fun
awild | January 16, 2010
Christopher Taylor on the evolution of insect wings
Get your fix of the Daily Parasite.
Remember Phase IV, the classic '70s ant sci-fi film? You can now watch the entire movie online.
Macromite is back.
Entomologists telling jokes, at Bug Girl's blog.
cagapakis | January 14, 2010Most synthetic biologists and biological engineers (and basically everyone else) think of DNA as code, simply carrying the information to make the RNA and proteins that do the real work inside the cell. In the past few years, a small group of biological engineers have used DNA instead as a physical substrate, a programmable nanomaterial to build all kinds of tiny shapes with (even smiley faces). The shapes that the DNA folds into depend on the sequence, which controls how different strands match up to each other and bend. For a great introduction to building shapes out of DNA in 2D and 3D…
cagapakis | January 13, 2010There have been a lot of great Darwin themed things popping up in the past few months in celebration of the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, but none as avant garde and awesome as "Tomorrow, in a year", an electro-opera based on the life and work of Charles Darwin by The Knife, a Swedish electronic music duo (and one of my favorite bands). From the website of the company performing the opera, Danish theater group Hotel Pro Forma:
An opera singer, a pop singer and an actor perform The Knife's music and represent Darwin, time and nature on stage. Six dancers form the raw material…
awild | January 10, 2010From Australia's The Avalanches, a song and video even more delightfully bizarre than last week's movie.
(via gtcaz)
clock | January 4, 2010
Remember that 'vampire' is one the few words that Serbian language gave to the world. Garlic is THE remedy against everything there.....
awild | January 3, 2010The classic '80s video from Thomas Dolby:
I'm still not sure what it means. But I do hope they keep a room for me at the Home for Deranged Scientists.
awild | December 28, 2009Earlier I listed my pick of the best insect photos of the year taken by other photographers. Now it's my turn. In 2009, I snapped 8000 exposures to produce 805 processed, saleable images of live insects. Below are my favorites.
A parasitic Pseudacteon fly targets a fire ant in Argentina
Male size variation in Onthophagus dung beetles
Aphaenogaster ants are tempted by the elaiosome of a bloodroot seed, Illinois
Eastern treehole mosquito larvae, Illinois
Trophallaxis in wood ants, Wisconsin
Face to face with a giant water bug, Illinois
male and female northern walking sticks,…
clock | December 26, 2009This movie should be made, with Emma Watson starring:
See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.
clock | December 25, 2009
I always opened it this way. My Mom taught me this decades ago. What are you saying? We are descended from monkeys?!@#$%^&*! No way!
clock | December 25, 2009
Interesting how the parent is steering the youngster towards the bag, trying to get it to use it as a prop!
edyong | December 23, 2009They say that time flies when you're having fun but it also works the other way round. If you make people think that time is passing more quickly, you can make tasks more fun, noises less irritating and good songs even better.
I'M NOT HAVING FUN!It's clear that our perception of the passage of time depends on how we spend it. When we're motivated, engaged or alert, it shoots by and when there's nothing to occupy our minds, it slows to a crawl. This was demonstrated most evocatively by a French geologist called Michel Siffre, who spent 2 months in a cave, completely isolated from human…
stoat | December 17, 2009 So, it snowed. I got stuck in traffic after a curry and Miriam had to walk home through the mighty blizzard. The photo doesn't really capture the full horror of a full 5" of snow - who knows, perhaps more by tomorrow. Madingley hill was chaos and I shall certainly cycle to work tomorrow as it will be quicker. And I still haven't dug the dahlias up. Oops.
Update: it turned out to be wonderful snow, just right for children, Daniel was out in it all day. I was at work, and it proved possible to cycle in and back. We had a brief exciting power cut which reminded us how fragile our western life…
awild | December 17, 2009We've returned from the 2009 Entomological Society of America meeting in Indianapolis. More on this later.
For now, here are slides from two presentations I gave yesterday:
Character Evolution in Heterospilus
Origin of Pheidole obscurithorax
Both talks report from ongoing research, so I should caution that neither of the studies has seen peer-review.
clock | December 14, 2009Please join us on NC State's Centennial Campus on Wednesday, Dec. 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. for two special speakers.
Our "seasonal" speaker is Dr. Larry Silverberg (aka Dr. Silverbell), NC State professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and world-renowned expert on the "Science of Santa." Dr. Silverbell will present his latest research on the advanced material properties of Santa's sleigh and review previous research on toy delivery and time travel.
Continuing with the theme that science and engineering can be fun and educational, Dr. Laura Bottomley, electrical engineer and director of…