Science: Indigestion

Professor Arthur Mangun Banta of Brown University has for a long time been living on close terms with fleas. His scientific pet is a transparent little water flea called Daphnia magna. Professor Banta finds that water fleas which are scantily fed when young and well fed after maturity live longer than water fleas which are well fed all their lives, and much longer than those which are well fed when young but starved in their old age (TIME, Feb. 14).

From Cornell University last week came news of other experiments which cast a somewhat different light on insect diet. The experiments were performed by Guy Franklin MacLeod, assistant professor of entomology (now on sabbatical leave at the University of California), on yellow meal worms, which are hardy creatures. Dr. MacLeod observed their digestive processes by means of “soft” (low-frequency) X-rays. He found that, if his meal worms were starved for a time and then restored to normal diet, they lived just as long and appeared just as healthy as other meal worms. But for the rest of their lives they had indigestion. Bubbles of gas, like those in soda water, were visible in their stomachs.