Journal archives for September 2017

September 3, 2017

Find a Lot of Bugs When You Clean Your Backyard Swimming Pool? Scientists Want to See Them.

Jere Schweikert, an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences, was cleaning the pool in his backyard in Marin County when the opportunity occurred to him. “I just got this feeling that I was tossing a lot of good bugs over the fence,” he says. “For years I’ve seen bugs splattered on people’s car radiators and I’ve been wondering what they were. One day it just occurred to me to look at the insects I was cleaning out of my pool.”

https://baynature.org/article/those-bugs-swimming-pool-save-them-for-science/

Posted on September 3, 2017 10:11 AM by biohexx1 biohexx1 | 0 comments | Leave a comment

September 16, 2017

Engaging for a Good Cause: Sophia's Story and Why #BugsR4Girls

Scientists, particularly those involved with nonapplied or “basic” science, are often asked to justify the broader impacts of their work, or more acutely, how they and their work contribute to society. Although it may be difficult to articulate the immediate importance of providing names for new flies, the inherent value of knowledge is undeniable. At times, however, the positive impact scientists have on society, or even on a single individual, can burst into reality in real-time. Here we examine one such example.

https://academic.oup.com/aesa/article/110/5/439/4103474/Engaging-for-a-Good-Cause-Sophia-s-Story-and-Why

Posted on September 16, 2017 11:42 PM by biohexx1 biohexx1 | 0 comments | Leave a comment

September 18, 2017

Palm Springs is this endangered, tiny, white beetle's only home and it's delayed a drainage project for years.

The Casey's June Beetle lives on a 3.5-mile area stretching north to south in Palm Springs, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. Less than 5 percent of its natural habitat exists, but it still covers an area where the Riverside County Flood Control District has been trying to build its Line 41 drainage system for nearly a decade.

http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2017/09/14/palm-springs-has-its-own-endangered-insect-and-its-delayed-drainage-project-years/661906001/

Posted on September 18, 2017 10:31 AM by biohexx1 biohexx1 | 0 comments | Leave a comment

September 26, 2017

The Bug Collection: A Brief Tour of the Essig Museum of Entomology.

One of the largest university collections in North America, the Essig’s regional emphasis is primarily on California, but it also expands to the Pacific Rim, including the islands of the central Pacific. Oboyski, a moth specialist who earned his Berkeley Ph.D. in 2011, has identified nine new species himself—seven from Hawaii, and two from Tahiti. The museum’s namesake, Professor E.O. Essig (1884–1964), author of the seminal text Insects of Western North America, was chiefly an aphid man.

https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/fall-2017-bugged/bug-collection-brief-tour-essig-museum-entomology

Posted on September 26, 2017 09:40 AM by biohexx1 biohexx1 | 0 comments | Leave a comment