Discovery
Wash fails to live-track hornet:
Washington state officials said Monday they were again unsuccessful at live-tracking a “murder” hornet while trying to find and destroy a nest of the giant insects.
The Washington State Department of Agriculture said an entomologist used dental floss to tie a tracking device on a female hornet, only to lose signs of her when she went into a forest.
The hornet was captured on Oct 5 and kept alive with strawberry jam, which she seemed to enjoy, said Sven Spichiger, a department entomologist.
Scientists then tied a tracking device onto her body and released her two days later onto an apple tree. They lost track of her after she went through some blackberry bushes, though officials believe the tracker was still attached at the time of its last signal.
A total of 18 hornets have been found in the state since they were first seen last year near the US-Canadian border, the agriculture department said.
Officials earlier in the month reported trying to glue a radio tag to another live hornet so they could follow it back to its nest, but the glue did not dry fast enough. The radio tag fell off and the hornet ultimately could not fly.
The Asian giant hornet – the world’s largest at 2 inches (5 centimeters) – can decimate entire hives of honeybees and deliver painful stings to humans. Farmers in the northwestern US depend on those honey bees to pollinate many crops, including raspberries and blueberries.
Despite their nickname, the hornets kill at most a few dozen people a year in Asia, and experts say it is probably far less. Hornets, wasps and bees typically found in the United States kill an average of 62 people a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. (AP)
Surgeon Kutz dies:
Joseph Kutz, a hand surgeon who helped perform the first hand transplant in the United States, has died. He was 92.
Kutz died Saturday, according to a post on Facebook by The Kleinert Kutz Hand Care Center, a medical facility Kutz cofounded more than 50 years ago.
“Larger than life in height and personality, Dr Kutz’s workhorse ethic propelled this practice into world-renowned recognition in the pioneering treatment of flexor tendon injuries and micro-surgical techniques,” the center, which has locations in Kentucky and Indiana, wrote. “He was a father, friend, beloved teacher, and surgeon and avid horseman who never missed a Derby! He was a pillar of the Louisville community and will be greatly missed by all who admired and loved him.”
The Louisville surgeon performed the milestone transplant surgery in 1999, about 40 years after he first arrived at the center as a surgical resident, Courier Journal reported.
He was awarded the President’s Cabinet Award in 1979, and the Ephraim McDowell Physician of the Year Award 20 years later. (AP)
Missouri S&T announces gift:
A St Louis businessman and his wife have donated $300 million to a foundation to support Missouri University of Science and
Technology in what the university said is believed to be the largest single gift to a higher education institution in Missouri.
The school announced the gift Monday from Fred and June Kummer. He is the founder and chairman of St Louis-based HBE Corp, a design and build firm for healthcare that he began in 1960.
Kummer is a 1955 civil engineering graduate of Missouri S&T, which was then known as the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy.
The university will use the gift to establish a new school of innovation and entrepreneurship, develop new areas for research, and provide scholarships and fellowships for students.
Chancellor Mo Dehghani called it “transformative”. The funds will make Missouri S&T a leading center of innovation and entrepreneurship, “energizing the economy of the Rolla area and the entire state of Missouri,” he said in a news release. (AP)