A Whopper Among Newly Found Bugs

The biggest bug ever found in Southern California is among at least half a dozen species of insects recently discovered in the region. The newly identified insects, still unnamed scientifically, are for the most part varieties of the Jerusalem cricket, a six-legged, wingless bug marked by its heft. The others include new species of the silk-spinning cricket and millipede.

Some specimens of the newly found Jerusalem cricket species reach 3 inches or more in length.

Scientists had thought all the Jerusalem crickets in California represented a single species.

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Brain-Implanted Pellets May Aid Stroke Victims

Implanting tiny pellets of medicine into the brain may prevent a potentially dangerous complication that often affects victims of a certain type of stroke, Japanese researchers reported in the April 4 publication Stroke.

Patients who undergo surgery to repair ruptured blood vessels after a subarachnoid hemorrhage, or SAH, often develop a vasospasm, in which arteries in the head shrink, starving the brain of blood. A vasospasm is most likely to cause brain damage but can sometimes be deadly.

In a study of 20 SAH patients, researchers inserted two to 10 pellets the size of a grain of rice next to arteries that they suspected would develop vasospasms. The pellets contained nicardipine, a calcium channel blocker often used to treat high blood pressure. In every case, arteries next to the pellets developed no vasospasms.