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GIRONA, Spain, April 30 (UPI) — The warmer temperatures associated with climate change could speed the spread of the invasive mosquitofish in northern Europe, scientists in Spain said.

The mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki, is native to the United States and was introduced in Spain in 1921. Since then, it has spread to more than 50 countries on every continent except Antarctica, the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology Climate Change said in a release Thursday.

The freshwater fish thrives in Mediterranean rivers, where it displaces small native fish that live in fresh or brackish water.

The mosquitofish has yet to become established in the United Kingdom, Germany and Nordic countries, but that could change as temperatures warm and the fish extends its breeding territory, said Emili Garcia-Berthou, an aquatic researcher at the University of Girona.

“It’s distribution is clearly limited by temperature,” Garcia-Berthou said.

In Spain, the mosquitofish has reduced populations of native toothcarp to the point where toothcarp are considered in danger of extinction, Garcia-Berthou said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

WASHINGTON, April 30 (UPI) — A dramatic loss in domestic bee colonies is being blamed on starvation, pesticides, poor weather and weak colonies, U.S. apiary experts said.

Losses of domestic, managed colonies totaled 33.8 percent from October 2009 to April, said a survey released Thursday by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There was a 35.8 percent overall colony loss in the winter of 2007-2008.

The losses threaten the future of U.S. crop pollination and the domestic honey industry, said Jerry Hayes, a hive inspector with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The loss of hives, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, likely was caused by a combination of factors, including environmental stresses, nutrition problems, pathogens and parasites, the survey said.

The survey reported only winter losses and not the number of colonies that fail during the summer, which can be significant, Hayes told The Miami Herald in a story reported Friday.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

WASHINGTON, April 30 (UPI) — A dramatic loss in domestic U.S. bee colonies is being blamed on starvation, pesticides, poor weather and weak colonies, apiary experts said.

Losses of domestic, managed, colonies totaled 33.8 percent from October 2009 to April, said a survey released Thursday by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The winter of 2007-2008 experienced a 35.8 percent overall colony loss.

The losses threaten the future of U.S. crop pollination and the domestic honey industry, said Jerry Hayes, a hive inspector with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The loss of hives, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, likely was caused by a combination of factors, including environmental stresses, nutrition problems, pathogens and parasites, the survey said.

The survey reported only winter losses and not the number of colonies that fail during the summer, which can be significant, Hayes told The Miami Herald in a story reported Friday.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, April 30 (UPI) — Honey from China is being shipped into the United States illegally to avoid expensive tariffs, a Texas scientist who tracks the origins of pollen alleges.

China, the world’s largest honey producer, is sending honey to other countries for labeling and then into the United States to avoid paying U.S. tariffs of up to 500 percent, Vaughn Bryant, a Texas A&M professor, said.

Bryant, a palynologist or a pollen specialist, analyzes honey samples from around the world to determine their origin.

Honey samples labeled as coming from Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Laos usually turn out to be “a little honey from those countries” with the majority of the blend coming from Chinese sources, Bryant said in a release Thursday.

The high U.S. tariffs on Chinese honey were instituted about two years ago when China nearly ruined the U.S. market by selling its honey for about half of what it costs U.S. honey producers to sell their product.

“Now there are lots of shenanigans going on to avoid having to pay those tariffs,” Bryant said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., April 30 (UPI) — A purple berry used by U.S. Civil War soldiers to write letters home could be used to advance solar power in poor rural areas, scientists said.

Pokeberries proliferate even during drought and in rocky, infertile soil, said David Carroll, director of Wake Forest University’s Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials.

When applied to fiber-based solar cells, the berry’s dye acts as an absorber, helping the cell’s fibers capture more sunlight to convert into power, Carroll said in a release from the university Thursday.

“They’re weeds. They grow on every continent but Antarctica,” Carroll said.

Newly developed fiber-based solar cells can produce twice as much power as current flat-cell technology and are less expensive to produce, he said.

“It’s a low-cost solar cell that can be made to work with local, low-cost agricultural crops like pokeberries and with a means of production that emerging economies can afford,” Carroll said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

MELBOURNE, April 30 (UPI) — Babies whose mothers don’t get enough sunlight during the early part of pregnancy are more likely to develop multiple sclerosis, scientists in Australia said.

A lack of sunlight — the main source of Vitamin D — during the first three to four months of pregnancy can affect how a baby’s central nervous and immune system develops, said scientists from the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and Australian National University in Acton.

Babies born in November and December, during the Australian summer, had their early months in the winter and so were 32 percent more likely to develop MS than babies whose early months were in the summer and were born in May and June, during the Australian winter, the scientists said. Their results from studying 1,524 patients with MS born between 1920 and 1950 appeared recently in an online edition of the British Medical Journal.

“These results add to the weight of existing evidence suggesting vitamin D plays a role in the development of MS,” Doug Brown, an MS researcher, told The Times of London in a story published Friday.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

ADELAIDE, Australia, April 30 (UPI) — Human male fetuses grow at a different rate than female fetuses when the pregnant mother is under stress, scientists in Australia said.

“The male, when the mum is stressed, pretends it’s not happening and keeps growing, so he can be as big as he possibly can be,” researcher Vicki Clifton of the University of Adelaide said.

The female, in response to the mother’s stress, will reduce her growth rate, but not so much that it restricts growth, Clifton said in a release from the university Thursday.

“When there is another complication in the pregnancy –- either a different stress or the same one again — the female will continue to grow on that same pathway and do OK but the male baby doesn’t do so well and is at greater risk of pre-term delivery, stopping growing or dying in the uterus,” Clifton said.

The difference in growth response was seen in pregnancies complicated by asthma, cigarette use and psychological stress, Clifton and her team said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

MOSCOW, April 30 (UPI) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ordered the removal of thousands of old fuel barrels polluting his nation’s Arctic territory.

“They leak and they go into the soil,” Putin said during a recent visit in which he helped scientists tag polar bears on Franz Joseph Land, an archipelago in the Barents Sea.

Putin suggested communities organize weekend cleanups to remove the barrels and other refuse left at military and civilian outposts.

“We need to organize not just a subbotnik, but a voskresnik,” Putin said of the Soviet-era tradition in which communities clean their neighborhoods.

In video footage of the trip, Putin talked of Russia’s plans to extract natural resources from the area and of the importance of protecting the environment, The Moscow Times reported Friday.

During the trip, sponsored by the Russian Geographical Society, Putin helped tag polar bears and attached a collar to one bear.

“It’s a heavy paw. The master of the Arctic,” Putin said as he held the paw of a sedated bear.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, April 30 (UPI) — Honey from China is entering the United States illegally to avoid expensive tariffs, a Texas scientist who tracks the origins of pollen alleges.

China, the world’s largest honey producer, is sending honey to other countries for labeling and then into the United States to avoid paying U.S. tariffs of as much as 500 percent, Vaughn Bryant, a Texas A&M professor said.

Bryant, a palynologist or a pollen specialist, analyzes honey samples from around the world to determine their origin.

Honey samples labeled as coming from Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Laos usually turn out to be “a little honey from those countries” with the majority of the blend coming from Chinese sources, Bryant said in a release Thursday.

The high U.S. tariffs on Chinese honey were instituted about two years ago when China nearly ruined the U.S. market by selling its honey for about half of what it costs U.S. honey producers to sell their product.

“Now there are lots of shenanigans going on to avoid having to pay those tariffs,” Bryant said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

LONDON, April 30 (UPI) — A person who has lung cancer in Norway or Sweden is much more likely to survive than a person in Britain, researchers found.

Researchers at King’s College, London, analyzed lung cancer survival in England, Norway and Sweden from 2001 to 2004 using data from lung cancer registries in all three countries.

Their study, published in the journal Thorax, found lung cancer survival rates were lowest in England and highest in Sweden — almost twice as many Swedish lung cancer patients survived after five years as did the English patients, irrespective of age, sex and length of monitoring period.

Specifically, 11.3 percent of Swedish men diagnosed with lung cancer survived five years, while 9.3 percent of Norwegian men and 6.5 percent of English men survived five years. In women, 16 percent diagnosed with lung cancer survived five years, while 13.5 percent of those diagnosed in Norway and 8.4 percent of those diagnosed in England survived five years.

The researchers said the survival rates may differ because the prevalence of smoking is higher in Britain than in Scandinavia and British patients may delay seeking medical help and when they do, patients in Britain are less likely to be treated with surgery and drugs than those in Sweden or Norway.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.