Nature
grrlscientist | March 16, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Tulpe, tulip, nature, environment, image of the day
Tulpe.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
awild | March 15, 2010
Ok, so we all know this is a wasp. But what's with the lumps near the tip of the abdomen?
Ten points for identifying the lump, and five points for anyone ambitious enough to put a name on the wasp, too.
grrlscientist | March 15, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Krokus, crocus, nature, environment, image of the day
Krokus.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
This crocus image doesn't capture the purple-ness of the blossom, but I do like the contrast between sharply focused stamens and the softly focused petals.
awild | March 14, 2010
To create this video, I fed honey water to a captive colony of Camponotus pennsylvanicus carpenter ants and recorded them passing the liquid among nestmates. The sharing behavior is called trophallaxis, and it means more to ants than mere nutrition. They use the behavior to spread chemical messages around the nest and to create a unified colony odor.
As a case in point, near the end of the video workers are visible licking the queen. Her scents are picked up this way and passed around the colony via trophallaxis. It's how the ants know the queen is present and reproducing.
For the record, I…
grrlscientist | March 14, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Tulpe, tulip, nature, environment, image of the day
Tulpe.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
grrlscientist | March 13, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, PalmenGarten Blüte, flowers, nature, environment, image of the day
PalmenGarten Herz.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
grrlscientist | March 12, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, PalmenGarten Blüte, flowers, nature, environment, image of the day
PalmenGarten Blüte.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
Here's another pretty flower blossom that I photographed growing in the lawn at PalmenGarten. The flower resembles a buttercup but I am certain it's a different species .. can you tell me what it might be?
grrlscientist | March 11, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Baumrinde, tree bark, nature, environment, image of the day
Baumrinde.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
awild | March 10, 2010Also, my first ever video blog:
Watch the HD version if you can. The ants are actually visible, if you squint.
grrlscientist | March 10, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, flower porn, nature, environment, image of the day
Fern Blatt.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
awild | March 10, 2010At the time I photographed this little scene (at Bell Smith Springs, Illinois) I was myself unsure of the drama playing out on the oak gall. I sent pictures to wasp expert Hege VÃ¥rdal to see if my preliminary guess of a pair of gall parasites was worth anything. Her reply:
I believe that you are on the correct track concerning the specimens. It is probably an inquiline and a parasitoid trying to reach the gall chamber. It looks like a unilocular (one-chambered) gall. Often the inquiline female kills the gall wasp larva when ovipositing in the gall or alternatively the inquiline larva kills…
grrlscientist | March 9, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, flower porn, nature, environment, image of the day
Palmwedel.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
awild | March 8, 2010Alright, Sherlock. What's going on here?
Five points each for the identity of the big round thing, for the insect at the top, and for the insect at the side. Ten points for describing the story.
And a freebie point to anyone who comes up with an idea for what to do with all these points.
This scene was photographed in the fall in southern Illinois. Here are close-ups of the critters:
mystery wasp #1
mystery wasp#2
grrlscientist | March 8, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, flower porn, nature, environment, image of the day
Daffodil
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
grrlscientist | March 8, 2010tags: education, public outreach, BirdNote Radio Program, Bird Note, birding, Bird Watching, birds, nature, environment, conservation, NPR, National Public Radio, Seattle Audubon Society, mp3
Are you trapped on a crowded subway or in a traffic jam of honking, stinking cars? If so, you might be interested to know that you can transport yourself to a different world, a cool green space where you can feel the earth breathe in time to the music of birds. Your personal vehicle is BirdNote, a 2-minute radio program about birds and nature.
"We want to help people connect to the natural world and…
grrlscientist | March 8, 2010tags: reptiles, chameleon species, herpetology, Chris Raxworthy, research, American Museum of Natural History, AMNH, New York City, field research, nature, travel, Madagascar, speciation, streaming video
With Madagascar containing nearly two-third's of the world's chameleon species, Christopher Raxworthy, Associate Curator of Herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History, recently embarked on an expedition to the island in search of these special lizards. His hope was to track down the lined-chameleon in order to further study speciation on Madagascar.
Having recently returned from…
grrlscientist | March 7, 2010tags: Praying Mantis, Preying Mantis, mantid, insects, birds, hummingbirds, offbeat, predation, predatory behavior, nature, streaming video
Sandy Lizotte, the Ventura Hummingbird Lady, captures a rare and remarkable moment where a praying mantis was waiting patiently at a hummingbird feeder to ambush a hummingbird. As you'll see in this video, the mantid succeeds.
The hummingbird did survive.
grrlscientist | March 6, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, flower porn, nature, environment, image of the day
Flower Porn 2
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
grrlscientist | March 5, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, flower porn, nature, environment, image of the day
Flower Porn
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
jstemwedel | March 4, 2010Let's say you're a book review editor for a large circulation science periodical. You receive books from publishers and you look for scientists with the relevant expertise to write reviews that really engage the content of the books they are reviewing.
The thing with having the relevant expertise, though, is that it may put you right in the middle of a controversy that the book you've been asked to review is probing or advancing.
In other words, it may be tricky to find a reviewer who is conversant in the scientific issues the book raises and simultaneously reasonably objective about those…