This common garden plant summons wasps as bodyguards
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new shows new music new movies keeping up with pop culture sometimes feels like a full-time job thankfully over at pop culture happy hour it's literally our job we break down what's actually worth watching listening to and pretending you already knew about so the next time someone says did you see that you can say yeah obviously follow npr's pop culture happy hour wherever you get your podcasts you're listening to shortwave from npr
Hey, short wavers. Regina Barber here.
And Hannah Chin with our biweekly Science News Roundup.
And we're lucky enough to have Sasha Pfeiffer back on the show third time in a row. Hi, Regina. Hi, Hannah. Fun to be back with you.
All right, Sasha, our first topic is about beans and bean plants' surprising chemical counterattack against caterpillars, which are a common garden pest.
Ah, you know, given that fiber has become such a wellness trend with everybody fiber-maxing, I'll be very interested to hear about this one.
I mean, we also have an episode about fiber-maxing. It just came out.
Then we're going to talk about another pest. We're going to be talking about how best to teach mice.
And lastly, we've got one more story about pests. This time it's how the bug-repellent DEET could have a major Achilles heel.
You know, Han, I think today's episode is actually about nature adapting.
It's true. Today on the show, adaptation for better and for worse. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
OK, Sasha, we have so much to get through, but you talked about fiber maxing. So let's start with beans.
Let's do that. The more fiber for the world, the better.
Yeah, so this story is an amazing example of plant versus animal warfare. And it might make you think a little differently about how crafty plants can be in defending themselves. And it all centers around the common bean plant. So this is the one I feel like a lot of grade schoolers grow in classrooms. It's a garden staple, the bush bean or pole bean. And it turns out it has an elaborate chemical defense mechanism.
Ah, and what's it defending itself against? I assume some pest or some blight or something?
In this case, it's caterpillars. So, Sasha, in a study out this week in the journal Science Advances, researchers described how when caterpillars munch on bean plants, a compound in the caterpillar spit causes the bean plants to release a chemical signal into the air. Think about it as a kind of distress flare that calls in a fleet of wasp bodyguards.
The types of chemicals we were able to measure were known to be attractants to predatory wasps, parasitoid wasps that lay eggs in caterpillars.
So this is Adam Steinbrenner. He's a plant biologist at the University of Washington, and he's one of the authors on the study. He says some of the wasps eat the caterpillars. Others lay eggs inside the caterpillars' bodies so their babies can eat them, really effectively removing the threat to the bean plants.
And Sasha, this kind of chemical signal isn't rare.
What innovative defense mechanism do bean plants use against caterpillars?
Plants release them all the time. Like cut grass smells a specific way. That's the plant's chemical response to being wounded.
Interesting. The cut grass smelling a specific way reminds me of flowers smelling sweet because they're trying to attract bees.
Yeah. And these are both chemical responses, right? But the specific compound that attracts wasps is really only triggered via caterpillar spit. So the bean plant doesn't call wasps in if, say, You cut a leaf or if you damage the plant in a different way. And Sasha, this is just one of multiple ways that plants have really evolved to defend themselves. If you think about the thorns of a rose or the spines of a cactus or bitter, poisonous leaves, or I guess in this case, this strategy, right? Calling in some aerial reinforcements from the insect world.
It's like calling in the drones.
Yes, exactly.
All right. You also mentioned for your second topic, new ways to speed up learning in mice. Tell us about that one.
Yeah, so I brought you a study just published in the journal Science. In lab experiments, researchers typically give mice little rewards to help them learn tasks.
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