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<d Dear All, Â Â Â The May issue of National Geographic features insect decline and this naturally affects everything. There can be little doubt that motor vehicle traffic is a major factor by collision but, recalling an old observation, perhaps there are other mechanisms. Â Â Â I am not sure when, by guess about 1995, I was walking along the south side of the 101 in the vicinity of Coldbrook and noticed huge numbers of small dead dung beetles by the roadside and a noticeable odor of hog manure. By huge numbers I mean almost contiguous over a large area where a side road, severed by the 101 previously had continued north. So one could conclude that manure smell had attracted them and traffic had killed them. Â Â Â The French Press, devised not in France but by a researcher with surname French, is used to fragment small cell organelles such as chloroplasts suspended in a liquid under high pressure by suddenly decreasing pressure when a drain is opened and some flow out. Â Â Â Insects, not having lungs must have appreciable air filled cavities, and I wonder if they experience an explosive change in pressure when they flow under a large transport truck, at perhaps pressure higher than atmospheric and then instantly go back to atmospheric when the truck passes. Â Â Â This could be tested directly, after lock down is lifted, by placing some live insects held in a weighted window screen cage and placed in a suitably located pothole. Yt, DW, Kentville
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