Mark writes
> Regardless of your level of knowledge berating people as ignorant is not an appropriate form of communication.
I appreciate your concern, but I should point out that Christina and I have known each other for some time, and are pretty well acquainted. We often agree to disagree. But this raises another interesting point:
Can someone be right and wrong at the same time? Of course. I may compare two pairs of human beings speaking together, and say they are doing the exact same thing. And this would be correct. However, when you point out that one pair is speaking Chinese and the other English, you would be correct in saying that one pair cannot communicate with the other pair in any meaningful way.
So, it is with acetylcholine receptors. These are found throughout the animal world, and perform the same general functions. The paper that I referred to previously states:
> The neonicotinoids act as agonists at the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) of insects and mammals.
So, it is quite true that neonics act on acetylcholine receptors in both. But at same time, the effects can be quite different.
> Neonicotinoids have little or no effect on the vertebrate peripheral nAChR á1ãá1äâ1 subtype or some neuronal subtypes [á3â2 (and/or â4)á5, á4â2, and á7]. Minor structural modifications of neonicotinoids confer differential subtype selectivity in vertebrate nAChRs.
So, th chief distinction is that the insecticides are specifically designed to target the acetylcholine receptors of insects, while having minimal (not none) effects on mammals
> The insecticidal activity of the neonicotinoids is due to their action as insect nAChR agonists. Neonicotinoid insecticides display excellent selectivity profiles that are largely attributable to specificity for insect versus mammalian nAChRs.
This has been the key point that I have been making all along. Meanwhile Christina emphasized the virtually identical nature of these systems.
This forum is no stranger to strong differences of opinion. I remember heated debates involving Dr. Wenner. I had many friendly conversations with him, as have others, but he was adamant that the honey bee dance communication was an anthropomorphic fantasy. He often pointed out that since bees can transfer information via scents, they have no need for elaborate dance rituals to "say" the same thing.
By virtue of Occam's Razor, the simpler explanation should prevail. And yet, others have shown that there are times when the odor cues are simply inadequate and the usefulness of the location information encoded in the dancing can be used by the bees to find food -- preventing the colony from starving. Which would give such a system an evolutionary advantage, as more efficient colonies would be more likely to survive and reproduce. Again, a case of being right and wrong at the same time.
By the way, I miss Adrian Wenner and hope that he is happy in retirement.
Peter Loring Borst
Paula Cohen Lab
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
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