Wood Ants Make Defensive Cocktails Against Microbes
By Neha Jain @lifesciexplore Wood ants are natural mixologists, concocting their own defensive cocktails, a new study finds. They protect themselves from infection by mixing self-produced acid with resin collected from trees to create a potent antimicrobial. “This is an unusual case where insects combine plant defenses with their own chemical defenses to produce a potent antimicrobial substance,” says Michel Chapuisat, of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, who is the senior author of the study. We sanitize our homes using cleaners such as alcohol and bleach to protect ourselves from…
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