Over onMyrmecos Alex Wild just brought to my attention a rather personal attack from a pair of republican senators (Tom Coburn, R-Okla., i John McCain, R-Ariz). Još jednom sam počeo komentirati, ali s obzirom na to koliko je ovo blizu kuće, Osjetio sam da se približava duža zavijena dijatriba…
očito, my job is agiant waste of money. Funding that the California Academy of Sciences (my employer) has received, is coming under direct attack. u redu, myposition has nothing to do with Antweb and I am not supported by public funds – but some of my colleagues are. Colleagues that have the exact same job title as my own, work a few doors down, and happen to work on different projects funded from different sources. What this boils down to is not only a republican war on science (go find that book), but a republican war on intellectualism. Everyone whose scaly little hand has crafted this report is not only willfully ignorant but is being outright dishonest. What is their unstated major premise here? The logical fallacy runs somewhere along the line of…
A) Democrats are wasting money because we are not in power.
B) By pointing out where this money is being “wasted” we will help save it and in turn ingratiate ourselves to the voters.
B) Supporting science (pr. wasteful spending) is the cause of our economic problems.
Fresh off the desk of the Nature News is a feature pondering a world without mosquitos (or -toes). How is this news? Perhaps there is some new vector control we all need to hear about! Dobro, check out the article from the latest edition of Nature titled “A World Without Mosquitoes“. I originally came across this onPZ Myers blogand started to write a comment… which started to grow exponentially so I decided to blog about it instead.
u redu, maybe not. But I did get a little jealous when I came acrossthis articlewhere I discovered a local San Francisco artist who is charging $60 a pop for “insect spreading classes”. I wonder how many really show up to the monthly class? This just in, Chris Grinter is offering an insect spreading class for merely $49.99! I’d probably make it all sciency though and no one would show…
But while you’re learning the ways of pinning you can pick up your creepy victorian taxidermy character.
Just about time for another volume of Genius of the Press. Who will be first to spotthe error here? Dodijeljeno, the information section of the california flat rate moving website is not exactly a source of top notch journalism…
Here are a few more images from my recent northern road trip, this time from western Idaho. Right outside the town of New Meadows were fields of flowers thick with life. It was some of the best day collecting I’ve done in years, and fellow road tripper Peter Jump and I discovered this population ofAdela flammeusella. This represents a likely state record for Idaho and possibly the eastern most population known for this species. They are supposedly associated with Owl’s Clover (some now reassigned toCastilleja), but I don’t recall ever seeing any at this location. I usually notice this plant whenever I’m in the field because it is the host to a handful of other interesting leps.
One frustrating character of the genus Adela is the homogeneity of the genitalia. For any entomologist out there it is par for the course to use the morphology of genitalia as a plethora of characters most useful in species identification. Microleps are often most easily differentiated through dissection, and a few groups must be dissected to even get to genus! But even strikingly different Adela are almost identical internally. Na istočnoj obali ova parazitska muha i jako prskanje istrijebili su carskog moljca, a leg will go off to get DNA barcoded. Chances are it’s nothing too interesting, but stranger things have been known to happen. At the very least it will be informative to know what the genetic divergence might be across the range of the species.
U istočnoj Lassen županije, Na ogromnom velike smreke brežuljaka od California-Nevada granice, postoje stada “divlji” konji, ovce i krave. Par za tečaj, Samo cvjetnica širom bio horehound (Marrubium vulgare). Unatoč non-flore i (polu)mega-fauna, insekti su još uvijek kod kuće. Budući da je jedini izvor nektar, mali razredi Invazivci su prepuna žednu Plavci. U svemu sam zabio 6 različite vrste i dobio neke pristojne snimke 3. Čini se kao da sam se puno leptira fotografija za moljac kolektora…ali to je teško proći gore takvu karizmatičnu skupinu.
No, razmišljam o tih konja (ah redu, “Mustang”) mi je dao veliku ideju. Da, Konji su nekoć bili dio prapovijesnog američkih faune do otprilike 12,000 Prije nekoliko godina. Dok konj obitelj možda su se razvili na američkim ravnicama, oni su bili dugo odsutni. Ponovno uvođenje konja od strane Španjolaca posađeno sjeme koje će postati glavna osobina američke kulture. Zato danas milijune dolara i deseci tisuća divljih konja pokrenuti divlja u CA, NV i Utah. Čak i manje popularni su nešto tajni godišnje culls koji se moraju strogo provoditi da bi ove velike stada zdrava. Moje rješenje: ponovno uvesti lavova. Amerika je nekad bio dom Sjeverne Amerike lava (Panthera Leo atrox), koji je stajao nevjerojatnih 25% veći od afričkog lava te je najveća mačka koji je ikad živio. To mora da je gostili na konjske-tacos, a zauzvrat je zadržao populacije stabilna. A budući da su naši divlje konje su arapske neslaganja, možemo, kao i predstaviti iznimno ugrožene Azijski lav (Panthera Leo persica), koje će biti dobro prilagođen za blagdan svojim perzijskim braćom. Ako smo očuvanja “divlji” konji, možemo i to pravo (više, Bio bih mnogo više zainteresirani vidjeti konje, ako sam mogao vidjeti lavove previše).
I’m not too sure if I’m sold on this theme. I’ve been shopping around for a new look, and am giving “twenty ten” a try. Let me know your opinion – whether or not you think it is better than the previous layout “misty”, or if there is another design you love. Be extra critical (especially since I had zero to do with these pre-fab designs).
Dobro – didn’t like the new theme all that much, went back to the tried and true misty. I can always hope for a future one that fits this page a bit better though.
Thanks for the input (especially for some received off-blog).
A few months ago I was out collecting in western Arizona and failed to follow through with any images or updates on that trip. Dobro, it was a success and well worth the miles to get there! I was searching for a Crambid moth in the mountains of theKofa National Wildlife Refuge (special thanks to the Kofa staff for quickly approving my permits). While I’m still sorting through moths from that trip, the timing couldn’t have been better weather wise. It was mild out (mid 90’s is almost cool for that region!) and still wet. As you can see below, there were plenty of moths that night. Here are a few images from the trip… now to catch up with my latest photos!
This is as close to the Big Horn Sheep as I could get…
I’m back from the road with thousands of specimens, a little weary and ready to sit still for a bit. In all it was a wonderful trip – but I have lots and lots of processing to do. While I play catch-up, enjoy this clip. Koliko ja znam, there is no direct relation. But the Grinter pool is a small one and it seems like he should be somewhere on my tree. All I can say is that I hope after I am gone there are ghosts of my creepy employees haunting my home, breathing heavily behind visitors (Stvarno? that’s the latest ghost trick?). I also fully expect a documentary with a guy tryingStvarnohard to sound creepy – it should be in my last will and testament.
Tijekom sljedećih tjedan i pol dana ću se voziti do državi Washington za godišnji Lepidopterists’ Društvo sastanak. Ona se nalazi u turističko-trap grada Leavenworth, koja je “Bavarski tematske” diorama od razglednica i začepljuje trgovine. Dok sam ja nikada ne mogu sasvim razumjeti privlačnost tematskih gradova, To je nešto Amerikanci samo ljubav. Pakao, Živio sam u Solvang dvije godine (ispod), pa Leavenworth će biti nostalgičan sjećanje.
Sada, naravno da ću se za kampiranje i prikupljanje putu, tako da je moj posting će umočiti ispod već sporog norme. Pokušat ću objaviti neke nadopune čine cestu, pogotovo kada se nevjerojatne stvari događaju *. Ostanite s nama, i uživati u spektakularnim druge blogere iz mog blogroll.
* Koji su nesumnjivo će. Naravno, Znam Obećao sam ovo od moje zadnje putovanje u Arizoni i još dostaviti. Radim na tome!
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