http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_on_sc/helping_hemlocksATHENS, Ga. - Like a bloodsucking mosquito, the hemlock woolly adelgid plunges its needle-like mouth deep into the branches of hemlock trees and slowly sucks out the nutrients. The pest's telltale sign is the touch of frost-like wool it produces near tree needles, but the real signal of its wrath comes when the evergreen trees die about a decade later.
Since the adelgid migrated from Asia to Virginia in the 1950s, it's at once fascinated and frustrated forest researchers who have yet to find a cheap, effective way to keep the pest in check. Since then, wind and birds have spread its eggs as far north as Maine and across the Appalachian Mountains to eastern Kentucky.
At least four centers dedicated to halting the bug's spread have sprung up at major universities around the Southeast, including the University of Georgia, which opened its lab Friday.
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