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Ike -> Texas

Hurricane Ike appears to be done with Cuba, and remains as a Category One storm. The three day cone is now ashore in Texas, so the predicted location of landfall can be made with increasing certainty with each passing 12 hour period. Conditions for hurricane strengthening are about as good as they get in the Gulf, with nothing important expected to shear at the top, and two or three eddies of warm water to pass over. The hurricane is currently heading straight west by north west, but will make a right (northerly)turn as it approaches land and will come ashore somewhere along the Texas…

Sunday Chess Problem

I'm a little pressed for time today, so for this week's chess problem I've selected one of those old-fashioned efforts whose only point is a shocking key move. The following position was composed by Sam Loyd in 1868 and calls for mate in two: Of course, white's force is so overwhelming that were this a normal game he could quickly force checkmate in a few moves. However, there is only way to accomplish mate in two, and that is by starting with 1. Kc4!. Boom! White unpins the black rook and exposes himself to checks. Even better, this is a waiting move. White threatens nothing, but…

Oh no... Cedric died.

Oh no... Im genuinely crying over this. Cedric the Tasmanian Devil died. Here is the obvious reason for why I loved Cedric: But I loved Cedric for scientific reasons too. I thought he was going to help us save Tasmanian Devils from extinction. Dr. Alex Kreiss is the cute boy in that pic. Dr Kreiss says it was a difficult day. "We would see and do something with Cedric every week so it was a very sad day and not just for me but for the keepers that looked after him since he was born, for the other vets that worked with him and that did health checks with him. So it was very sad."…

Gays are like pedophiles and wife-beaters.

The key to my obnoxious cheerfulness are my expectations. They are very low. I expect nothing from anyone. Thus when they fail miserably (say, the BP clean up) Im not disappointed. And, when people accomplish even the most menial tasks, Im happy. That being said, the Oklahoma City Council actually approved, 8:1, an OKC Gay Pride Parade. :-D YAAAAY!!! Wow, gay pride parade in OKC! What a time we live in!... But what about that one dissenter. Whos that one "NO!" vote...? That fellows name is Brian Walters. Im sure you all have NO IDEA why he voted against it: The reason I voted no on…

ERV vs Ray Comfort?

Ha. Ray Comfort (ie, insufferable attention whore) is cruising for tricks atheist kids to debate in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, he is going to run into the same problems Charles Jackson had. While Professional Evangelical Freaks can draw crowds on the coasts, they arent exactly a novelty in Oklahoma. Theyre the norm. So the atheist kids I know ignored Jacksons pleas for 'debates'. If they wanted to debate some idiot radical theist, they could have gone home and talked to Mom. *blink* Kids in OK join atheist groups to get away from those kinds of people. However I was happy to 'debate' Jackson…

I Might Have to Check This Out!

Via David Heddle, I came across this announcement for a conference in Texas entitled “Intelligent Design in Business Practice.” From the announcement: Successful business leaders are intelligent designers, guiding organizations along innovative paths to achieve ends otherwise unattainable. Intelligent designers are not micromanagers, who short-circuit the freedom and creativity that organizations need to thrive. At the same time, intelligent designers do not encourage unbridled autonomy, which sets organizations adrift, causing them to lose focus and discipline. By striking a proper balance…

Wake 'em up!

This is an amusing reversal. Connecticut Valley Atheists put up a Winter Solstice sign in the town square, in the same place that was reserved for Hanukkah displays and nativity scenes, and while some people think it's just fine and fair, others are freaking out. On Friday, a town crew erected a larger Christmas tree, 10 feet from the atheists' three-sided display. Mayor Jason L. McCoy said that the intent was not to block the view of the atheists' display, but to place a larger Christmas tree in a prominent position in the park. He said he directed town staff to purchase a larger Christmas…

Hovind Convicted

Kent Hovind, one of the slimiest of the young-Earth ignorance peddlers, has been sentenced to ten years in prison for tax fraud: Pensacola evangelist Kent Hovind was sentenced Friday afternoon to 10 years in prison on charges of tax fraud. After a lengthy sentencing hearing that last 5 1/2 hours, U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers ordered Hovind also: -- Pay $640,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. -- Pay the prosecution's court costs of $7,078. -- Serve three years parole once he is released from prison. Hovind's wife, Jo Hovind, also was scheduled to be sentenced. Rodgers…

I Am Serious, and Stop Calling Me Evolgen

Reminiscent of Mrs. McCave, who had twenty-three sons and named them all Dave, it seems that The Seed Mothership is having trouble making distinctions among her progeny. This is EvolutionBlog, folks. evolgen offers a different flavor of delectable bloggy goodness. Apparently this is not the first time this particular confusion has happened: Why, it seems like just last week that we were kvetching about the ad nominum attacks upon our character -- or, at least, the spelling of our blog's name. The people who add an extra "V" (turning evolgen into evolvgen) are lightweights compared to…

What Did Delaware Ever Do To Him?

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait doesn't like Delaware: Last night I drove home from northern New Jersey to Washington and it went smoothly enough except that, as customarily happens on such journeys, we hit a wall of traffic halfway through. What was the cause of it? Delaware. Yes, Delaware, that sinkhole of inequity and greed. Delaware, that backward, corrupt parasite state. Delaware, the great underappreciated scandal of modern American life. Those of us who do not live in Delaware are robbed blind by those who do in numerous ways. Probably the most consequential of those is its lax…

Interesting Questions

Actually, many of the questions Marilyn vos Savant got asked in her column are positively ingenious. They also provide a lot of food for thought. Here are a few that caught my eye. As always, feel free to hash them out in the comments: I need glasses to see things at a distance. When I look in the mirror, I can see my face clearly. When I look at the things reflected in the room behind me, they appear fuzzy, yet the distance is an illusion, and all objects reflected are an equal distance from my eyes. Can you tell me why this is so? If you had a completely enclosed truck with birds…

Ten Inessential Papers in Quantum Physics

I should really know better than to click any tweeted link with a huff.to shortened URL, but for some reason, I actually followed one to an article with the limited-reach clickbait title Curious About Quantum Physics? Read These 10 Articles!. Which is only part one, because Huffington Post, so it's actually five articles. Three of the five articles are Einstein papers from 1905, which is sort of the equivalent of making a Ten Essential Rock Albums list that includes Revolver, Abbey Road, and the White Album. One of the goals of a well-done list of "essential" whatever is to give a sense of…

May I Be Excused? My Brain Is Full.

I've had a lot of weird things happen in the time I've been teaching, but the above image is my new favorite message from a student. We gave an exam Thursday night, so a couple of my colleagues canceled class on Friday, but I'm going to be at DAMOP the last week of class, so I want to get a little bit ahead to reduce the amount of stuff other people have to cover for me. So I had a class as usual. All but two of the students showed up, which either means we terrified them with the exam, or they actually like the class. And, actually, there was only one student who didn't show up at all-- the…

Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn by Amanda Gefter

One of the pop-physics books I've read recently was Amanda Gefter's much-discussed Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn. I was going to post a review of it back in March, but literally the day I was planning to write it, I got email from an editor at Physics Today asking if I had any books I'd like to review for them. So it ended up there instead of here: Amanda Gefter’s Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn comes with a super-sized subtitle: “A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything.” It’s a mouthful, but also rather fitting for a book that manages to be many things…

Barash States it Plain

Given all the semi-coherent venom coming from people like Michael Ruse and Jacques Berlinerblau lately, I'd say the Chronicle of Higher Education is lucky to have David Barash in its stable of bloggers. This recent post is a most welcome affirmation: Two decades ago, I wrote a book proposal for a volume to be titled “The Atheist's Bible.” It was embraced by a major publishing house but not by my wife, who worried that such a book, appearing in the Age of Endarkenment then known as the Reagan Administration might well subject our children to ostracism, verbal abuse and even possible physical…

Shermer Spanks Chopra

Michael Shermer has has an excellent essay responding to Deepak Chopra's “quantum flapdoodle.” Chopra's use and abuse of quantum physics is what the Caltech quantum physicist and Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann calls “quantum flapdoodle,” which consists of stringing together a series of terms and phrases from quantum physics and asserting that they explain something in our daily experience. But the world of subatomic particles has no correspondence with the world of Newtonian mechanics. They are two different physical systems at two different scales, and they are described by two different…

Two-Word Lyrics: Proper Name Edition

I should queue up some more PNAS posts, but I think I'm going to save a bunch of them for when we're at Worldcon. And I do have more serious science-related stuff that I've marked to talk about, but it's Friday, and everybody could use a break. So here's a silly pop-music thing instead. As with past editions, the following two-word phrases are taken from pop songs, and (I think) uniquely identify a single song. At least, I can only think of one song in my collection for each of them. The twist this time around is the each of the two-word phrases is a person's name. If you think you know the…

Talk to the Paw

There's an interview with me, plus bonus comments from Emmy, over at Paw Talk: Words of advice for fellow pet owners? If you're looking to get a dog, I'd recommend visiting your local animal shelter, as you can find lots of great dogs there. And take walks with your dog-- every now and then, I see people who just leave their dogs penned up in the yard, and that's just sad. Get out, see the neighborhood, and get a bit of exercise. Yeah, it's a drag sometimes, especially when it rains, but it's better for both of you. Emmy: Treats. Lots and lots of treats. Also, don't trust the squirrels. They'…

Student Post: What I learned in skool today...

... well not today. I learned very little today , but generally, here are some interesting things I've picked up in class: -If you sever a cat's cerbral cortex from its hindbrain it can still walk on a treadmill (in a harness that compensates for the poor feline's lack of balance). This was the topic of one of PZ's many tangents. -One way to inhibit the HIV virus is to make a drug that targets a protein our cells make. The key is to identify a protein the virus needs but that we do not. CYC202, a cyclin-dependant kinase inhibitor, may be one such drug. -"HIV virus" is redundant, but hey, so…

Friday Invalid Blogging

I sprained my ankle yesterday. That's not an official medical diagnosis-- I have a doctor appointment later today to get that-- but I've done this before, and I know the feeling. Sadly, I did not injure myself saving orphans from a burning building (as I usually do on Thursdays), or while dunking a depleted-uranium basketball through a flaming hoop into the face of a Yeti (because how cool would that be?), but by stepping off our front porch in the wrong place while carrying stuff out to the trash. I'm not sure, but I think the stupidity of the injury actually makes it hurt more-- somebody…

Links for 2010-11-06

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Schrodinger's job interview. (tags: silly physics history comics smbc) NASA Space Games | Wired Science | Wired.com "The future is now. NASA wants to start playing space games. Check out this NASA Spaced Out Sports Design Challenge. Unfortunately, the challenge is geared towards grades 5-8, but I can't help thinking about this. The deal is that students submit some game that they design for astronauts to to play in the International Space Station. Maybe I am ruining this whole competition, but I want to share some ideas (kids, feel free to expand on these…

Links for 2010-09-20

6 Famous Unsolved Mysteries (That Have Totally Been Solved) | Cracked.com "One of our favorite pastimes here at Cracked is sucking the mystery out of life like the cream out of a Twinkie, leaving only the bland, dry sponge cake of reality behind. To that end, we've decided to list the often mundane solutions to some of the world's most enduring mysteries, and once again, you're welcome." (tags: science history internet lists cracked culture) slacktivist: Jackie at the crossroads ""But this girl I work with told me about it," Jackie says. "She read it in a magazine. And she said her cousin…

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oy.

A News of the Stupid story that's too good to pass up. I mean, how can you not click on a headline like "Men Accused of Wrestling Python Outside McDonald's": MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Two men were arrested after bewildered diners at a McDonald's spotted them wrestling a 5-foot (1.5 meter) python named Boris in the restaurant parking lot, police said Thursday. Victoria state police said the men stole the 8-year-old black-headed python and a lizard from a pet shop on Wednesday. They then brought the snake to the McDonald's parking lot, where they began wrestling with it in front of puzzled…

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update (US Version)

The Barnes and Noble store finder finally indicated the presence of copies in the local stores yesterday, so we made a trip down to the Colonie Center, where they had a half-dozen face out in the Physics section, and probably 15-20 on the new releases table. Woo-hoo! (Now I can shift to fretting that they've got too many in the local stores, and will end up returning most of them...) Anyway, if you're in the Albany area, and want a copy, they have them in Barnes and Noble now. Miscellaneous other items: A nice plug from Derek Lowe How to Teach Physics to Your Dog catches the eye of another…

Unclear on the Concept

I was sitting in my office on campus, working on some computer stuff, when I noticed a bunch of guys from Facilities out in the hall, bustling around doing something. A few minutes later, one of them stopped right outside my door, and called into the main Facilities office on his cell phone. "We're up here in Science and Engineering to do the annual fire alarm test but, um, there are a bunch of faculty still in the building. Could you, you know, send them an email or something to let them know we're going to ring all the alarms?" This wouldn't be a big deal if it were a one-off thing-- we are…

David Stern, Eliot Spitzer, and Bernie Madoff

... walk into a bar. No, wait, that's not what I want... In the interval before this morning's Mike and Mike show became the Tiger Woods Scandal Hour, they were talking about Tim Donaghy and his allegations about the NBA, which basically amount to the league being just a few steps up from the WWE. Mike Greenberg in particular kept blasting these rumors as completely outlandish because the sort of game-fixing Donaghy alleges would be blatantly illegal, and if it was exposed, people would go to jail. "These are wealthy and powerful people," he said, more or less, "You're crazy if you think they…

A Question About Frost

It's November now, which means we're edging into winter, and my morning ritual has been expanded to include scraping the frost off the cars when I get back from walking the dog. I've had to do this half a dozen times already, and I've noticed a puzzling pattern. Our driveway is aligned almost exactly east-west, with the cars facing east when they're pulled in at night. This means that one set of side windows faces north, and the other south. And here's the thing that puzzles me: the frost layer is significantly thicker on the south-facing side windows than on the north-facing side windows. I…

links for 2009-04-23

Particulate pollution cuts carbon dioxide, model shows - physicsworld.com "Falling levels of aerosol pollution could make it much harder to curb the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is the conclusion of climate researchers in the UK and Switzerland, who have found that pollution in the form of aerosol particles gives a dramatic boost to plantsâ photosynthesis. " (tags: science physics environment news biology chemistry optics) Venus Day 2009: 10 Things You Can Do To Help Rid The Atmosphere Of Noxious, Flesh-Burning Sulfuric Acid | The Onion - America's Finest News Source "Could…

Eight Months and Counting

The official release date for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is December 22nd, exactly eight months from today. It's probably a little too early to go into countdown mode, but I thought I would mention a couple of recent developments with the book. First, the book itself continues its steady progress toward publication. I got the copyedited manuscript last week, and got off remarkably easy. There are only a few substantive changes, and remarkably few grammar and spelling corrections. Credit for the easy copyedit probably ought to go to Kate, for proofreading almost as many drafts as I have…

Best and Worst Interview Questions

I spent a few hours Sunday afternoon interviewing students for positions in the Minerva House program, a student life initiative that I'm involved with. The interviews were don by a panel-- me and four students-- and we tried to mix in a few oddball interview questions with the serious stuff. The most successful of these was "What are five things you can do with a straw?" One of the students kept trying to ask "If you could be any Pokemon, which would you be, and why?" but we're apparently not drawing from a nerdy enough pool of students, because most of them couldn't think of anything. I…

Thursday Baby Blogging 020509

This week's Baby Blogging is in honor of SteelyKid's continued growth: she had her six-month checkup on Wednesday, and has now officially exceeded the weight limit on the bassinet attachment to her porta-crib. We've had to lower her all the way down to the bottom of the crib, where she can look out at the world through a greenish mesh screen: She's very happy about this. Emmy isn't quite sure what to make of it. The other big development of the week is her new bouncy seat: This was purchased last weekend, after seeing her in the jumperoo at day care, bouncing up and down with a huge smile…

links for 2009-02-02

Misha Lemeshko's blog: The greatest math problem ever "This is a problem, which can be easily solved by children before entering elementary school. If you want to give it a try, please forget everything you have ever studied." (tags: blogs math silly) The terrifying prospect of an America without lawyers. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine "So the question one wants to pose to Howard in the wake of all this lawyerly liberation is whether the country was better off for it. Did America achieve any of the benefits he predicts? Howard urges, for instance, that liberating ourselves from law…

A Finishing School for Third-Rate Burglars

I'm getting twinges in my neck indicating that I've been spending too much time looking at the computer, and I've got some computer-heavy work coming up in the next couple of weeks, so expect reduced blogging in the next few days. I couldn't let this essay in the New Yorker (via Matt Yglesias) pass without comment, though. It's arguing for a model of endowment-supported nonprofit journalism, but along the way it takes a shot at my alma mater: Not to pick on any one institution, but, from a constitutional perspective, how did we end up in a society where Williams College has (or had, before…

Ice Storms and Liberal Guilt

We're into our third day without power at Chateau Steelypips, and as a result, the household has temporarily been relocated to a hotel near SUNY Albany. National Grid says probably Tuesday, but they really don't know when they'll get our electricity back. This is, of course, deeply annoying, but it feels sort of churlish to complain too much, given how much worse it could be. After all, the only physical damage thus far has been the destruction of our back yard gate by a falling limb. That's not even worth a homeowner's insurance claim. We're also luck to be in a position where we can afford…

links for 2008-12-06

The Intersection: Announcing Unscientific America A new book, from Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, coming to fine bookstores everywhere in May (tags: science books writing politics society) PLoS Genetics: Taken to School: An Interview with the Honorable Judge John E. Jones, III The judge in the Dover "Intelligent Design" trial, in case you don't recognize the name. A good interview, hitting a lot of good points about how the law works. (tags: science law education biology politics religion us articles) Christmas tree lights and series circuits | Dot Physics "So, why are christmas…

links for 2008-05-23

Thoughts from Kansas : Hurray for the primaries! "Good Lord, they've all gone crazy. It isn't just Lanny Davis any more." (tags: US politics video youtube silly) Astronomers watch as star dies - physicsworld.com "The source, now identified as SN 2008D, marks the first time a star has been caught turning into a "type-Ib" supernova" (tags: astronomy science news space) slacktivist: Look at their shoes "No one smart enough to be capable of tying their own shoelaces is stupid enough to really believe what they're saying when they invoke [Neville Chamberlain]." (tags: politics religion…

RIP "RD," 2003-2008

A few years ago, my father retired from public school teaching, and decided to get a dog to keep him company. He purchased a yellow Labrador Retreiver puppy, who was dubbed "RD" for "Ron's Dog." He started out small, but quickly grew into a barrel-chested lunkhead, who panted like a freight train whenever he saw a person who might give him food or attention, which is to say any person at all. A week or so ago, he started acting a bit off, and wouldn't eat. For this dog, that was a major crisis, so they took him to the vet. Yesterday, they found out that he was riddled with tumors, and they…

links for 2008-04-20

Jacks of Science â Super Slow Motion is the New Slow Motion "[A]s frames per second increase (speed of video decreases), coolness approaches infinity, a value infinitely cooler than the speed of normal life. Moving past this discontinuity, boringness surpasses coolness and we observe exponential decay as speed of (tags: video youtube silly science gadgets movies) Phil Gordon Answers Your Poker Questions - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog "Randomness, otherwise known as "variance" at the poker table is much bigger and more important than most poker players realize. I have a…

We're All Gonna Freeze!!!

When I was talking to my parents on the phone last night, my father told me about a guest op-ed in the Press and Sun-Bulletin that might be of interest to some ScienceBlogs readers and bloggers: As if there aren't enough problems in the world, we are now on the verge of a phenomenon that will dwarf the projected scenarios of global warming. The cause is the alarming and accelerating loss of Earth's weight and mass by the burning of fossil fuels. Every year that goes by, millions of tons of coal and millions of barrels of oil are burned. Nothing is left but ashes, soot, and gases, and there is…

Dorky Poll: SI or CGS?

I have a doctor's appointment this morning, and then class, so here's another Dorky Poll inspired by the fact that I'm teaching intro E&M: What system of units do you prefer for E&M: SI, or CGS? This is even dorkier than usual, so I suppose I should provide some context... The CGS system of units uses Centimeters, Grams, and Seconds as the base usints for everything, as opposed to the metere, kilograms, and seconds of the Systeme Internationale (also called MKS in some places). This doesn't make very much difference in mechanics, but it's a big deal in electromagnetism, because the…

Richard K. Morgan, Broken Angels [Library of Babel]

This is the second Takeshi Kovacs novel, sequel to Altered Carbon. Kovacs is a former UN Envoy, a generally amoral individual loaded up with a bunch of sophisticated mental conditioning, and sent out into the world to troubleshoot problem spots for the world government. And he's a guy who really puts the "shoot" in "troubleshoot"... In Kovacs's universe, humantiy has expanded to the stars using dribs and drabs of technology gleaned from the leavings of an alien race, known colloquially as "Martians," because their first ruins were discovered on Mars. When the book opens, he's working for a…

Women of AMO Physics

Via Steinn, a "meme" asking people to name women in science: Rules: 1. You can't choose people from your own institution or company. 2. You can't google or use the internet to aid in your search. (But if you know someone is a scientist, but not sure what disciple, you can look that up). 3. You can consult textbooks, journals, and class notes. 4. You can ask others to help you brainstorm, but they can't use the internet just to get 5 names fast (see #2). 5. Living and deceased scientists are acceptable. 6. Links to or references about the named scientists are greatly appreciated. Let's share…

Score One for Physics

Physics comes through at the ballot box: Stunning many who considered the district west of Chicago reliably Republican territory, Bill Foster, a physicist and Democrat, won a special election on Saturday to fill the Congressional seat that J. Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House, held for two decades. [...]Mr. Foster defeated James D. Oberweis, a dairy company owner, in a contest for the 14th Congressional district, a long swath that runs from the far western suburbs of Chicago nearly to the state's Iowa border. He will fill the remaining months of Mr. Hastert's term. Mr. Foster…

links for 2008-03-02

Stephen Huneck Gallery at Dog Mountain Vermont " I wanted to build a chapel, one that celebrated the spiritual bond we have with our dogs, and that would be open to dogs and people. People of any faith or belief system." (tags: dog religion art animals) Such Madness - New York Times Let the hype assault begin... (tags: basketball sports) Michael Nielsen » Questions Big picture questions about science, the Web, and everything. (tags: science society culture internet politics education academia) Idiom Shortage Leaves Nation All Sewed Up In Horse Pies | The Onion - America's Finest News…

Hooray For Macedonia!

Via the href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0831/p15s02-stct.html">Christian Science Monitor: Formerly a part of Yugoslavia, and on the brink of ethnic war only a few years ago, Macedonia has become what may be the first "wireless country" in the world. With $3.9 million from the US Agency for International Development, the Macedonia Connects program has brought wireless Internet service to the country's 460 primary and secondary schools, which had already been equipped with 6,000 computers donated by the Chinese government. On.Net, a Macedonian company, was contracted to build the $…

YAB...Yet Another Bushism

This is from a recent White House press conference. The href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060821/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_text">transcript is on Yahoo News. QUESTION: A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn’t gone in. How do you square all of that? BUSH: I square it because imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein, who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who had relations with Zarqawi. You know, I’ve heard this theory about, you know,…

Request: the Dunn lab needs live ants

Tapinoma sessile Ant ecologist extraordinaire Rob Dunn sends along the following request: We are looking for live colonies of Aphaenogaster rudis Temnothorax curvispinosus or T. longispinosus Crematogaster lineolata Tapinoma sessile from anywhere within their ranges. If you are potentially willing to contribute colonies we would be very grateful. Please contact Sarah Diamond (sediamon@unity.ncsu.edu) regarding details. If you are interested in more extensive collection of colonies, we may be able to reimburse your collection time. These collections will be used to try to understand…

Who will save the world from zombie attack?

Forensic entomologists, of course. These are the strong-stomached folks who study the arthropod fauna that colonizes dead flesh. Their knowledge of insect taxonomy, ecology, and development can be used to provide estimates of the time and conditions of death. Or zombification, in the present case. Hypothetically, suppose a zombie shuffles along to my house at horrifying rate of 1 km/hr. On arrival, I note that the zombie is infested with final instar larvae of the blow fly Phormia regina. Under our current warm summer weather conditions, it takes at least 5 days for the maggots to reach that…

Answer to the Monday Night Mystery

What was that inexplicable bit of chitin hiding away in a hole in a twig? This photo should help: It's the heavily sclerotized head shield of a Cephalotes varians turtle ant. Ants in this mostly Neotropical genus inhabit pre-existing cavities in trees and branches, a limiting resource that spurs intense competition among colonies of various tree-dwelling species. Workers come in two size classes: small and relatively lithe, and tank-like with a dinner plate for a head. Turtle ants aren't fighters. Rather, they're all about defense. If a colony gets hold of an old beetle burrow, the heavily…

Specimen Request: Cerapachyines

Marek Borowiec writes in this morning with a request for ant specimens from the subfamily Cerapachyinae: Dear Colleagues, I am currently working on the ant subfamily Cerapachyinae. I plan to work on both alpha-taxonomy as well as phylogeny of these ants. In the course of my study I will need as much material as possible. In addition to the traits already looked upon by other researchers, I want to explore as many new characters as possible, and so I plan to take a close look at both adults and immatures, the structure of metapleural, metatibial and metatarsal glands, sting apparatus,…