Over onMyrmecos Alex Wild just brought to my attention a rather personal attack from a pair of republican senators (Tom Coburn, R-Okla., og John McCain, R-Arizona). Nok en gang begynte jeg å kommentere, men gitt hvor nær hjemmet dette treffer, Jeg følte en lengre omstendelig diatribe nærmer…
Angivelig, my job is agiant waste of money. Funding that the California Academy of Sciences (my employer) has received, is coming under direct attack. OK, 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…
En) 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 (f.eks. wasteful spending) is the cause of our economic problems.
Frisk av skrivebordet til Nature News er en funksjon grublet en verden uten mygg (eller -toes). Hvordan er denne nyheten? Kanskje det er noen nye vektorkontroll vi alle trenger å høre om! Vel, sjekk ut artikkelen fra den nyeste utgaven av Nature tittelen “En verden uten Mygg“. Jeg opprinnelig kom over dette på PZ Myers blogg og begynte å skrive en kommentar… som startet å vokse eksponentielt, så jeg bestemte meg for å blogge om det i stedet.
OK, maybe not. But I did get a little jealous when I came acrossdenne artikkelenwhere 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.
Omtrent tid for et annet volum av Genius of the Press. Hvem vil være den første til å oppdage feilen her? Innvilget, informasjonsdelen av california flat sats flytte nettstedet er ikke akkurat en kilde til toppen hakk journalistikk…
Her er noen flere bilder fra min siste nord biltur, denne gangen fra vestlige Idaho. Rett utenfor byen New Meadows var felt av blomster tykke med livet. Det var noe av den beste dagen å samle jeg har gjort i år, 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. I stedet, 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.
I østlige Lassen fylke, på de enorme høye einer åsene i grensen mellom California og Nevada, there are herds of “wild” horses, sheep and cattle. Par for the course, the only flowering plant around was horehound (Marrubium vulgare). Despite the non-native flora and (semi)mega-fauna, the insects were still at home. Being the only nectar source, the small clumps of invasives were packed with thirsty Lycaenidae. In all I netted 6 different species and got some decent shots of 3. It seems like I take a lot of butterfly photos for a moth collector…but it’s hard to pass up such a charismatic group.
But thinking of those horses (ah OK, “mustangs”) has given me a great idea. Ja, horses were once part of the prehistoric American fauna up until about 12,000 År siden. While the horse family may have evolved on the American plains, they have been long absent. Reintroduction of horses by the Spaniards planted the seeds that would become a staple of American culture. That is why today millions of dollars and tens of thousands of feral horses run wild in CA, NV and Utah. Even less popular are the somewhat clandestine annual culls that must be strictly enforced to keep these large herds healthy. My solution: reintroduce lions. America was once home to the North American lion (Panthera leo atrox), which stood a whopping 25% larger than the African lion and was the largest cat to have ever lived. These must have feasted on horse-tacos and in turn kept the populations stable. And since our feral horses are of Arabian dissent, we may as well introduce the extremely endangered Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), that will be well suited to feast on its Persian brethren. If we are conserving “wild” horses, we might as well do it right (plus, I’d be much more interested in seeing horses if I could see lions too).
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).
Vel – 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. Vel, det var en suksess, og vel verdt miles for å komme dit! 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…
Jeg er tilbake fra veien med tusenvis av eksemplarer, litt slitne og klar til å sitte stille i en litt. I alt var det en fantastisk tur – men jeg har masse av behandling for å gjøre. Mens jeg spille catch-up, nyte dette klippet. Så vidt jeg vet, det ikke er noen direkte sammenheng. 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 (virkelig? that’s the latest ghost trick?). I also fully expect a documentary with a guy tryingvirkelighard to sound creepy – it should be in my last will and testament.
I løpet av neste uke og en halv jeg skal kjøre opp til staten Washington for den årlige lepidopterists’ Foreningens fellesmøte. Det ligger i turist-felle byen Leavenworth, som er en “Bayersk tema” diorama av postkort og tette butikker. Mens jeg kan aldri helt forstå appellen tema byene, det er noe amerikanerne bare elsker. Pokker, Jeg bodde i Solvang i to år (under), så Leavenworth vil være en nostalgisk minne.
Nå selvfølgelig vil jeg være camping og samle underveis, så mitt innlegg vil dyppe under den allerede treg norm. Jeg skal prøve å legge inn noen oppdateringer danne veien, spesielt når utrolige ting til å skje *. Følg med, og nyte de andre spektakulære bloggere fra min blogglista.
* Som de utvilsomt vil. Selvfølgelig, Jeg vet at jeg lovet dette fra min siste biltur til Arizona og har ennå til å levere. Jeg jobber med det!
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