it has 20 percent of the world’s reserve of liquid-state fresh water. It is a United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization World Heritage Site.