B. A non-pollinator "bogus" fig wasp collected from the syconium of the Baja California wild fig (Ficus palmeri or possibly Ficus brandegeei). The ovipositor is much longer than the symbiotic pollinator wasp. In fact, some non-pollinator wasps can penetrate the entire syconium wall from the outside. They can also lay eggs in long-style fig flowers reserved for fig seeds. Consequently, no seeds are produced in these flowers. In addition, these "bogus" fig wasps do not pollinate fig flowers. Although they do not benefit the fig tree, non-pollinator wasps of the families Torymidae and Eurytomidae are common inhabitants of New World monoecious fig syconia. Their coexistence with natural fig pollinator wasps is a complex and perplexing coevolutionary problem in fig biology.

The above syconium structure is not the case for all monoecious figs. According to Zhang, et al. (Annals of the Entomological Society of America Vol. 102, 2009), the Asian fig F. curtipes and relatives (subgenus Urostigma, subsection Conosycea) lack a synstigma, which is replaced by an irregular mass of elongate stigmas. The stigmas are unbranched, slightly curved, and only slightly broader than the style. Instead of walking on a mat of stigma tips (synstigma), the female wasps frequently stumble and fall between different stigmas as they attempt to find oviposition sites. The lack of a fused synstigma enables the wasps to insert their ovipositors at the basal end of the stigmas, not at the top of stigma as described in other species, which reduces the length of ovipositor that has to be inserted. Thus, the ovipositor of the pollinator Eupristina sp. is sufficiently long enough to reach all the ovules. In other figs with unbranched stigmas (subgenus Sycomorus) and figs with branched stigmas (subgenera Urostigma and Pharmacoscea), oviposition occurs at the top of stigma. Oviposition behavior in fig wasps is therefore not universal, and is responsive to variation in floral structure within their host figs. There may indeed be factors other than style length preventing oviposition in long-style flowers.

Additional complexities about Africa's whistling thorn (Acacia drepanolobium) are discussed in a recent article by Maureen Stanton and Truman Young in Natural History Volume 108 (November 1999). Studies by Stanton and Young reveal that four species of stinging ants live symbiotically on A. drepanolobium: Crematogaster mimosae, C. nigriceps, C. sjostedti, and Tetraponera penzigi. Their studies also reveal that the symbiotic relationship between some of these ant species and their host acacia may not be equally beneficial to both partners. Since these different species of ants are rival enemies, they occupy separate trees. If acacia branches containing rival ant colonies make contact, the different species of ants will fight each other, with the loser being evicted from its tree. Unlike the Central American thorn acacias that provide their ant warriors with protein-lipid Beltian bodies on leaflet tips, the whistling thorn provides no such service. This forces the ants to leave the tree to forage for insects and other protein-rich foods which they bring back to the developing ant larvae living inside the swollen thorns. According to Stanton and Young, refuse pushed out of the thorn nests may help to fertilize the tree.

The relationship between some of these ant species and their acacia is not completely mutualistic because it may harm the acacia tree. Crematogaster mimosae and C. sjostedti both tend scale insects that feed on the tree's vascular system, milking the aphid-like insects for their nutritive honeydew secretions. In fact, C. sjostedti pays little attention to herbivores that attempt to feed on the tree. The latter species also nests in hollow spaces within dead and dying branches, rather than in the swollen thorns. Colonies even thrive in the stumps of dead trees. To make matters worse, this species of ant often comes out the winner in battles with other ant species over the possession of a tree. According to Stanton and Young, the balance in a once mutualistic relationship has shifted in favor of one partner (the ant) at the expense of the other (the tree).

Although not as extreme as Crematogaster sjostedti, the relationship between C. nigriceps and its acacia host is also one-sided in favor of the ant. This ant species chews off the tips of growing shoots, including leaf and flower buds, thus pruning and sterilizing the tree. New branches are allowed to grow mainly in the proximity of swollen thorns, thus ensuring nectar-rich petiolar nectaries (glands) on new leaves easily accessible to worker ants inside the thorns. Over time, this pruning by ants changes the growth rate and shape of the tree canopy, compared with trees occupied by other ant species. In addition, pruning is more radical on sides adjacent to rival ant trees, thus reducing the chance of contact with branches of rival trees containing more aggressive ant species.

There are currently three main hypotheses to explain the mechanisms by which trehalose sugars stabilize living systems during extreme cycles of freeze-thaw, heat-cooling and dehydration-rehydration (Pereira, et al. 2004). The Water-Replacement Hypothesis suggests that during drying, sugars can substitute for water molecules (by forming hydrogen bonds) around the polar and charged groups present in phospholipid membranes and proteins, thereby stabilizing their native structure in the absence of water and preventing ice formation. The Water Entrapment Hypothesis, in contrast, proposes that sugars concentrate residual water molecules close to the biostructure, thereby preserving its solvation and native properties. The Vitrification Hypothesis suggests that trehalose sugars are good vitrifying agents and protect biostructures through the formation of amorphous glasses (non-crystalline solids), thereby preventing denaturation or mechanical damage to cells and tissues.

The enzyme trehalase breaks trehalose into two glucose molecules. This is the primary glucose source in insects for the rapid energy requirements of flight. Humans also posses the enzyme trehalase, although it is not abundant in most people. Several on-line sites suggest that replacement of dietary sucrose with trehalose may help to reduce the accumulation of malformed, clumping proteins in the brain and spinal cord associated with neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's. In addition, trehalose has a low glycemic index and reportedly does not spike the glucose level in diabetics. I have not verified all these medical claims in reputable medical journals. Could this be a sweetener that is actually good for you?

Serpentinite is formed on the sea floor at tectonic plate boundaries by a process called serpentinization: A hydration and metamorphic transformation of untramafic (igneous) rock from the Earth's mantle. This is a geological low-temperature metamorphic process involving heat and water in which low-silica mafic and untramafic rocks are oxidized (anaerobic oxidation of Fe ²⁺ by the protons of water leading to the formation of hydrogen gas) and hydrolyzed with water into serpentinite. It is only seen on land in subduction zones where oceanic rocks are preserved. Serpentinite is low in plant nutrients and high in toxic metals. Serpentinite outcrops in California often contain many species of rare endemic plants adapted to this rock type, including several species of cypress (Cupressus = Hesperocyparis).

• Anja Spang, Jimmy H. Saw, Steffen L. Jørgensen, Katarzyna Zaremba-Niedzwiedzka, Joran Martijn + et al. 2015. "Complex Archaea That Bridge the Gap Between Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes." Nature (06 May 2015) doi:10.1038/nature14447.

Oba, Y., Takano, Y., Furukawa, Y. et al. 2022. "Identifying the Wide Diversity of Extraterrestrial Purine and Pyrimidine Nucleobases in Carbonaceous Meteorites. Nature Communications 13, 2008.