The Weekly Flypaper

Well look at that, I’m actually getting a Flypaper out on back-to-back weekends! That means this one is pretty short, but with the semester just starting, that means you’ll still have plenty of time for homework/grading/lesson prep! OK,  that’s not really a great alternative, sorry.

General Entomology

DEET: good for keeping mosquitoes away, bad for mixing in your drink. The tragic story of two Canadian tourists in Thailand.

A new IUCN report suggests 20% of invertebrates are at risk of extinction. Holy crap.

Wolbachia is a strange bacteria that makes insects do crazy things, like eat their own brains.

Do you know what the label around the neck of a ketchup bottle is for? The answer will probably surprise you.

I could probably include every post by Piotr Naskrecki in these weekly roundups because his writing and photos are so damn good, but I’ll keep it to just these two this week; The benefits of constant rain & Leaf-eating Leaves.

Insects in Art

Crystal Ernst put together an awesome interview with Nova Scotian artist Elizabeth Goluch, who creates incredible articulated insect sculptures filled with detail and puns. Check out the interview on ESC Blog, and then be sure to see more of Elizabeth’s work in her gallery. I want them all!

Speaking of insect sculptures I want, the glass work of Wesley Fleming is up there on my list!

Carleton grad student Thomas Hossie had some great artwork done for his blog Caterpillar Eyespots by the talented Mandy Strobo.

I’m not sure I’d call this digital art “fashion” but that doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly cool. (mildly NSFW; artsy nudity)

Diptera (Flies)

Dave at the Home Bug Garden has a great post all about soldier flies (Stratiomyidae), a group that’s close to my heart (I did my BSc Honour’s Thesis on the Ontario species).

Brigette is starting a new semester as a TA, and illustrates the post (innocently) with a picture of free-loader flies (Milichiidae); the sub-conscious at work?

Coleoptera (Beetles)

Either Ted MacRae is starting a new series of entomological fan fiction with his post titled “The Very Dirty Tiger“, or the 50 Shades of Grey media storm has been going on for too long.

This post about acorn weevils by Rebecca Deatsman includes the best weevil pun ever!

Hymenoptera (Bees, Wasps & Ants)

These hyperparasitoid perilampid wasps are cute and have an awesome natural history. Great work by Eric Eaton to share these fascinating little wasps.

Apparently there are ants that farm scale insects, not for honeydew, but for meat. Ants: making humans seem less unique every day.

Lepidoptera (Moths & Butterflies)

University of Guelph grad Adrian Brewster was featured in the UofG magazine atGuelph this week, and talks about her work with butterfly conservation and outreach.

Need to identify moth eggs in your soybean field? Check out Ted MacRae’s super magnification guide to common pests.

Taxonomy

Huge news in the world of zoological nomenclature this week, as the ICZN passed an amendment to the “Code” that allows e-publication of new species names. As you might expect, this generated a lot of attention online:

• The ICZN Press Releases
• The actual amendment, published in ZooKeys and Zootaxa
• Zootaxa Editor Zhi-Qiang Zhang published a short editorial about this new era in zoological nomenclature
• The Nature News blog featured it
• As did PLOS’ EveryONE Community Blog
• Alex Wild briefly mentioned it
• Christopher Taylor at Catalogue of Organisms shared his thoughts about it
• And the Taxacom email Listserv has been all a buzz with the implications, potential problems and plenty of opinions about this new move

Academia

The other night I was laying awake in bed late at night wondering whether anyone had studied how much sleep the average academic got. The next morning I woke up to this neat little study, which suggests they don’t get much. I’ve since been going to bed thinking about whether anyone has figured out how Micropezidae are related to one another, but unfortunately there haven’t been any magical studies answering my questions the next morning. Bummer.

Do blogging academics make bad leaders? Interesting post, but as someone who wants to run their own lab one day, I wouldn’t mind knowing about these issues directly from my advisor.

If you’re just starting a graduate degree, be sure to check out Chris Buddle’s advice for being a successful graduate student.

Entomology conference season is upon us, and TGIQ has some great ideas on how to get the most out of these gatherings.

Dave Hone also has some good tips for connecting at meetings, while Mike Kaspari explains why you should prepare and practice your “elevator speech” before getting to the conference.

Biodiversity Science

Terry Wheeler has a really nice synopsis of how insects are taken from the field and incorporated into an insect collection.

If you’re a Biodiversity Bioinformatician, there are 3 job openings in Ottawa at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada you may be interested in applying for.

Other Fun Stuff

Another massive scientific announcement came out this week about the ENCODE project, which seeks to understand how the human genome really works. It’s a massive piece of work that has stirred up some serious controversy over media-hype and terminology. Ed Yong wrote on of his best pieces ever describing what this new project found, and has since been updating it with the counterpoints and arguments that have arisen. Definitely worth a read if for no other reason than to see how science writing should be done!

Why do many male field biologists have a propensity for big, bushy beards? To protect themselves from UV rays of course!

XKCD considers a world of alternate biogeography.

While mocking the Heathrow Airport Starbuck’s knowledge of geography, Alex Wild shared a rather odd map that turned the Yucatan Peninsula into the, ahem, Yucatan Penis-insula, and dramatically changed my opinion of the Caribbean archipeligo…

Ken Faulkes, who blogs at NeuroDojo, published an original research paper on his blog rather than in a traditional peer-reviewed journal. I knew it was only a matter of time until someone tried this, and it makes my earlier post about journals citing blogs even more relevant. There is an excellent discussion about the roll of personal publishing in academia going on in the comments.

There was a new set of special edition Phylo cards published with some awesome marine art.

A big selection of Roger Tory Peterson’s original art from his bird field guides is going up for auction this weekend. If I had some spare cash you can bet I’d be bidding on some of these fantastic plates!

If you like BBC Nature documentaries and have thought it’d be cool to work on one, the BBC Natural History Unit is currently hiring an intern for the fall.

The Symbiartic blog over at Scientific American has been highlighting new science art each day in September. This steampunk rhinoceros by Albrecht Dürer has been my absolute favourite so far.

Video of the Week/Further Reading

No video here this week, but check out Adrian Thysse’s The Week on Sunday from Sept. 2, 2012 for a great E.O. Wilson clip.