Ithaca, New York

Listen to Dr. Thomas Eisner

Listen to Part 2

Biodiversity is more than spice; it is the very essence of life. Flowers like the rosy periwinkle help children with lymphocytic leukemia achieve a 99 percent rate of remission and increase their chances of survival from 10 to 90 percent. Hodgkin's disease, breast cancer, and lung cancer patients are also receiving effective treatment from this healing, pink flower. Twenty years ago, the rosy periwinkle found in Madagascar, was almost extinct. How many other plants and animals are on the brink of extinction or, worse, gone forever?

RADIO EXPEDITIONS co-host, Lynn Neary, visits Dr. Thomas Eisner, a professor of chemical ecology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Dr. Eisner shares his research on insects--even cockroaches--and describes the chemical relationships between all living things, and tells us how these unions help scientists develop medicines that heal and often cure diseases.

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