Morgan Jackson

Media Empire Expansion: Breaking Bio Podcast

Fun Stuff, Science Communication 27 Responses »

Sep 262012

Breaking Bio, the newest science podcast to hit the internet, with your host, Steven Hamblin!

I have a confession to make: I’ve been “secretly” recording a podcast with other biologists from around the world and haven’t told anyone about it.

Until now.

I’m happy to share with you a new podcast having fun with (and at the expense of) science. Momma always said I had the face for radio and the voice for newsprint, so I’m happy to be putting it all to the test with this new media project!

Breaking Bio was the brainchild of Steven Hamblin, a behavioural ecology/computational biology Post-Doc currently working in Australia, and he soon enlisted a motley crew of twittering scientists:

Rafael Maia – PhD candidate at University of Akron studying evolution of bird colour,
Tom Houslay – PhD candidate at University of Stirling studying sexual selection in insects and our resident eye-candy (or so I’ve been informed),
Bug Girl – Queen Bee of the insect blogosphere and provider of sage advice and witty responses,
Michael Hawkes – PhD student at University of Exeter studying sex, selfish genes and insecticide resistance in Drosophila (he’ll be making his debut soon),
Crystal Ernst (aka The Bug Geek) – PhD candidate at McGill University studying Arctic beetle ecology (she’ll be making her debut soon as well),
Me

We’ve recorded 5 episodes, and have so far managed to slander a dead tortoise, compare notes on the grad student life, discuss the world’s smallest fly, give a how-to on academic bridge burning, and share stories from international conferences (among many other topics & tangents). Overall it’s a light-hearted look at science and a way for us to share our passion while having some fun and unwinding a little!

It’s been a lot of fun to be a part of, and I hope you enjoy it while having a laugh or two at our expense! Of course, if you have a question or topic you’d like to hear us discuss, or want to join in on the fun yourself, let us know and we’ll be happy to ~~taint your CV~~ bring you on board!

You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, or subscribe & watch the video version over at YouTube (I’ve embedded the first 5 episodes here for your viewing pleasure). Be warned that there is some explicit language in each episode, and possibly bad puns.

Gotta Match ‘Em All! Pokemon Inspirations – Generation I

Fun Stuff, Insects, Pop Culture 3 Responses »

Sep 142012

Miles Zhang is an MSc student at Laurentian University who, when not trying to catch ’em all, is finishing up his thesis on the taxonomy of parasitic wasps.

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade or so, you’ve surely heard of Pokemon (short for Pocket Monsters). Released in 1996 by Nintendo under the names of Pokemon Red and Blue, this pair of interlinkable RPG (role-playing games for non-gamers) took the world by storm and has now become one of the most lucrative video game-based media franchises in the world.

Like most eleven-year-olds at the time, I was infatuated by these little fictional monsters. Every day I would run home after to catch the TV show, and boot up the Gameboy as soon as my parents weren’t watching. Sixteen years later, I have played most of the Pokemon games from all five generations, and have caught most of the 659 Pokemon.

However, this blog post isn’t about how much of a nerd I am! Rather I’d like to highlight the 65 Bug type Pokemon that have appeared throughout the series. As an entomologist, I would also attempt to match them to their real-life counterparts and briefly discuss their biology. This will be divided into 5 parts, with each post covering one generation. In a way, I guess insect taxonomists have a similar goal as a Pokemon master…Gotta catch ‘em all (or at least try)!

Bug Pokemon were one of the 15 types of Pokemon introduced in Gen I, which includes 12 of the original 151 Pokemon found primarily in Pokemon Red, Blue (Green in Japan), and Yellow version of the games.

Caterpie->Metapod->Butterfree

The inspiration behind these Pokemon are the larval, pupal, and adult stages of swallowtail butterflies (Family Papilionidae). The red horn protruding from Caterpie is the equivalent of a swallowtail caterpillar’s osmeterium, which are fleshy organs that are normally hidden. If threatened, the osmeterium can be quickly everted, which is laced with a foul-smelling secretion and used as a defense mechanism. The caterpillars of the Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) also have large, snake eye-like markings on their thorax in later instars, creating the illusion of common green snakes. The Y-shaped osmeterium further enhances the disguise by mimicking a snake tongue. It’s too bad this was not utilized in the game, as Caterpie can only use Tackle and String Shot.

Who’s that Pokemon? Its……..a spicebush caterpillar! Photo by Derek Ramsey (GNU FDL)

Metapod is modeled after a swallowtail chrysalis, which can often be found hanging off a branch attached via a silken pad. As time passes the chrysalis hardens (hence the Harden attack), and the adult butterfly emerges. While all butterfly wings are covered in scales and can be potentially irritating to the eyes, it cannot produce poison, paralyze or put things to sleep like Butterfree.

Weedle->Kakuna->Beedrill

Now while some hymenopteran larvae such as the sawflies have larvae with multiple rows of fleshy prolegs, the larvae of stinging wasps (Aculeata) are legless and do not possess a Poison Sting like Weedle.

Venonat-> Venomoth

A gnat (Venom + Gnat = Venonat?) is the common name for various nematoceran flies, and is not related to moths.

Paras -> Parasect

While the Pokemon itself resembles a cicada nymph, the inspiration for these Pokemon might be the Entomophthorales fungus (parasite=parasect?), which enters the digestive tract and expands until it can be seen between the abdominal plates. The bloated corpses are often found with straightened legs and wings, perhaps to ensure the distribution of fungal spores.

Entomophthora muscae and its victim! Photo by Hans Hillewaert (CC-SA)

Pinsir

Pinsir (haha get it, Pincer…oh puns) is the only non-evolving Bug Pokemon in Gen I, as Scyther can evolve into Scizor starting in Gen II (which I will talk about in the next post). Stag beetles (Family Lucanidae) are extremely popular in Japan as pets. The males of the largest species in Japan, Ookuwagata (Dorcus curvidens) can sell upwards of several million yen (tens of thousands of dollars). As the males have large and distinct mandibles and rather aggressive, they are often pitted against each other for the purpose of entertainment and frequent contestants of the ever ridiculous Japanese Bug Fights (http://www.japanesebugfights.com/).

Stag beetle ready for battle! Photo by Simon A. Eugster (CC BY 3.0)

This concludes the first part of Real Life Bug Pokemon, more to come in the near future.

Photos from #BugShot2012 – Hogna lenta (I think)

Arthropoda, Natural History, Photography 3 Responses »

Sep 092012

Hogna lenta (or something closely related in the H. lenta species group) – Archbold Biological Station, Florida. These large wolf spiders are easy to spot at night by shining a flashlight off their large eyes, which reflect back a greenish light, much like mammal eyes, despite being completely different physiologically.

What would a lesson from Thomas Shahan be without a super close-up portrait of a spider? I’m stealing Dave Walter’s phrase “Adventures in Spider Misidentification” for this one though. When I took these photos I figured it’d be a cinch to identify this big spider because of those bright red margins on the chelicerae, but apparently that’s a pretty common trait in many wolf spiders (family Lycosidae). Not only that, but there is a huge amount of intra-specific variation in colours and patterns in this species group, making me less than confident in my ID of Hogna lenta.

If you have a better suggestion on the ID of this hairy hunter, please let me know! Here’s another photo that may be more useful for identification purposes.

Hogna lenta wolf spider – Archbold Biological Station, Florida

The Weekly Flypaper

Blogosphere, Weekly Flypaper 2 Responses »

Sep 082012

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.

Continue reading »

Evolution Online Journal Club: Who’s In?

Academia, Life as a Grad Student, Science Communication 15 Responses »

Sep 072012

Photo by Jonathan Joseph Bondhus, CC BY-SA license

The Why

Journal clubs are common in many labs/departments, with students meeting with post-docs and advisors to discuss the latest and (sometimes maybe-not-so-) greatest research being published in their field of study. These journal clubs not only help students learn new techniques and concepts, but also teach them how to critically examine and review an academic paper, an important skill for evaluating new research.

Unfortunately for those of us who work in smaller labs without many other grad students or senior researchers, we don’t get the opportunity to have these discussions very regularly (if at all). While I took a few course-based colloquia during my MSc, I would love to take part in a journal club that lasts more than a semester. When I first joined Twitter, I floated the idea of a Twitter-based taxonomy journal club, but never really got much of a response at the time (largely due to my small follower list I suspect).

Then earlier this week Rafael Maia (a PhD candidate at the University of Akron) confessed on Twitter that he cyber-stalks journal clubs in other labs and universities, and so I suggested perhaps we start our own journal club via social media! It wasn’t long before grad students from other institutions expressed an interest, and so I figured I’d get the ball rolling and start fleshing out some of the ideas that were thrown around on Twitter about how we can make this happen! Continue reading »

The Weekly Flypaper

Blogosphere, Weekly Flypaper 2 Responses »

Sep 012012

September 1, 2012. Can anyone explain to me where the summer has gone? It feels like just yesterday that the snow was melting and I had grand plans of exploration, doable to-do lists to do, and plenty of time to enjoy the summer, but now BugShot is finished, a new crop of undergrads are moving into the University of Guelph residences, and the fall entomology conference circuit is quickly upon us!

Good thing I can bank on the Bug-o-sphere to keep the summer flowing throughout the year.

Continue reading »

#BugShot2012 Photos – Backlit Green Lynx Spider

Invertebrate, Photography, Workshop 4 Responses »

Aug 302012

Green Lynx Spider Peucetia viridans Florida Backlit

Green Lynx Spider (Peucetia viridans) — Archbold Biological Station

Still working on flash control, I thought I’d experiment with backlighting after seeing some of Alex Wild’s phenomenal leafcutter ant photos, where the detail in vegetation popped. I only have one off-camera flash however, so I looked around until I found this Green Lynx Spider (Peucetia viridans) sitting nicely while the Florida sun shone brightly in behind, highlighting the leaves like I had hoped. From there, it was a matter of getting the correct combination of shutter speed, aperture and ISO (1/200, f14 & ISO 400 in this case) to allow for the natural light to filter through the leaves, while using diffused flash to expose the spider. I’m not thrilled with the glare above the spider, and the composition isn’t great (it’s pretty heavily centered), but considering the wind was blowing the plant and the spider all over the place, I’m just happy I managed a shot that’s in focus and which somewhat recreates the scene I had envisioned! I’ll certainly be trying this trick again on a calmer day, or with a tripod and plamp around…

If you want to see a much different photo of a Green Lynx Spider, check out Crystal Ernst’s (aka The Bug Geek) incredible portrait.

Photos from #BugShot2012 – Ambush Bug

Insects, Photography, Workshop 6 Responses »

Aug 292012

Ambush bug Phymatidae Phymatinae Florida Archbold Biological Station

Ambush bug – Phymata americana – Archbold Biological Station, Florida

While I’ve been using my camera in Manual mode and manually focusing my photos for years, I’ve stuck to using TTL flash, with fairly inconsistent results. One of the points Alex made during his BugShot lighting session was to try using manual flash to gain consistent control over the light output. I decided that would be one of the areas of my photography I’d concentrate on improving next, taming light to act how and where I wanted it to, and this was one of the shots that made me start thinking I was getting a hang of it.

Because there was such diversity of light and dark areas, from the shadowy region between leaves to the light regions on the ambush bug’s arms, being in manual flash mode meant I didn’t have to worry which area my flash was going to expose for, and as a result, I got consistent lighting as I adjusted compositions and focus planes between shots. Luckily this ambush bug was patient and posed nicely while I got things figured out!

Also, apparently ambush bugs aren’t their own family anymore, but rather a subfamily (Phymatinae) of the assassin bugs (Reduviidae)! Who knew? Damn phylogeneticists not thinking to send me a memo when they shake things up like that…

#BugShot2012 Day 4 (& 5) – Wrap Up & The Way Home

Insects, Photography, Travel, Trip Report 2 Responses »

Aug 292012

Before I knew it, Sunday morning was upon us and we were down to our final morning of BugShot 2012, which started off great with a raffle for Wimberly gift certificates and plamps for 4 lucky participants (no luck for me unfortunately). The day’s events were cut short because of various travel plans and concerns involving tropical storm Isaac, but Alex, Thomas and John did a great job answering some questions submitted to the Big-Box-O-Questions (you can see them and the answers thanks to Crystal’s Storify of the morning) before moving onto a talk by John about Digital Asset Management.

John’s DAM talk detailed some best practices regarding photo management and workflow, from the moment you click the shutter button right through to sharing and archiving. John is a big fan of Lightroom (as am I) and went over some of the features available for importing and cataloging your photo collections. I’ve been keeping a redundant folder system to protect myself from database corruptions, but John placed all of his trust (and files) into the hands of Lightroom’s management. It made me think that perhaps it’s time I let down my guard and save myself some time by letting Lightroom do the file management on import, but with my luck I’ll end up with a massive system failure shortly after doing so!

There was a lot of audience participation as many people had questions about software or suggestions from their own workflow, so John wasn’t able to get through much of his talk. Apparently the instructors will be sending around their presentations for people to look over on their own time, so I’ll look forward to seeing more of John’s thoughts on keeping files safe and ready to go.

To finish the workshop off, Alex talked briefly about selling images and strategies for making a little money off your work. While he does belong to a photo stock agency, Alex currently sells more through his own gallery site and uses his blog to raise his profile. He also credits his early start in social media and online photo sharing for his success now. I’d certainly love to make a little money off of my work to cover new toys or trips, so I’m going to try and finally get around to setting up a gallery site of my own soon. If people can’t find my images, then they won’t know what their missing out on (or something equally confident…). I’ll file that in the “To Do relatively soon” list.

With that, BugShot 2012 officially came to a close, with participants grabbing a quick lunch before heading off for flights before Isaac hit (which it never really did). Because of my travel arrangements, I had originally hoped to stay an extra night at Archbold and visit the insect collection Monday morning, but the threat of a tropical storm/hurricane forced me to get back to Orlando for the night instead. Alex was kind enough to give myself and Guillaume Dury (a grad student at McGill University) a ride back to civilization, and I had a little extra time to pick his brain about insects, photography and academia, making the rainy trip go by in a flash.

We found an affordable hotel room near the airport, and met up with Crystal, who was stuck until the next day unexpectedly, and had a nice evening chatting about life, work and the grad student way. A relaxed wake up the following morning, an easy shuttle to the airport, and practically no lines at the airport, and it wasn’t long before I was back in the air and heading home. In Chicago I even managed to find a sweet hide-out with plenty of power outlets, which made my WiFi-less layover more bearable. Another smooth flight back to Kitchener and I was back home (although I still got pulled aside by customs, like usual). I have to give major props to American Airlines, because I don’t think I’ve had such uneventful and enjoyable flights like I did this time; I’ll certainly be flying with them again in the future!

So that brings my BugShot 2012 experience to a close. I had an absolutely awesome time, and picked up several tips and plenty of inspiration to work with over the coming year. I’m extremely grateful to the instructors for their hard work, openness and for providing me with a student fee waiver so I could be a part of a great workshop. If you’re interested in photographing insects, whether for work or for play, I can’t recommend BugShot highly enough. You’ll learn new things, meet interesting people, and gain valuable experience that will make you a better photographer. I’d certainly like to go back in the future, and I hope to see some of you there too!

I’ll be posting some my photos over the next several days, as well as discuss some of the photo gear that John demonstrated which I think could make an affordable lab set up. Stay tuned for more soon.

The fringe of Isaac

Hmmm, I’m not really believing this “Sunshine State” thing…

Headin’ home

#BugShot2012 Day 3 – Time to take MOAR photos!

Insects, Photography, Travel, Trip Report 2 Responses »

Aug 272012

It may just be me, but I think mornings in Florida are earlier than they are anywhere else. What other reason would make me be so slow to get out of bed this morning? Clearly not the late night photography, or the editing into the darkness, or the midnight social hours, because there’s definitely no down side to those activities. That must mean there’s a temporal disturbance surrounding Archbold Biological Station that makes mornings come sooner than anticipated!

After finally crawling from bed just in time for a bowl of cereal, the group was back out into the field to find and photograph whatever insects they could find, and put some of the newly learned techniques into practice. I spent the morning hanging out with Thomas Shahan and wandering through the Florida Scrub. This is such a unique habitat, and while the insects require a little more searching to find, there are some absolutely fantastic organisms roaming around. I spent some time with a patient bee fly (family Bombyliidae, photos to come later this week) as well as some of the stations Florida Scrub Jays, which weren’t afraid to pose for a photo. I’ve heard they really enjoy peanuts, so maybe they were looking for a handout for their time, but sadly I had nothing but thanks to give.

Soon we were back together at the station posing for a group photo (or 3, or 5…) and then learning about white box photography from Alex Wild. A white box is literally just that, a simple box lined with white paper on the inside to bounce light around, where you can place an insect to get super soft, diffuse lighting. What I found most interesting was Alex has begun leaving the back of his box open, allowing there to be a shadow produced along the back defining line of his subjects. We normally use styrofoam coolers from fish markets in our lab for this sort of photography, but I’m curious about trying Alex’s open back door technique (my only worry being that it leaves a pretty big opening for flies and other skitterish flying insects to vacate the area).

After lunch we had a few hours to spend off by ourselves, so I took MOAR photos, and then started getting them onto the computer to have a look. I’ve been pushing myself to get out of my shell and try new things, and by the first look at the photos, I’m going to have to keep trying! I really haven’t had a chance to edit anything yet, but I’ll be sure to share some photos throughout the week as I get them touched up.

We finished off the afternoon learning about focus-stacking from Thomas Shahan, and high speed photography from John Abbott. Both techniques are specialized for specific circumstances; focus-stacking to provide more depth of field in a composite of several frames focused on different planes, and high speed photography to stop insects in flight. Although I’ve done a lot of focus-stacking with my work in the lab on pinned specimens, I’ve never really tried it with live organisms in the field or studio before. The results can be quite stunning, but I’m not sure it’s something I’ll get into.

High speed flash photography however, is something that I’d love to try after I win the lottery! By using super-fast shutter speeds, big banks of high-output flashes and laser triggers (yes, LASERS), John is able to photograph insects in flight, completely stopping their motion. The photos that John showed were absolutely incredible (you can see a selection of his work in his gallery here), but it requires a ton of equipment (and considerable knowledge & experience with electrical engineering it would seem), most of which isn’t cheap. Like most things with digital photography now-a-days though, there is a potential more affordable alternative that may allow more people to get into the game, with a new product called StopShot. Maybe one day I’ll try my hand at high speed photography, but it will be awhile I expect.

After dinner we had another short photo critique session, and then plenty of free time to socialize and work on making or editing images well into the evening again!

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