Dry Humor

Rosie

"Traveling Salesman"

Once again StumbleUpon has lead me to an interesting article on insects.

This particular one is discussing some of the problem solving skills associated with hymenoptera–specifically Bumblebees.

The test was set up to determine if the bees could "find the shortest route between cities" (here as faux-flowers). Two researchers, Laura Chittka and Mathieu Lihoreau assessed how the bees would respond to the flowers: seeing "whether the bees would go after the flowers in the order in which they were discovered, or if they would figure out the shortest route among all the flowers even as new ones were added"

Ultimately they found that however the simulated field was manipulated, the Bumblebees consistently determined and followed the shortest path.


The article itself is not that long, it's definitely worth checking out.

-DiAnna P.

Robots Learn Hamilton's Rule

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-robots-validating-hamilton-video.html

-jay

Flies of the Season

And just how relevant might the insect world be to people besides entomologists or art students?  This article in the New York Times discusses the seasonal nuisance of flies, alas in the Home and Garden section of the paper. 

What to do about them? There are tricks the article discusses in some very nice entomological detail, but overall:

As the eminent British dipterologist Harold Oldroyd wrote in his 1964 classic, “The Natural History of Flies,” “A house or other building is therefore no more than a large fly-trap. It is found that the same building is infested year after year, while the house next door may be immune.” He added, “At present there is no known remedy for these visitations except to move.”

The author notes the following truth: 

Flies are, paradoxically, ubiquitous and mysterious. We see them. We hear them. We know next to nothing about them.

I should mention  that we have a passage by Oldroyd in our Insect Lives boook on p.118 on this very issue, the essay called "Swarms of Flies" (likely drawn from his book "the Natural History of Flies"). 

ay

I came across this informative and amusing blog post by "insect ecologist" Jeffery Lockwood, in which he answers the question, "do bugs feel pain?". He goes as far as to advocate the anesthetization of bug subjects in experiments, just in case they do.


"... there are relevant biochemical similarities between insect and human nervous systems. At least some invertebrates possess endorphins and enkephalins. These chemicals are opioids (think opium) produced by the body to alleviate pain and stress. So the presence of these in insects suggests that they might experience pleasure/pain. We also know that the mechanisms of neural transmission are similar in insects and humans.

This is one of the reasons that neurotoxic insecticides also poison you along with the cockroach in your kitchen. In fact, the organophosphate insecticides are based on the nerve gases developed during World War II. Kinda creepy, eh?"




Whatever your stance I think its a relevant question...is there enough evidence to suggest that insects feel pain, and if so, does it matter?



http://blog.oup.com/2011/11/bug-pain/



-Susie

MuShiKing

Robotic Beetles you can battle!!!!!

http://www.tons-of-toys.com/mushiking_c336

-jay

SURGERY ANTS

so I went to the museum of surgical science last saturday and was in an exhibit depicting the evolution of various sutures and lo' and behold: ants were once used as a medical staple!
using an animal's defenses for our own benefit, clever us.

-krystal

Insect Origami

Silverfish

Pillbug

Longhorn Beetle

Longhorn Beetle

Leaf Insect

Kabutomushi Beetle

Earwig

-Jay

Trans Bee

-jay

STINK BUGS

I want one of these little guys for my collection, but I'm not sure if keeping an eye out for one is worth a possible broken leg.

"Go after remaining stink bugs now"

Rosie

Look who is really cool! urban bee keeeeepers

http://www.good.is/post/makin-it-meg-paska-urban-beekeeper/?utm_source=pulsenews&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+good%2Flbvp+(GOOD+Main+RSS+Feed)&utm_content=FaceBook

clara

Mimic?

While looking for something completely unrelated, I came across this image of a fish, found in Korea, with a human face. It reminded me of the mimics we talked about, although I doubt this fish is using a human face to deter predators...

-CJ

Deleuze's orchid and wasp

All semester, I've been trying to integrate these ideas into my comprehension of the course material, and this weeks segments about co-evolution were the tipping point for me to finally post about it. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari are the philosophers that have gotten me thinking of evolution in terms of becoming, and the potentials and pitfalls of thinking this way. For one, it is very confusing, but then again life is not simple either. A quick search came up with a few things, and here is a quick quote describing what the concept of the orchid and the wasp means in terms of becoming.

"Deleuze and Guattari imagine there to be a wasp-orchid assemblage, where the boundaries of the one cannot be thoroughly distinguished from the boundaries of the other. Rather it is in terms of code and traces that the stratum of a plant line intersects unexpectedly (there is nothing in the nature of a plant that would anticipate it becoming-animal in code), with the stratum of an animal line, where each becomes the function of the other."

That comes from this source, a lengthy piece on the idea. http://kvond.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/23/

this source is quite lengthy, and likely needs some background for comprehension.

This source is a good summation of the concept, that build on the theories of evolution put forth by Darwin.

http://christopherkinman.blogspot.com/2008/05/beyond-darwin-becomings-of-orchid-and.html

Hopefully the diagrams we made for the queen of trees made clear the rhizomatic structure of ecologies.

read at your leisure and maybe blow your mind!

-jais

Pierre Huyghe at Esther Schipper, Berlin

Pierre Huyghe, Influants-Slides

This is a Q+A with Pierre Huyghe about this exhibition.

An excerpt:

"ZAMPETTI Are the ants metaphorical? Does the context of the gallery elevate them?

HUYGHE The ants are just ants. There are two small holes where they nest, and from there they just cross the room. They are present in the space, you can see some lines and there is a sort of trajectory. When you come into the gallery, you assume your normal trajectory. Then you notice the insects, and you take another. Then you see the spiders. There is a co-habitation, a co-existence, but there is not much relating. I am trying not to define the relations in between these live entities."

Super awesome....right?

My friend Emma had the unfortunate case of getting sick after this show. Upon walking out, you apparently become the third work on the checklist, Influenced, 2011. The description reads "A person in the space is carrying a flu virus."

Maybe Huyghe was asking for a little too much out of the viewer?

-LB

Trip to the Field Museum

Photos of some of the Field Museum's insect collections. November 1, 2011.

-E.I.

Chirps and Cheers: China’s Crickets Clash

Young men in China are bringing back an old tradition- cricket fighting. They're becoming harder to find in urban areas, but once you have a winner, it's worth all the work in taking care of them and prepping them for financially fruitful fights. All the details are in the NY Times article Chirps and Cheers: China’s Crickets Clash.

-CJ

Trip to the Field Museum

Here are just a couple photos I took while we were backstage at the Field Museum.
Enjoy. - RS

*these photos may not be appropriated without permission from the artist

Hawk-ing Awesome Hawk Moths

Yesterday's Science Friday on NPR! These hawk moths can hover when drinking from a flower with their proboscis. Check out the interview and the video - The best part is seeing the moth get hit by a cannonball-in super slow motion.

Interesting that it takes so much energy to flap its wings like that, but the moth sacrifices energy for stabilization and promise of food! And the wing motion is very similar to hummingbirds.

Analogous traits? Scientific Method? I say YES.

~Amy M.

In regards to Island theory...

So although this doesn't directly implicate insects, it does involve Island biogeography theory, with very large islands (the continents) and an even more rabid species (humans). At some point today (31st-Halloween-monday) our human population passed the benchmark of 7 billion people. I can personally remember in grade school talking about the population, its estimates 1 billion less than we have now, and it seems phenomenal that we we've gone that far in that time. I came across this and was struck by the visualization they used to describe the phenomena, as it so closely resembled the example that Andy gave of species coming into an island, and extinction leaving. We truly don't have anything threatening us other than ourselves.


Visualizing How A Population Grows To 7 Billion

-Jais