Cockroach Under Remote Control

There is a species of wasp, called Ampulex compressa, that attacks a cockroach by delivering a sting to the roach's midsection to take out its front legs. Then, with all the time in the world, makes its way towards the head and slowly introduces its stinger under the roach's exoskeleton. With the aid of sensors in the stinger, the wasp delivers a precise venom attack to a tiny part of the roach's brain. This knocks out the roach's escape reflex, allowing the wasp to literally drive the roach towards its burrow by pulling on the roach's antennae. Then the wasp lays its eggs on the outside of the roach, and when the larvae hatch they eat through the exoskeleton and develop inside the roach, slowly feeding from its internal organs. After four weeks the new wasp emerges from the roach's body, a la Aliens. Full article here.

Green Glowing Super Pigs

In Taiwan, researchers have bred pigs that glow green in the dark. Other scientists had created glowing animals before by transplanting genes from jellyfish into the pigs, but the Taiwanese team bred a much better version. From the article at bbc:

They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, the researchers say. To create them, DNA from jellyfish was added to about 265 pig embryos which were implanted in eight different sows.

During the day, the transgenic pigs have a slight greenish tint in their skin and eyes, which just makes them look sickly. The idea here is to test how stem cells from pigs develop in other animals (and in the future, humans) and track them because the pig cells will be green throughout the process.