Por Chris Grinter, o 25 de marzo, 2010 I came across the full-text PDF of the amphibious moth article and extracted the tree showing the radiation of this species group and probable evolution of the amphibious traits. Interesting to note the case shape, and each moth is endemic to its own volcano in the Hawaiian archipelago.
This is a Bayesian analysis of a three gene phylogeny constructed with EF1-alpha, CAD and COI. If anyone wants a copy of the paper, send me a note. Pulled from: Rubinoff D., Schmitz P., Multiple aquatic invasions by an endemic, terrestrial, Hawaiian moth radiation. PNAS March 2010.
Por Chris Grinter, o 25 de marzo, 2010 UR6FVJ2S3B8H
Nothing wrong with established religion…
You can read all about his story from the NY Times. I think the scariest thing about this whole abuse scandal (scandalsssss) is that the church actually believes that this is the work of satan – not the twisted minds of individual humans. Si, “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican”, so why punish a man who just needs the devil vanquished? Oh wait, they don’t even exorcise priests because it is just a “temptation” with young, deaf, boys. Then how is it that these priests who are so easily tempted left in positions of power? The answer is easy… just like any government, the Catholic church is profoundly incompetent.
Por Chris Grinter, o 25 de marzo, 2010 For all those who abstained from voting (I want to assume some readers must have known the identity of our mystery caterpillar, but were too lazy to comment), here is the answer (after the break).
Continue reading Answer to last week’s Genius of the Press
Por Chris Grinter, o 24 de marzo, 2010 
Outro animal incrible de Hawai – a completamente eiruga anfibia (publicado en marzo 22 PNAS). Aínda que hai algúns lepidópteros acuáticos, todas teñen branquias que as manteñen restrinxidas á auga (fíxate, estamos a falar só do estadio larvario). Se o seu regueiro seca, tamén o fai a eiruga. A adaptación novidosa destes insectos é a capacidade de vivir con comodidade, e aparentemente indefinidamente, en terra seca ou mergullado en auga doce – un trazo distintivo destes 12 novas especies de Hiposmocoma (Cosmopterigidae). Isto é exclusivo non só dos insectos, senón a todos os animais coñecidos. Ten, por suposto, anfibios. Pero a diferenza destas eirugas, precisan de humidade para sobrevivir e moitas veces secan rapidamente. O hiposmocoma prospera en condicións do deserto, ou mergullado durante semanas. Non só foron 12 diferentes especies descubertas (que tamén son as primeiras eirugas coñecidas en comer caracois), pero mesmo parece que esta habilidade anfibia evolucionara tres veces. Está claro que as presións selectivas sobre os pequenos lepidópteros nestas áreas son extremas.
Os lepidópteros no seu conxunto desenvolveron unha gama completa de adaptacións, incluíndo especies parasitarias, detritívoros, funxívoro, endófago, carnívoro (tamén en Hawai), acuático e agora totalmente anfibio. Hmmmm, soa unha mala canción (a esta música). Claramente, os leps son máis fríos que calquera outra orde.
Quizais se eu fose Rubinoff puidera nomear unha avelaíña Hiposmocoma aquamana. Claro, Aquaman non valía nada na terra… polo que quizais debería ser H. potioaquamana (poción- procedente do latín para superior ou máis eficaz).
Por Chris Grinter, o 22 de marzo, 2010
Spring has come to northern California and moths are on the wing. I took a quick trip up to the Sierra foothills over the weekend and hiked up the steep slopes above the American River. Above is pictured Xanthothrix ranunculi f. albipuncta (Noctuidae: Stiriinae). It happens to be sitting on a beautiful california poppy. The hostplant, con todo, é Coreopsis stillmanii and grows in small patches of serpentine soils on southern facing slopes along the central valley. Aquí está un Xanthothrix sitting on the host.
This moth was originally described as a form of X. ranunculi en 1925 (form roughly equals subspecies today), and then completely forgotten about and unseen until 1990. It was left out of a major revision of the subfamily, so the legitimate status as a subspecies or full species remains unknown. Sexa en conta.
Por Chris Grinter, o 19 de marzo, 2010 Yet another installment of my favorite series, the genius of the press. This article comes from ABC news, who can identify this caterpillar? It is decidedly NON a gypsy moth.
Fellow entomology blogger Myrmecos had a similar story last week.
Por Chris Grinter, o 19 de marzo, 2010  (crédito fotográfico)
The monarchs have started their spring migration north and you might even see one soon (Non é interesante se vives en FL ou HI onde hai residentes durante todo o ano, ou en CA onde hai puntos de invernada separados). Non obstante, os informes dos seus lugares de inverno en México son pésimos; with possibly the lowest population size since the colonies were discovered in 70’s. A few bad storms in and along the butterfly’s route, coupled with habitat fragmentation and logging, has probably killed 50-60% of the mexican monarch population (according to reports below).
 (credit)
Is this anything special to be concerned about? I don’t particularly think so. Weather was the key player in this year’s record low population, and I can imagine the butterflies have seen numbers this bad before us humans were around to count them. Apostarei calquera cousa por que a poboación se recupere nos próximos anos, no need to run around screaming, the monarch will be in your garden this summer and next.
Monarchs are pretty and kids love them, so it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to figure out why so much effort is put into monitoring them. But as a lepidopterist, nothing is as boring as yet another report on the “plight” of the monarchs Zzzzzzzzzzzz. I tend to believe there are more pressing issues to be concerned about, such as the accelerating rate of biodiversity loss in the face of scientific ignorance. Monarchs do play an important role as a public mascot and even as a figurehead species that help preserve precious habitat – but let’s use them as a foot in the door for further education. Si, o Monarch Butterfly Fund, is striving for habitat protection and sustainability. A good thing. I understand that this achieves a positive outcome, but why only in the name of the monarch? This seems like a spectacular opportunity for science education that is just rounded down to “save the monarch”. These forests serve as much more than a shelter to one butterfly species and even more than “an important carbon sink and oxygen generator”.
My interpretation.
Instead I suggest this. It is by far, orders of magnitude, more interesting:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGYAMDGMraA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Por Chris Grinter, on March 13th, 2010 Published in the Santa Barbara News Press, Inverno 2009. Who can tell me what’s wrong with these captions?
Page scan credit: Stuart Wilson.
Por Chris Grinter, on March 13th, 2010 As if educational standards weren’t bad enough in this country, Texas has decided to make them worse. A recent push from a conservative school board has re-written history, literally. The logic may be a bit difficult to follow, but they have attempted to “balance” history by injecting more conservative ideals (fíxate, no one is a historian on the board). What is to be changed:
- Adding confusion on separation of church and state – (si, we know it’s not literally in the constitution. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.)
- Discussing how christian ideals helped to found our country.
- Conservative resurgence in the 80’s and 90’s, including the Moral Majority and the NRA.
- Discussing the violent nature of some civil rights movements and republican support of congressional civil rights votes.
- Adding that Germans and Italians were interned as well, not just the Japanese during WWII.
- Adding how senator McCarthy was correct in being paranoid over communism.
- Replacing the word “capitalism” con “free-market enterprise”.
- Removal of Thomas Jefferson from sections of the book.
This entire change is ghastly. I don’t have a problem mentioning some republican presidents and their positive role in history, or the role of the GOP. History may be written by the victors, but it should strive towards fair and balanced. The alterations made above are absolute bullshit and only serve to further their conservative, religious, agenda. What really pisses me off is the alteration of the civil rights movement and Japanese internment. Just because a bunch of old, fat, white men in congress realized they better pass civil rights laws does not mean they should deserve credit for it. E, are they really expecting us to believe that internment was not focused on the Japanese? That entire chapter in our US history is undeniably horrible and shameful, it was also fueled by racism. I do not understand how supporting bigotry and racism is considered a conservative value. Why must they unashamedly, and ignorantly, re-write history to further their agenda? The poisoning of the GOP and conservative values by religion is all to clear in this case. The bread and butter of religious fundamentalism is inculcating the youth. This strategy is very successful when you encourage large families and insane devotion. Now that the majority of conservatives are religious they are spinning their webs onto our children (ben, your children).
The worst is yet to come. Texas and California are the largest textbook markets in the country. If they pass legislation mandating the alteration of texts then the publishing companies must fall into line. Since printing different versions of books for different states is financially unfeasible, then only ONE book gets printed for US schools. If Texas successfully adds this BS to the history books then every public school in the US gets force fed (or as republicans like to say – rammed down our throats) these books.
What is a conservative today if not religious? What is coming next: insertion of more “balanced” ideals of global warming, cloning and evolutionary biology. Sexa en conta.
Fail to Texas.
Por Chris Grinter, o 10 de marzo, 2010 Publico a doutra persoa. Atopei esta serie nunha conferencia de PZ Myers, pretty entertaining and you should go check out Mr. Deity yourself.
[crackle src=/p/Mr._Deity/Mr._Deity_and_the_Messages.swf&fv=id=2021384&mu=0&ap=0]
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