An adult blackmargined aphid under a dissecting scope. Photo by Jessica Honaker.

Last week, Kristie wrote a post on solifuges, some of the coolest arachnids around! This week, I'll introduce you to the awesome insect that I studied for my Masters research – the blackmargined aphid.

But what is an aphid? Aphids are very small insects, and they have rounded, soft bodies. They live on plant stems and undersides of leaves, and have a long mouthpart called a proboscis that acts like a needle to jam into the plant tissues to suck out the juices. Another totally cool feature of aphids is a pair of cornicles on their abdomen. They remind me of little biological exhaust pipes – but they secrete a kind of wax that coats the bodies of the aphids to keep them from drying out.

There is an easy way to distinguish blackmargined aphids from other species. The outer margins of their wings are lined with black (hence their name)!

You can see the black margins on the aphid's wings! Photo by Bart Drees, TAMU.

One of the coolest things about aphids is their watery waste. It’s called honeydew. It’s mostly made up of sugars from the plant that the aphid didn’t process. And for blackmargined aphid, their honeydew is about 95% sugar. Part of my research dealt with quantifying how much honeydew blackmargined aphids produced, and figuring out how much energy was being removed from pecan trees.

So honeydew is both good and bad. It’s bad because if there is a lot of honeydew produced by a heavy infestation of aphids, it coats the pecan leaves. Because of the high sugar content, it’s the perfect place for sooty mold to grow. Growth of sooty mold means not enough sunlight gets to the leaves and photosynthesis is reduced. But it can be a good thing (in moderation!), too. The honeydew attracts lots of beneficial insects to the trees. These “natural enemies” feed on pest species – including blackmargined aphids – that have the potential to harm the tree.

Blackmargined aphids only feed on pecan trees. Both species are native to North America, and have co-evolved for thousands of years! Today, pecan is being cultivated in other parts of the world as well, and the blackmargined aphid has moved along with it.

Distribution of pecan and blackmargined aphid in the United States. Photo by USDA NRCS.

Fun Facts:

• Most of the year, blackmargined aphid females reproduce by parthenogenesis, or cloning. But once the weather starts to get cold, male aphids develop and mate with females. Eggs are laid, and overwinter to hatch the following spring.

• Each adult blackmargined aphid can produced up to 32 generations of offspring.

• Despite the high sugar content, honeydew doesn’t actually taste sweet.

• Blackmargined aphids hold their wings flat against their backs, while other yellow pecan aphids hold their wings pitched over their bodies.

When I first started my research, I didn't really know much about aphids. But once I started studying them and learning more about their behavior and biology, the more fascinating they became. Now, they're one of my favorite insects!

If you have pecans around where you live, check some of the leaves around May - June to see if you can find blackmargined aphids. You can also see if you have other species on different plants. Just look for the squishy bodies and cornicles!

--Jess

Here's what the SciStarter blog says about the project:

When someone collapses and stops breathing, an automated external defibrillator or AED can save their life. [Home AEDs are available for purchase.] In Philadelphia, PA, a city with about 1.5 million people, AEDs are all around us. Near our homes, workplaces, and even grocery stores! Currently, there is no comprehensive map, and, as a result, AEDs are often not used when they are most needed. With the crowdsourced information collected from this contest, the organizers will build a map of AED locations in Philadelphia that can inform 911 services and the public.

The MyHeartMap contest will officially go live January 31, 2012 at 9am! Until then, you can download the app from the iPhone store and Android marketplace and start submitting entries. Clues will be posted at the project website myheartmap.org and philly.org. The contest closes on March 13, 2012, at 6pm ET!

There are three ways to play:

1. Find and photograph the most AEDs in Philadelphia County before March 13, 2012 and win the $10,000 grand prize. The team or individual that finds the most “confirmed,” “eligible” AEDs by the contest end date will receive the grand prize of $10,000.

2. Be the first to submit a photograph of a “Golden”AED and win $50. The organizers have identified between 20 and 200 AEDs in Philadelphia County as “Golden” AEDs. These are unmarked, and you won’t know it’s a winner when you photograph it. Clues will be posted at the MyHeartMap project website.

3. Want to help but not compete for a prize? Submit addresses of locations without AEDs or that you wish had an AED – this is just for fun, and it will help with the map.

Darlene Cavelier, SciStarter founder, had the opportunity to chat about this project with Raina Merchant, Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Here's the interview (also posted on the SciStarter blog.)

SciStarter: Why did you start this project, Raina?

Raina: I wanted everyone who had a cardiac arrest to survive and have a second chance at life. For this to happen, lots of different components of the chain of survival have to be in place. AEDs are an important link in the chain, and this seemed like a good place to start and then build on. I was disturbed to learn that although AEDs were in public places all over the world, no one knew where they were, and, in the event of an emergency, I couldn’t use my phone or emergency services to locate them. I wanted to approach the AED problem using a novel approach that engaged the public through technology, phones, and social media.

I learned about the DARPA Network Challenge (DNC) to locate red balloons from a colleague and thought that it seemed like a great approach to apply to a public health problem. The DNC showed that with the proper incentives, today’s “networked society” is able to virtually mobilize to help solve a challenge and importantly to innovate. When this challenge relates to the American public health system and the well-being of our citizens, there is the opportunity for the response to be equally strong if not better. Ultimately, studying how social networking can augment traditional research methods offers significant promise in approaching public health challenges that are essentially stuck and need a paradigm shift to advance

SciStarter: What do you hope to accomplish?

Raina: Our goals are to: Build the first U.S. city crowdsourced map of AEDs that can be made available to the 911 center and the public via a mobile phone. Gain a better understanding of the distribution of AEDs in Philadelphia so that we can determine optimal AED placement. Develop crowdsourcing and social media metrics related to data collection, validation, and surveillance. Use the information learned from this project to expand the MyHeartMap challenge to other US cities and then the rest of the U.S.

SciStarter: What persuaded you to make it participatory (involve the public)?

Raina: The traditional approach for locating AEDs would involve hiring a large team of research assistants to search for AEDs. This approach would be costly and time-consuming and wouldn’t help with improving the public’s awareness of AEDs in their environment. There are lots of examples of how citizen science projects can engage the public to help with data collection – the result is often a more empowered public and new ways of approaching health challenges.

SciStarter: Any concerns about the quality of data?

Raina: We recognize that collecting data about AEDs is difficult and that some data entries with low quality data will be intentional and others unintentional.

SciStarter: And surprising developments?

Raina: Several teams have contacted us and indicated that they are going to participate long-distance and collect data without being in Philadelphia. They are going to rely completely on data entered through social networks. We’re excited to see if this strategy works as this could provide important insights about how organizations can evaluate data they haven’t visualized.

SciStarter: Take a wild guess at how many defibs will be accounted for in total and how many will be spotted by the winner?

Raina: We think there are about 5000 AEDs in Philadelphia. We hope that winner uses a creative strategy to find most of them. I’ll guess 4997!

SciStarter: What’s next?

Raina: We hope to develop subsequent challenges in Philadelphia and then expand to collect AED data across the country. We’re also looking to use other social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gigwalk, Tumblr, Google Insights etc…..to engage the public to help us study and solve important public health challenges.

So, if you are in Philadelphia, look into the MyHeartMap Challenge. It will help make a map. It could even save a life!

Since the late 1990s, scientists have known that ocean acidification alters seawater carbonate and aragonite chemistry, which affects the calcification and deposition of shell and skeletal materials in marine invertebrates such as corals and shellfish. In the last several years, however, scientists have also discovered that high seawater carbon dioxide levels, equivalent to those expected at the end of the century, affect fish. Among the behavioral changes observed thus far are disruption of hearing and smell (olfaction) in juvenile orange clownfish (Amphiprion percula) and of lateralization (favored turning direction) in yellowtail demoiselles (Neopomacentrus azysron).

In fish, high carbon levels in water can cause acidosis (excessive acid in body fluids), a potentially life-threatening condition. Fish try to overcome acidosis through acid-base regulation and the accumulation of bicarbonate, which neutralizes acids and thereby prevents body fluids from becoming too acidic. But as the new study, conducted by a team of scientists from Australia, Italy, and Norway, has shown, this process reverses the normal function of the GABA-A receptor.

In the vertebrate brain, the GABA-A (gamma-aminobutyric acid-A) receptor is inhibitory, acting to attenuate the transmission of chemical signals between neurons. This occurs when chloride ions, and to a lesser extent bicarbonate ions, flow through the receptor and into the cell in response to some external signal. When intracellular chloride and bicarbonate concentrations become too high, the reverse happens -- the receptor conducts the ions out of the cell. By doing so, however, the inhibitory effect is lost, and the neurons become excitable. In the study, the scientists hypothesized that this reversal in receptor activity was responsible for the observed changes in sensory behavior in juvenile fish.

To investigate their hypothesis, the scientists reared larval clownfish in either control or high carbon environments and determined the effects of carbon on olfactory responses. Controls (fish raised in a carbon environment similar to that currently found in the ocean) avoided water trails that contained the odor of blue-spotted rockcod (Cephalopholis cyanostigma), a clownfish predator. Fish exposed to high carbon levels, however, were drawn to the odor. This abnormal response was corrected when gabazine, a chemical that blocks the GABA-A receptor, was added to the water.

In another series of experiments, the team investigated lateralization as a measure of brain function in yellowtail demoiselles. They collected wild yellowtails and exposed them to either control or high carbon environments and then recorded observations of turning direction in a T-shaped maze. Under normal conditions, yellowtails show a preference for turning left or right that is greater than expected by chance. Following exposure to large amounts of carbon, however, the researchers found that the fish turned at random. Similar to the abnormal olfactory responses in clownfish, the atypical lateralization effect in yellowtail demoiselles was corrected by gabazine.

Because gabazine binds only to GABA-A receptors, the findings indicate that carbon dioxide interferes with normal GABA-A activity and that this interference produces the behavioral abnormalities observed in coral reef fish. The existence of GABA-A receptors in the brains of vertebrates and invertebrates suggests that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and ocean could have effects across a variety of ecosystems. These effects, however, likely are to be most pronounced in aquatic ecosystems, because carbon dioxide is far more soluble in water than oxygen and because aquatic species tend to have relatively low carbon dioxide levels in their blood.

The researchers suspect, however, that because water-breathing species use different strategies to cope with high acidity, only certain groups of aquatic life may be susceptible to the effects of increasing carbon levels in seawater. The most vulnerable groups would include those species that rely almost exclusively on acid-base regulation, such as teleosts and crustaceans, and species that have unusually high rates of oxygen consumption, such as coral reef fish larvae and pelagic fish.
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Kara Rogers is a freelance science writer and senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and author of Science Up Front on the Britannica Blog. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology, but enjoys reading and writing about all things science. You can follow her on Twitter at @karaerogers.

Butterflies are one of many creatures of interest to OPAL surveys.

From searching for invertebrates to measuring wind speed, everyone can gain new knowledge and skills and play their part in protecting the natural environment. This is the philosophy of Open Air Laboratories (OPAL), a project based in England that encourages the public to explore their surroundings, record their findings, and submit their results to the OPAL national database making their contribution available to scientists and others involved in environmental science and policy.

OPAL has created six surveys that the public can use to collect data and all are important areas of research:

1. OPAL Soil and Earthworm Survey
2. OPAL Air Survey
3. OPAL Water Survey
4. OPAL Biodiversity Survey
5. OPAL Climate Survey
6. OPAL Bugs Count

Each one of these surveys has been designed so that anyone can use them – no specialist knowledge is needed to take part and equipment is either provided or is easy to make or find. The instructions are simple to follow and each survey contains a ‘workbook’ for recording results. Once people have completed their survey, they upload their results onto the OPAL website or send them by post.

The surveys have allowed data to be gathered from all over England, something which scientists would not usually have the time or capacity to do. Data can also be collected from areas which are not normally accessible to scientists such as private gardens – a habitat which is vital for biodiversity in urban areas.

The latest survey, launched in June 2011, is called OPAL Bugs Count. This survey invites people to look for the invertebrates or ‘bugs’ around the buildings where they live, work and go to school and record what they find and where. The survey also asks people to look for six keys species on which important information is needed to understand their distribution and how this is changing.

So far the amount of data collected has been phenomenal! Over 17,500 OPAL surveys have been completed to date. Through the OPAL Soil and Earthworm Survey, over 8000 earthworms have been identified and patterns of distribution are being investigated . The OPAL Biodiversity Survey has meant comparisons between invertebrate numbers in urban and rural hedges can be made. Results from the OPAL Water Survey are revealing the general good health of ponds and those that are suffering from pollution, including some from heavy metal contamination. These are just a few examples of the wealth of information about England’s environment that has been found through OPAL

Collecting data is a vital part of the OPAL programme however it is also very important that people have the knowledge and skills required to record wildlife. OPAL has developed an online education programme that helps to increase understanding of their environment and illustrate how humans affect it and how it affects us. OPAL scientists work directly with communities to carry out field surveys, run workshops and encourage people to take their interest further by joining local societies and groups. OPAL has a schools programme that not only gives children the opportunity to partake in surveys but also educates teachers on wildlife identification and survey techniques.

We aim to remove some of the barriers that prevent people from getting involved in environmental issues by giving people the confidence to start recording and measuring, understanding and enjoying the natural world around them, something which is so vital if we are to protect England’s environment.

About the Author: Laura Hill is the OPAL Coordinator, based at Imperial College London. Laura works within the OPAL Management team who oversee the work of OPAL’s 14 partner institutions.

Parasitoid wasps are usually considered beneficial insects because they attack common pests. But according to research by the Scottish Crop Research Institute, there’s one species that may be causing more harm than good.  When a good guy goes bad, it’s bound to get interesting.

Photos:

Wild About Britain
Harlequin Ladybird Survey

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Bug Bytes is a collaboration between Solpugid Productions and Texas A&M University's Department of Entomology.You can subscribe to the Bug Bytes podcast on iTunes. It's free!

The deadly (but beautiful) cone shell.

First of all, it's important to distinguish between "venomous" and "poisonous." A venomous organism is an organism that secrets or injects venom from glands or tissues, creating a wound. However, poisonous creatures do not actively inject other animals - they are simply harmful when ingested. In other words, they have poison within them, but they have to be eaten for it to do any damage. For example, a jellyfish is venomous because it can actively sting its prey, but a monarch butterfly is poisonous because it can only harm a predator if it is ingested.

That being said, here are a few of the creatures I'll be watching out for:

Jellyfish: The most venomous marine animal on Earth, the box jellyfish, is native to Australia's northeastern coast. Fortunately, I'm too far south (currently) to run into them, but their venom is among the most potent of any creature in the world. Also called the Sea Wasp, the box jellyfish

The deadly Box Jellyfish (C. Fleckeri)

On the other hand, the jellyfish we do have to worry about here are Bluebottles, commonly known in the States as the Portuguese Man o' War. The Bluebottle actually isn't a true jellyfish; instead, it is actually a colony of minute individuals. Approximately 10,000 Bluebottle stings are reported annually in Australia, including a few that have already happened on this trip (I have yet to run into any of these though -- fingers crossed). Their stings are painful, but fortunately not fatal.

Mollusks: Believe it or not, octopi and squids are actually mollusks, and Australia is home to one of the deadliest - the Blue-Ringed Octopus, known by the distinctive blue rings that appear on its skin when it is startled or frightened. Although it is only slightly larger than a golf ball, the Blue-Ringed Octopus contains tetrodoxin, a neurotoxic venom that is 10,000 times more lethal than cyanide, and can cause immediate difficulty swallowing, blurred vision, numbness, and eventual respiratory arrest. Usually victims have trouble signaling for help because paralysis sets in, but CPR can often help keep a person alive until medical help arrives. These octopi are found at our current island, so I'll have to be extraordinarily careful while snorkeling.

In addition, the phylum Mollusca also includes the"seashell" I mentioned in my title -- it's actually a predatory snail called the Coneshell. These snails live mainly in mudflats and shallow reef waters, and contain teeth that can pierce skin like small harpoons. Their shells are often colorful, which entices people to pick them up. Unfortunately, their "teeth" actually contain a paralytic neurotoxin, which can cause either spastic or flaccid paralysis. A bite from a Coneshell should be treated immediately with a pressure bandage and emergency medical care. Since I really don't want my parents to have to tell people their daughter was killed by a poisonous seashell (that, and I'd rather not die...), I'm being especially careful not to pick up any strange shells while I'm here.

Fish: The Reef Stonefish is a carnivorous fish that disguises itself as a rock so that it can live on reef bottoms. Like several other Australian creatures, they are extremely venomous -- in fact, their venom makes them the most toxic fish in the world. They have thirteen spines along their back, which contain myotoxins capable of causing intense pain and affecting skeletal and cardiac muscle. Stonefish also aren't aggressive; rather, most people are affected by stonefish venom after accidentally stepping on one.

Snakes: Australia is home to six of the top ten deadliest snakes in the world, including the deadly inland taipan, which has the most toxic venom out of any species in the world. However, the taipan causes significantly fewer deaths than other Australian snakes. The main snake we've been told to watch out for is actually the brown snake, the second most venomous land snake that can also be aggressive when provoked. Its venom can cause dizziness, nausea, and even paralysis and cardiac arrest. Fortunately, their initial defense tends to be non-fatal bites, so the mortality rate from bites is relatively low.

We're almost done our research here on North Stradbroke Island, and pretty soon we'll be in Lamington Plateau, so I'll do my best to update when I can. Happy January!

A few of us watching the sunset the other night. Photo credit: Ned Heckman, Carleton College '13.

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Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she is an active soccer player and science fan, especially of ecology and astronomy.

Human obesity rates are soaring here in America. We take a very Bug Bytes look at how scientists are solving the problem, using insects!  You’ll be surprised how insects regulate their body size and fitness.  Do 10 jumping jacks and listen to this!  (Original post Aug 30, 2010)

Photos and Cool Links:

Spence Behmer's Lab Poster
Transcript
Let's Move

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Bug Bytes is a collaboration between Solpugid Productions and Texas A&M University's Department of Entomology.You can subscribe to the Bug Bytes podcast on iTunes. It's free!

Gathering some b-roll footage of insects on flowers.

The first 10 videos cover the first ten orders of insects from the most basic hexapods like springtails and silverfish, to aquatics like mayflies and dragonflies through to the roaches, mantids, grasshoppers, walking-sticks, termites, and earwigs. We covered the taxonomy, biodiversity, biology, mating, life history, and human impact of each order.

We had an incredible time filming them, mostly because at the end of each video we were able to cover one of our favorite topics -- how insects have affected human history and culture for thousands of years.  Sometimes you’ll hear people call this intersection of insect science and societal study by the name Cultural Entomology.

We interviewed a master fly-fisherman for the mayfly episode, as these insects inspired the sport.  The signature casting of the reel is said to mimic shadows of these insects as they swarm over the water.  We animated the story of how the country of Japan used to be called the Dragonfly Isles, because the islands look like two dragonflies mating.  The myth that earwigs crawl into people’s ears and eat their brains inspired us to recreate the famous scene from Star Trek’s Wrath of Khan, where Khan drops brain-eating animals into Chekov’s ears as torture! Kristie as Khan and Jess and Chekov in The Bug Chicks version of Wrath of Khan!

Kristie as Khan and Jess and Chekov in The Bug Chicks version of Wrath of Khan!

And (perhaps coolest of all) we learned a Northern Praying Mantis Shaolin Kung-Fu fight.  Amazing fun!

At Portland Shaolin with Joe Wieland the Sifu, learning Mantis Kung-Fu!

Cultural Entomology encompasses both the positive and negative impacts insects have had on human society, mores, and beliefs.  Insects were one of the first foods for hunter-gatherers and were used in primitive bombs in ancient wars. They have vectored diseases like malaria, typhus, and yellow fever that have killed millions of people over the last several hundred years. And they are symbols of change, rebirth, strength, resilience, and magic for many cultures across the globe.

We will be putting our latest videos up on our website soon for you to see and we’ll be writing a great deal more in the coming months about the effects of insects on humans throughout history.   In the meantime, we’ve put together a little list of some great books on Cultural Entomology to get you started:

The Earwigs Tail: A Modern Bestiary of Many-Legged Legends  by May Berenbaum
Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War by Jeffrey A. Lockwood
Insect Mythology by Gene Kritsky and Ron Cherry

And for those of you wanting to know more about insects and their incredible lives, biologies, and survival strategies, we can’t recommend this one enough --

For Love of Insects by Thomas Eisner

Happy New Year and Happy Reading!

Photo Credit: Carleton College

This winter, I am fortunate enough to be spending a semester in Australia as a participant in Carleton's Marine Ecology Study-Abroad program during which I will be studying the unique characteristics of Australia's various ecosystems. While the program mainly emphasizes coastal and marine environments (including the Great Barrier Reef!), I'll also be spending some time in the tropical rainforest, as well as in Sydney and Melbourne. Hopefully, I'll be able to blog about some of my adventures there -- or at the very least, take some pictures. (So stay tuned!

Prior to our January 1st departure, I was lucky enough to interview Dr. Annie Bosacker, the fearless leader of the program. Dr. Bosacker, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology at Carleton College has done significant research studying baboons in Gombe National Park, Tanzania. Her main research interest is in the social behavior of primates, specifically how social circumstances influence an individual's exposure to stress. Here, Dr. Bosacker speaks about her previous work, her interests in biology, and what it's like balancing a family and a successful career in biology.

How did you come to work in the sciences?

I’m a happier, healthier person when I get to spend a lot time outside. I love forests especially, but I’ve also grown to love rocky ocean shores, open savannahs, and anywhere I can find an animal to observe. I was once completely oblivious to this truth, though. As an undergraduate, I focused my studies on genetics and cellular biology, and I had every intention of pursuing a career as a laboratory biologist. Because these were considered to be the “difficult” subjects, I naïvely thought of these as the “better” branches of biology -— the ones where people do real science.

What changed your mind?

Two experiences set me on a completely different path, and one that I know ultimately led me somewhere I’m very happy to be. First, I got to go on the very same study-abroad program to Australia that I now lead. It was ten weeks straight of field biology. Ten weeks of intense sun, incredible heat, blinding rain, and phenomenal happiness. The idea of doing science in the field started to appeal to me. But it wasn’t until I took my first class in animal behavior that I had a life-changing epiphany. I knew that scientists in nature documentaries got to travel to fantastic places, got to spend their days observing animals and asking great questions. But I never really thought that these were real people doing real science! I was hooked, and lab science lost its hold on me. I’ve found ways to do science outside ever since.

What is your primary research interest? How did you come to work in Tanzania?

My project and my research interests evolved over the years, and it ended up being a very interdisciplinary project that looked at how a female baboon’s social circumstances affect her exposure to life’s stressors. Right now, I’m really fascinated with the idea that early exposure to challenges might influence the suite of coping strategies a female baboon relies on when she’s an adult. I also want to think more about the big picture of the stress response system, and whether approaching our understanding of it in a slightly different way might help us make sense of the sorts of patterns that are central to life-history theory (e.g. if there isn’t a lot of food around, don’t waste your energy making babies).

I ended up in Tanzania because my graduate advisor was Dr. Craig Packer, and he wanted someone to look at stress, rank, aging, and reproduction in the olive baboons at Gombe National Park. It sounded like a pretty fascinating project to me, and I was absolutely thrilled to have an excuse to go to Africa to hang out with a bunch of monkeys. That said, I’m still trying to figure out how I can add research back into the mix of teaching and raising my four kids without careening myself off the tightrope of sanity. My research ideas are mostly simmering on the back burner right now.

What was your favorite part about working in Gombe National Park?

Easy! I had a fantastic excuse to spend my days outside watching wild animals. I inherited my obsession with (addiction to?) animals from my father and grandfather, and I long believed that everybody’s favorite thing to do was to sit at one zoo exhibit and watch the otters or gibbons or tapirs all day (Author's note: Me too!). I can get sidetracked for hours watching my daughter’s pet guppies, so days and days watching the soap opera of wild baboon life was like heaven to me.

How did you become interested in leading the Coastal Marine Ecology trip to Australia?

This was a true story of Right Place, Right Time. Developing a successful study-abroad program was on my goal list, and I’d already figured out ways to involve undergraduates in my field work in Africa. With three young children, this was a distant dream. I was in my second “visiting” year at Carleton when the same program that introduced me to the wonders of field science was canceled because none of the faculty at Carleton was in a position to direct it. It was a popular program, so many students were desperate to see it reinstated, and somehow my name got thrown in as a possible solution. The administration was willing to let me take on the program, in spite of my visiting status. Because one of my many incentives included travel expenses for my family, my husband and I agreed it was an incredible opportunity. (Also, I’m not ashamed to admit that swapping Minnesota winters for Australian summers is a big win!) It was a bit of a leap of faith for everyone, but one that has led to incredibly high rewards for dozens of people.

Overall what would you say is your favorite part of the Australia program?

Heron Island, where we'll be spending some time, is a famous nesting ground for green sea turtles. (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

It’s a teaching opportunity that plays to my strengths. I get to be outside, teaching to my passions. I get to know my students as people, not just pupils. This kind of immersion learning and teaching means that I can help my students learn an incredible amount about ecology, but also—and equally importantly—about themselves. We each meet academic and personal goals in ways you just can’t foster on a traditional campus in a conventional course. We become an incredible community of learners, and the connections we establish are proving to be long-lasting.

I have never been happier in my life than I am with my family and my students Down Under. We do science outside all day, and then we come back home like one giant happy family to share stories, food, and card games. I think I’ve identified a new psychiatric condition I call Post-Dramatic Happiness Disorder. I now spend my days chasing that feeling of perfect bliss, and I count down the weeks until I get to share the experience with another group of enthusiastic undergraduates. So that sense of complete contentment, peace, and purpose—that’s my favorite part.

You are currently a visiting professor at Carleton. What are the primary classes that you teach?

As a visiting professor, I teach a hodgepodge of classes. Basically, anything that needs teaching that I happen to be qualified to teach. I’ve been doing this for the past five years, and so far I’ve taught courses in introductory biology, marine biology, field studies and research, animal behavior, and behavioral ecology.

I also do summer programs—most notably Carleton Summer Science Institute. Our primary goal is to give high school students three weeks of science immersion, in the hopes of enticing them to study the sciences when they get to college. One of my personal goals is to dispel the myth that you have to be inhumanly focused, brilliant, and somber to succeed in science. I try to build a community that takes both science and fun seriously, and so far that model has been incredibly successful.

Overall, what is your favorite part about teaching biology?

[That's] kind of like asking a duck, “What’s your favorite thing about water?” Ducks just like water, and I just like teaching. I can barely function without it. It’s the one thing in life that is guaranteed to make my day better and to make me feel like a pretty fantastic human being.

I think of teaching as a performance art. While my job is ultimately to impart knowledge, teaching and learning is a process that is much more effective when everyone is awake, engaged, and having a bit of fun. In part, I love teaching because it gives me a platform from which I can share stories about the things I’m most excited about—from cellular respiration to the evolution of behaviors. I’m not shy about my obsession with biology—especially animal behavior—and I tell students my number one goal is to make it impossible for them to ever again watch an animal doing anything without asking dozens of questions about what that animal is doing and why. I love getting notes from former students in which they tell me that I infected them with a curiosity about animals that they just can’t shake. What I guess that means is that having the opportunity to share my passions with other people is one of the greatest joys of my job.

You are also a mother of four children. How do you balance your career with everything going on in your family?

My greatest life challenge for the last nine years—and certainly for at least the next eighteen—has been to find a balance between my needs and my family’s needs. Being a perpetual visiting professor has its perks, the greatest being that I can be very thoughtful about how I balance my career with the needs of my family. Sometimes I’m home with my four kids for months, sometimes I’m away for several weeks. It’s ultimately up to me which jobs I will take and which I will turn down. The biggest downside is that I can’t always count on getting to do what I love in the long term. But while my children are still so young, it’s a trade-off that keeps me sane. Mostly.

I will be charting course for Melbourne on January 1st, so stay posted for pictures, fun facts about Australia, and more. Happy New Year!

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Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she is an active soccer player and science fan, especially of ecology and astronomy.

Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) are large from birth. In the last couple months of gestation, in one of the fastest fetal growth spurts known to animals, they more than double in size, growing to about 21 feet and two tons by the time they are born. Within five or six years, most fin whales have reached their adult size, and their distinguishing features have become pronounced. These features include a prominent ridge that stretches from the tip of the upper jaw to the blowhole, a pointed or hooked dorsal fin, and a sharp ridge that runs along the top edge of the lower back.

Fin whales also have remarkably long and trim bodies, which contrast with the stockier build of blue whales and humpbacks. In fact, although some blue whales may weigh more than twice as much as the largest fin whales when full-grown, blue whales are about the same length as or only slightly longer than fin whales. The latter's slender, hydrodynamic profile allows it to explode in bursts of speed of as many as 25 knots, making it one of the fastest whales in the world. That speed is especially useful for feeding, when a rapid lunge into a school of prey, with mouth wide open, allows for the swift intake of food.

While fin whales feed primarily on krill, they also enjoy small fish, such as capelin, herring, and sandlance. Like some other whales that feed on schooling fish, fin whales will circle their prey to encourage the fish to gather into a tight group. They then lunge into the school with mouth agape, engulfing both fish and water. The whales' baleen filters the water, trapping the fish in the mouth.

Although it is not known with certainty, fin whales may also make use of their asymmetrical coloration when feeding. The asymmetry affects the lower right and left jaws, with the right side being gray or white and the left black or dark brown; this coloration is repeated in the fin whale's baleen. When lunging on a school of fish from above, fin whales may do so on their right sides, thereby showing the white jaw to their prey and thus blending in with light from the sky above. This may confuse the fish just long enough to allow the whales to capture a larger quantity than they would otherwise.

Fin whales inhabit the world’s major oceans but occur most frequently in temperate and polar waters. But relatively little is known about their movements. For instance, while they occur over a wide range of latitudes throughout the year, suggesting that they do not migrate, some groups appear to move into winter or summer ranges occupied by other groups within their latitudinal range. Tracking the movements of fin whales is made difficult by their tendency to swim alone or in small groups dispersed over large areas and by their occasional mingling with blue whales.

For much of its coexistence with whaling vessels piloted by humans, the fin whale's greatest asset has been its speed. But with the appearance of faster vessels and stronger harpoons in the 20th century, fin whales could no longer escape man. The result was the persecution of the species, to near extinction, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.

Today the fin whale is listed as endangered. But while populations in Antarctica still suffer low numbers, those in the North Atlantic appear to be recovering, aided in part by the female fin whale's ability to bear offspring every two or three years for the greater part of her 80-year-long life.
____________
Kara Rogers is a freelance science writer and senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and author of Science Up Front on the Britannica Blog. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology, but enjoys reading and writing about all things science. You can follow her on Twitter at @karaerogers.

Know a child who loves science? Check out these gifts for this holiday season!

Forensics Fingerprint Lab

-Slime Science
This is a fun way for kids to learn about chemical reactions and polymers. Kids learn to make their own slimes with different properties.

-Big Bag of Science
This kit contains over 60 experiments, including soda explosions, growing crystals and Insta-Snow.

 -Mini Weather Station
This weather station allows you to measure temperature, rainfall, wind speed, wind direction and wind chill.

-Cosmic Jet Racer
This kit includes everything to build, decorate, and race two balloon racecars. It is great for kids 8 and older!

Chemistry Kit

-Chemistry Equipment Kit
This kit includes beakers, graduated cylinders, a flask, alcohol lamp, test tubes and a stand, thermometer, tubing pinch camp, glass tubes, rubber stoppers and pH papers.

Biology Lovers:
-DNA Molecular Model Kit
This kit allows students to build a DNA model and nucleotide models.

-Journey Into the Human Body Kit
This kit is a fun hands-on experience to explore the human body. It will teach about bones, joints, lung capacity, and heart rate. This is for kids 6-10 years old.

-ABO-Rh Simulated Blood Typing Kit
This kit contains four different synthetic blood samples to provide the hands-on experience of determining different ABO and Rh blood types.

Earth Science Lovers:
-Amazing Volcanoes Kit
In this kit, kids will build their own volcanoes and make it erupt!

-Soil Test Lab Kit
This is a great kit to study the effects of soil nutrients on plant growth or to improve your garden. Kids will sample soil, prepare it for testing and complete chemistry tests to determine pH and the nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous content.

Astronomy Backpack

-Moon in My Room Lunar Light
This nightlight allows kids to view all the phases of the moon.

Physics Lovers:
-Physics Workshop Kit
This kit comes with all the parts needed to build 36 physics models and do 73 experiments with gravity, forces, simple machines, friction, gears, pendulums, energy and power.

-Optical Science and Art
Kids can play around with light, optics, and visual perception as they do the 42 fun projects in this kit, including making a fiber-optics peacock, prismatic glasses, a camera obscura and optical illusions.

-Magnets in Motion Kit
Kids will discover how a magnet produces its own electrical current.

Technology Lovers:
-Remote Control Machines
With this construction kit, kids can build cars, cranes, bulldozers and robots!

___________________________________________________

Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

A fish's view of the 2.4 mile swimming portion of the 2008 Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. Credit: guardian.co.uk

Mr. Evolta was equipped with one of these attachments for each of the race's 3 legs

For the Ironman Triathlon, Tomotaka Takahashi designed vehicles for the robot to use in each event. For the swim, Mr. Evolta was waterproofed and wore a fin to keep itself on course in the heavy surf. For the run, Mr. Evolta used a modified hamster ball, and for the bike, it used a tiny tricycle. Each event was completed by a different Mr. Evolta. In addition to designing a robot that could complete these three events, Takahashi had to ensure that the robot could withstand the hot sun, high winds, and rough surf of Hawaii.

Mr. Evolta, who is the mascot of Panasonic's Evolta line of batteries, runs on 3 AA rechargeable batteries. During the race, the robot was either recharging or moving at all times.

Panasonic has not announced Mr. Evolta's next challenge, but since the robot has been so popular and successful, it seems unlikely that Mr. Evolta will retire.

You can watch a clip of Mr. Evolta scaling the Grand Canyon here.

____________________
Zach first discovered his passion for science as a high school student at Trinity School in New York City. He now attends Carleton College, where he plans on majoring in Physics. His interests in science include high energy physics, medicine, and technology.

A model of an insect wing made entirely out of schrilk.

How did the Wyss Institute choose arthropod exoskeletons as their inspiration? Insect cuticle has some remarkable properties that are were outlined in the press release:

“Natural insect cuticle, such as that found in the rigid exoskeleton of a housefly or grasshopper, is uniquely suited to the challenge of providing protection without adding weight or bulk. As such, it can deflect external chemical and physical strains without damaging the insect’s internal components, while providing structure for the insect’s muscles and wings. It is so light that it doesn’t inhibit flight and so thin that it allows flexibility. Also remarkable is its ability to vary its properties, from rigid along the insect’s body segments and wings to elastic along its limb joints.”

Schrilk has some amazing physical properties. It is as strong and tough as aluminum, but it weighs only half as much. Schrilk can easily be molded into virtually any shape. By varying the amount of water used in its construction, the stiffness of schrilk can be varied. Schrilks, ranging from elastic to rigid, would have even more applications.

Schrilk has great potential in medicine as well. It is biocompatible meaning that it does not elicit an immune system response from within the human body. Schrilk could be used to suture wounds or as scaffolding for tissue regeneration.

Schrilk is composed of two ingredients, fibroin proteins in silk and chitin. Since chitin can easily be extracted from discarded shrimp shells, schrilk is cheap and easy to produce.

Since schrilk is biodegradable, it could be molded into plastic bags, garbage bags and diapers that would not sit in landfills for hundreds of years.

_____________________
Zach first discovered his passion for science as a high school student at Trinity School in New York City. He now attends Carleton College, where he plans on majoring in Physics. His interests in science include high energy physics, medicine, and technology.

Using a pot, a speaker, and a bunch of straws, Leif Ristroph and colleagues at NYU are pushing the envelope of paper aircraft design. Their paper creations -- with shapes ranging from umbrellas to pyramids -- are pushed aloft by pulses of air created by a low-frequency tone from a subwoofer. Interestingly, the pulses of air give the aircrafts, which are not shaped at all like birds or insects, the appearance of flapping flight.

Want to explore airplane aerodynamics on your own? Check out this activity from Science Dad:
The Great Paper Airplane Experiment

By Kaitlyn Gerber, Carleton College

Earlier this year,  JCPenny's immediately discontinued a t-shirt from their store that read "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me," while Forever 21 came under heavy criticism for a magnet reading "I'm too pretty to do math." Customers complained that the shirt was sexist and -- more importantly -- that it conveyed the message that girls are not as intelligent as boys. But while these items may cater to a dated stereotype, they inadvertently bring up an important issue in today's society: why is there still a "gender gap" between men and women when it comes to science and technology? Could it really be that, genetically, girls are inferior when it comes to doing math?

A new study says no. Published on December 12 in Notices of the American Mathematical Society, the article presents strong evidence that the gender gap is cultural, not biological. Study authors Jonathan Kane and Janet Mertz argue that, for starters, the gender gap is not universal; in fact, there are many countries, such as Japan and China, where no disparity exists between the performances of men and women. In addition, they tested several hypotheses for the gender gap in math and sciences, including the "greater male variability hypothesis" infamously described by Lawrence Summers, Harvard University's former president, in 2005. The hypothesis proposes that math ability is inherently more variable in males, meaning that there are more men than women who excel brilliantly, but also more who fail miserably.

In order to test this hypothesis, Kane and Mertz calculated the variance ratio or the variability in men's math performance compared with that of women, for 86 of countries around the world. Using test scores from the 2007 Trends for International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Kane and Mertz found that the "variance ratio" was by no means universal. In some countries, the ratios indicated much more variance in boys' performances than in girls', such as in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where the ratios were found to be 1.31 and 1.29, respectively. However, the ratios of several other countries, such as Morocco, Armenia, and Japan, were very close or equal to 1.00, indicating no disparity, and a few of the countries tested showed greater variance in girls' performances' (Tunisia, for example, had a ratio of 0.91, while Indonesia had a ratio of 0.98).

If Summers' hypothesis were true, there would not be such a notable difference in the variance ratios of each country; as a result, Kane and Mertz rejected the greater variance hypothesis as the reason for the gender gap in math and science.  "People have looked at international data sets for many years", said Mertz in a press release. "What has changed is that many more non-Western countries are now participating in these studies, enabling much better cross-cultural analysis."

Kane and Mertz also looked at the hypothesis proposed by Freakonomics author Steven Levitt and Harvard Professor Roland Fryer. In a 2009 paper, Fryer and Levitt originally suggested that the single-sex environments in Muslim countries actually benefit girls' ability to learn math, rather than hampering it. However, when Kane and Mertz examined test scores in some Muslim countries, such as Oman and Bahrain, they found evidence that other factors were at work. "The girls living in some Middle Eastern countries, such as Bahrain and Oman, had, in fact, not scored very well, but their boys had scored even worse, a result found to be unrelated to either Muslim culture or schooling in single-gender classrooms," said Kane. He suggested that because many boys attend religious schools, their curricula often do not provide adequate math instruction. Similarly, test scores among girls may be artificially higher because low-performing girls may drop out before 8th grade, when the TIMSS is administered.

As a result, Kane and Mertz concluded that it was country-specific factors, rather than biological factors, that are responsible for the gender gap. To measure the status of women relative to men in each country, the authors created a gender gap index comparing income, education, health and political participation. On the whole, math achievement tends to be high in countries where overall gender equality is better. Specifically, women's political participation and salary appeared to be the main factor linking higher math scores for both genders.

Marie Curie, a pioneering physicist and chemist, was the first person to be honored with two Nobel Prizes, and remains the only person to win a prize in two different areas.

"We found that boys — as well as girls — tend to do better in math when raised in countries where females have better equality, and that's new and important," says Kane. "It makes sense that when women are well-educated and earn a good income, the math scores of their children of both genders benefit."

However, while women may be just as biologically capable of these abilities, there is no doubt that the gender gap in performance is still prevalent in America. Tests still show that while young children of both genders perform equally on standardized math tests, the disparity between boys and girls increases with age. Among 2007 high school graduates, for instance, boys tended to score higher on both the math portion of the SAT and the Advanced Placement Calculus exam, while fewer girls demonstrated "readiness for college-level coursework in math" on the ACT. Furthermore, a 2005 book by Yu Xie, PhD, and Kimberlee A. Shaumann, PhD, found that while women make up 35 percent of university faculty across the country, they comprise only 20 percent all professors in science and engineering.

Fortunately, these disparities have been slowly closing. In the past half century alone, the percentage of women receiving PhDs in mathematics has risen from 5% to 30%. In addition, among U.S. students who are very gifted in mathematics (scoring over a 700 on the SAT Math before turning 13), the ratio of boys to girls has decreased from 13:1 to 3:1, and is still dropping. The fact that these improvements were even possible suggests that women are not inherently inferior; they simply lacked the cultural support necessary to perform as well in the past. Mertz and Kane recommended measures such as decreasing poverty, increasing gender equality, and increasing the number of math-certified teachers in middle and high schools to improve overall performances in math and science.

"These changes would help give all children an optimal chance to succeed," said Mertz. "This is not a matter of biology: None of our findings suggest that an innate biological difference between the sexes is the primary reason for a gender gap in math performance at any level. Rather, these major international studies strongly suggest that the math-gender gap, where it occurs, is due to sociocultural factors that differ among countries, and that these factors can be changed."

As a young woman hoping for a career in science, I couldn't agree more.

____________________________

Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she is an active soccer player and science fan, especially of ecology and astronomy.

Woolly mammoth restoration at the Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, British Columbia. Photo credit: Wikipedia user WolfmanSF.

Climate change and humans appear to have served as the driving factors behind megafaunal extinction at the end of the Late Quaternary period (which began around 50,000 years ago). According to a study published recently in the journal Nature, however, different species responded in different ways to climate and humans. For example, whereas climate change was a major factor in the downfall of the woolly rhinoceros and Eurasion musk ox, a combination of climate and human activity led to the demise of the Eurasian steppe bison. The findings are significant because they help dissipate some of the contention surrounding the specific roles of climate and humans in the context of this historical extinction episode. Perhaps more importantly, however, they highlight the challenges that lie ahead for scientists who are working to identify extant species that are at risk of extinction from climate change and human activity in the modern era.

To identify the specific contributions of climate and humans to megafaunal extinction, the scientists of the Nature study analyzed the demographic histories of six extinct or extant Late Quaternary megafauna herbivores of Eurasia and North America. The species included woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), musk ox (Ovibus moschatus), bison and Eurasion steppe bison (Bison bison and B. priscus), and wild and domestic horse (Equus ferus and E. caballus).

The scientists also determined the age of megafaunal remains using radiocarbon dating and investigated each species' genetic signature using mitochondrial DNA isolated from bone samples. From their analyses, they were able to determine past species distributions and the geographical overlap of each species with humans at the end of the Late Quaternary.

Woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) Photo credit: Wikipedia user Philip72

Wild horses, on the other hand, had a large geographical distribution, indicative of a large population, in Eurasia until about 6,000 years ago, which is inconsistent with climate-driven extinction during this time. Subsequent declines in the genetic diversity of the wild horse after the LGM, however, are coincident with human expansion in Europe and Asia, indicating that humans, likely through selective hunting, were responsible for the species' decline. Declines in bison and reindeer observed well after the LGM also reflect the impact of expanding human populations at that time.

The only species for which no conclusion could be reached regarding the cause of extinction was the woolly mammoth. Although archaeological evidence suggests geographical overlap between humans and woolly mammoth in Eurasia, Siberia, and North America, Siberian sites containing woolly mammoth remains decline markedly after the LGM, a phenomenon that could have been the result of human or climatic factors.

Evidence that shifts in habitat distribution were linked with species population size at the end of the Late Quaternary reinforces the significance of the relationship between habitat loss and the future of species alive today. Stemming the loss of habitat from climate change and human activities, particularly development and agriculture, is one of the greatest challenges now facing conservation.
____________
Kara Rogers is a freelance science writer and senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and author of Science Up Front on the Britannica Blog. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology, but enjoys reading and writing about all things science. You can follow her on Twitter at @karaerogers.

The African Lungfish can display primitive but highly improbable walking behavior, as observed by University of Chicago scientists. Photo Credit: Yen-Chyi Liu, University of Chicago

Published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists, a recent paper has the potential to reshuffle evolutionary history. Previously, scientists had believed that the ability to walk had originated in tetrapods, animals with a backbone and four limbs, who were through to be the first land-dwellers. However, the ability of lungfish to "walk" along the bottom suggests that the motions of walking actually occurred underwater, before transitioning to land. As a result, fossil tracks originally attributed to early tetrapods may actually be from the ancestors of the lungfish.

The study originated when Heather King, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, observed strange movements in an African lungfish belonging to Dr. Michael Coates, the study's co-author. "If you just look at the lungfish," said King in an interview with Scientific American, "you would think it was impossible for it to walk. It doesn’t have a sacrum, which was thought necessary for the animal to lift itself off the ground, and it doesn't have anatomical feet." King and her colleagues designed a special tank that monitored the lungfish's every move with video cameras, which revealed that the lungfish commonly use their hind, or pelvic, limbs to elevate themselves and push their bodies forward.

"This is all information we can only get from a living animal," explained King in an interview. "Because if you were just to look at the bones, like you would with a fossil, you might not ever know these motions could occur."

At various points, the lungfish both "bounded," using both pelvic limbs at the same time, and "walked," moving its limbs in alternating motion. Because it can apparently rotate each limb and place each footfall in front of the joint, the motion suggests that some creatures would have been capable of producing some of the fossil tracks that had been attributed to primitive tetrapods. In particular, sets of tracks discovered in early 2010 surprised scientists because they were 395 million years old -- 20 million years older than the earliest tetrapods in the fossil record. If these footprints do, in fact, belong to a common ancestor of both the lungfish and the tetrapods, they may indicate that when the tetrapods appeared, the ability to walk had already evolved.

"It's tempting to attribute alternating impressions to something like the footfalls of an early tetrapod with digits, and yet here we've got good evidence that living lungfish can leave similar sequences of similar gait," Michael Coates, professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, explained in a statement. However, "the fin or limb use thought to be unique to tetrapods is actually more general."

Below is a segment of King's footage, in which the lungfish "walks" forwards with its pelvic limbs.

Video Credit: The University of Chicago
____________________________

Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she is an active soccer player and science fan, especially of ecology and astronomy.

This September, the OPERA experiment (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) announced that they had observed a pulse of neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. The difference wasn't large. The neutrinos arrived at the detector in Gran Sasso, Italy about 60ns (60 billionths of a second) faster than a photon in a vacuum would have. The neutrinos appeared to be moving about 1/40,000 times (about 17,500mph) faster than the speed of light.

According to special relativity, particles with mass cannot exceed the speed of light in a vacuum (about 186,000 miles per second). Neutrinos have a small mass even on the atomic scale. The upper limit for their mass is billions of times less than that of a hydrogen atom. If neutrinos can move faster than light, then changes will need to be made to special relativity and the myriad theories that stem from it. There are also a few theories that explain these results without violating special relativity. You can read about them here.

This experiment was not the first to suggest that neutrinos may travel faster than the speed of light. In March of 2007, physicists shot a beam of neutrinos from Fermilab, which lies outside Chicago, at a detector 450 miles away in Minnesota. They found with 99% confidence that the neutrinos were traveling between 0.999976 and 1.000126 times the speed of light. Due to this miniscule uncertainty in their results, they were not able to definitively state whether the neutrinos had exceeded the speed of light.

Due to the consequences these results have on physics as we know it, many in the field are not yet willing to accept them. A paper posted one week after OPERA published their results discredited the data. They argued that a particle moving faster than the speed of light would emit low-energy particles as it traveled through space. In addition to creating new low energy particles, this process would deplete the kinetic energy of the neutrinos. The OPERA experiment tested two levels of neutrino kinetic energy, 17.5 and 28GeV (gigaelectron volts). Upon arriving at the detector, both groups of neutrinos had the same kinetic energies with which they were created. The neutrinos in OPERA's experiment did not leave behind the expected "wake" of low energy particles.

Even the scientists at CERN and LNGS (Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso), who conducted the experiment, were skeptical. When OPERA published their report, they immediately began making preparations to repeat the experiment and invited other high-energy physics labs to do the same. On November 22, the OPERA team published similar results and eliminated a potential source of error. In the initial experiment, the neutrinos were created in bunches over a long period of time (much longer than 60ns). If they had assumed that a neutrino came from the start of the bunch rather than the end, it would increase their estimated speed. In the second experiment, the bunches were created in less than 3ns, which greatly reduced the uncertainty. It is possible that there are other sources of error in OPERA's procedure, apparatus or analysis that are still unaccounted for. Many scientists in the field will only be convinced when another group is able to replicate OPERA's results. They might not have to wait too long. Fermilab plans to have results checking OPERA's data by Spring 2012.

You can download and read OPERA's report here.

_____________________
Zach first discovered his passion for science as a high school student at Trinity School in New York City. He now attends Carleton College, where he plans on majoring in Physics. His interests in science include high energy physics, medicine, and technology.

Grade Level: 9th-12th grade
Subject Matter: Scientific Method, Probability, Mathematics

Part 1: What’s in the Box?

Activity Materials
• Black and White Boxes: We order tins from www.specialtybottle.com (# TNF8; at the time of publication 85 cents each).
• 11 unique items per White Box: we use rubber band, rubber ball, rubber stopper, poker chip, paperclip, tooth pick, marble, steel ball, crayon, penny, cotton ball
• 2 items (ie a paperclip and a crayon, but each may be different) for each Black Box
• Plastic containers for storing White Box items not in use, to prevent items from rolling off desks

Vocabulary
Theory: A set of statements or principles that explain a group of facts or natural phenomena that has been repeatedly tested and is widely accepted
Hypothesis: A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation
Prediction: A statement of expectation for how something will happen in the future. If you base a prediction on your hypothesis, if you test your prediction and the outcome you expected does not occur, your hypothesis may not be true.
Scientific inquiry: The process by which scientists figure out how things work: by asking questions, using logic and reasoning to guess how things work, then test those guesses to see if they are accurate

Science has figured out theories for how many things work at scales too big, too small or too hidden for us to see with our own eyes, but how did they do it? They came up with a way to deduce their theories based on formulating questions, making educated guesses, then acquiring and evaluating evidence: scientific inquiry. We’ve not yet run out of unanswered questions, so we still use these methods today. Hypothesis-driven science asks questions and seeks answers through the development of tentative answers (hypotheses). These educated guesses are tested through experimentation and evaluation of results. Hypothesis-driven science can be modeled by a stepwise process that involves observation, hypothesis formation and testing, as shown in the figure “The Scientific Method”.

In In this exercise, you will use the hypothesis-driven scientific method to help you decide on the possible identity of two mystery objects (from a set of 11 potential objects) in your “Black Box”.

NO PEEKING INTO THE BLACK BOX UNTIL YOU COMMIT YOUR HYPOTHESIS TO PAPER, ANNOUNCE IT TO YOUR CLASS, AND YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO OPEN IT!

What to Do

1. Split into groups of 3-4 students. Each group should take one White Box, one Black Box, and one plastic container (use this to keep White Box objects not in use from rolling off desks/tables).
2. Examine the objects in the White Box, listing them on a sheet of paper or on the board at the front of the room so that you may consult the list as your investigation proceeds.
3. As a group, consider how you will approach the problem scientifically. For example you might assess the characteristics (sounds, mass, response to the movement of a magnet) of the Black Box itself and record these. Your hypothesis would be that the objects would have to have a particular sound, weight, behavior relative to one another. You might instead examine the behavior of the 11 objects, in pairs, or individually, in the White Box tin, and make predictions about how the objects should sound, respond to magnetism, etc.) if they were in the Black Box.
4. Write down the testing procedures you plan to use.
5. Start the process, remembering to follow the steps of the scientific method!
6. Record the steps you have taken throughout your investigation.
7. Record your revised hypotheses as you gain information.
8. Finally, record what your team concludes is in the Black Box.

When finished, each group should report the following information to the class:

1. Approach taken to the problem
2. Hypotheses they have made and modified through the testing process
3. The two objects they concluded are in the Black Box and why.

Teams should open the Black Box and check to see if they were correct.

Record the number of items that were determined correctly by each team on the board (0, 1 or 2 items correct). What percentage of the class got both the items correct? What percentage got at least 1 item correct?

Discussion Questions:
How does the definition of a theory presented above, which is how a scientist defines a theory, different from the way the word “theory” is used in everyday language?

Do you expect your class would’ve been as successful in determining what is inside the black box if they had merely guessed?

Teacher’s Note: Options for Expanding the Lesson

• A set of Black Boxes are permanently sealed (we drill screws into the tins). This represents how the scientific method can never absolutely verify something as true, the Black Box cannot be opened. This drives students crazy, too.
• The same two items go in each group’s Black Box. After each group has reached a conclusion, the class comes together to discuss and try to reach a consensus. This highlights the importance of collaboration and sharing of information within the scientific community, not only increasing the overall knowledge base, but also helping reduce the influence of bias in interpreting results.
• Groups are given access to magnets and balances to determine their black box items. This illustrates how, while the scientific method cannot completely verify something as true, new techniques, tools may come along to shed new light on the black box.

Part 2: What are the odds if you’d just guessed?

Suppose that instead of using the scientific method, you just guessed which items were in your Black Box without performing any experiments or observations. Would you have done as well? Probably not! Although the scientific method may not have completely determined which objects were in your tin, it did help narrow the list of possibilities -- increasing the probability that your final choices would be correct. Probability can mathematically explain why applying the scientific method to the Black Box problem beats merely guessing the contents.

Vocabulary
Sample space: a set of possible outcomes. For example, the sample space of rolling a single die can be represented as follows: {1,2,3,4,5,6}, with each of the numbers in the brackets representing all of the possible results of the roll.
Event: a subset of the sample space, containing some (or all) of an experiment’s outcomes. For example, the set E={2,4,6} is an event, representing rolling an even number on the die.
Elementary events: an event such as {2}, which contains a single outcome.
Mutually exclusive events: two events that contain none of the same elementary events. For example, {2} and {4,6} are mutually exclusive events
Probability: the likelihood that a chosen event will occur. This can be expressed in many ways, such as a fraction, a decimal, or a percentage, and represents the chances for that particular occurrence divided by the total chances of any occurrence.

Got that? Try these …
1. Suppose that you roll a six sided die. Let E denote the event that you roll less than a five. Write down all of the elements that belong to the event E.
2. Let B be the event that you roll 1,4,or 6, that is, let B={1,4,6}. Are B and E mutually exclusive? If not, which elementary events belong to both B and E?

Axioms (Rules) of Probability
If E is an event, then we denote the probability that E occurs by P(E)

1. The sample space S of an experiment is the set of all possible outcomes. One of the outcomes in the sample space will definitely occur, so if you add up all of their individual probabilities you will get 1 or 100%.
2. The likelihood of a particular event ranges from impossible to absolutely definite. (P(E) = 0, or 0% likely, to 1, or 100% likely.)
3. If an outcome can be one of two alternatives (but not both), the probability of either event occurring is equal to the sum of the likelihood of each event’s occurrence.

A couple of very useful rules follow directly from the axioms of probability…

Rule 1:
When every outcome in a set of possible outcomes is equally likely to occur, the probability that a specific outcome occurs is equal to one divided by the number of possible outcomes.

For example, one would calculate the probability of rolling a 6 on a six-sided die (6, possible outcomes {1,2,3,4,5,6} and 1 desired outcomes {6}, like this:

Rule 2:
When every outcome in a set of possible outcomes is equally likely to occur, the probability that a specific event occurs is equal to the number of outcomes in the event divided by the number of possible outcomes.

For example, one would calculate the probability of rolling an even number on a six-sided die (6, possible outcomes {1,2,3,4,5,6} and 3 desired outcomes {2,4,6}, like this:

Got that? Try these...

3. What is the probability of rolling a 2 on a 6-sided die?
4. What is the probability of rolling a 4 or a 6 on a 6-sided die?
5. If your group had only one mystery object in the black box, what is the probability that you could have randomly guessed the mystery object?

But you had 2 items in your box, and therefore two possible mutually exclusive elementary events! So what is the probability you would have randomly guessed both correctly? To answer this we need to learn a little more. First, how many possible outcomes were there?

The Counting Principle
If there are x ways to perform one task, and y ways to perform a second task, then there are xy ways to perform both tasks.

Suppose for example that we flip two coins. There are 2 outcomes to flip the first coin (heads or tails) and 2 outcomes to flip the second coin, so there are 2×2=4 possible outcomes to flip both coins.

For the Black Box, the possible outcomes are the pairs of objects that could be present. Any pair of objects is equally likely. Therefore, the probability that the Black Box contains a marble and a cork (or any other pair of objects) is equal to one divided by the number of possible pairs.

What would be the probability of correctly guessing that the Black Box contains a marble and a cork? To answer this, we first need to count the number of possible pairs. We’ll start by counting the number of ways there are to form a pair.

In our case of 11 objects, there are eleven ways to choose the first object, but only ten unique ways to add the second member of the pair, since each Black Box tin will contain two different objects. Therefore, according to the counting principle, there 11 × 10, or 110 ways to form a pair.

Got that? Try these ...

6. Suppose that you have a marble, a metal ball, and a penny. Imagine that you form a pair by choosing two objects from this set. Use the counting principle -- how many ways can you form a pair?
7. Write down all the possible unique pairs of objects that could be formed from a marble, a metal ball, and a penny. Why doesn’t this equal the number you got from using the counting principle?

Although there are 110 different ways to form a pair from the set of eleven objects present in the White Box in our experiment, there are actually only 55 different pairs. This is because there are two ways to form every pair. For example, we could form the pair with a metal ball and a rubber ball by choosing the metal ball and then the rubber ball, or by choosing the rubber ball and then the metal ball. Thus, it follows that there are half as many pairs as there are ways to form a pair (110/2 = 55).

Now we can figure out the probability of getting the identity of both objects in the Black Box correct by guessing alone, without the use of the scientific method!

Since there are 55 different pairs of the 11 objects in the White Box tin, and you are equally likely to choose each pair, the probability that you choose a correct pair is:

That is, you make approximately 2 correct guesses for every 100 guesses you make. Thus, you can see that the probability of getting the identity of your mystery objects correct by guessing alone is very low!

Discussion Question:
Compare this probability to the proportion of Black Box pairs your teams correctly identified. How did the scientific method help improve your success?

Extra Challenge

8. How many pairs in our Black Box experiment are in an event that has a penny?. Hint: Remember our definition of an event. Here the outcomes are pairs of objects, and the event of interest is a set of pairs that have pennies.
9. What is the probability that you choose a pair that has a penny? Any pair that has a penny is in this event.
10. What is the probability that your Black Box has a pair consisting of a penny or a marble, but not both a marble and a penny?
11. What is the probability that, by guessing alone, you correctly guess the identity of one (but not both) of the objects in your Black Box?

Answers:

1. {1,2,3,4}
2. B and E are not mutually exclusive because both of them contain elementary events {1} and {4}
3. 1/6 or .17 or 17%
4. 1/3 or .33 or 33%
5. 1/11 or .09 or 9%
6. 3 (first item) and 2 (second item), so 3 * 2 = 6
7. There are six ways to form a pair if we consider the order that the objects are added: marble and metal ball, marble and penny, metal ball and penny, penny and metal ball, penny and marble, metal ball and marble. But, there are only three distinct pairs of objects, as each unique pair is duplicated.

Challenge Answers

8. Every object that isn’t a penny can be used to make a pair with a penny. Since there are ten objects that are not pennies, there are ten pairs that have a penny: {penny, poker chip}, {penny, rubber ball}, {penny, rubber band}, {penny, metal ball}, {penny, marble}, {penny, tooth pick}, {penny, paper clip}, {penny, cotton ball}, {penny, cork}, {penny, crayon};
9. Since there are ten pairs that have a penny, and 55 possible pairs, the probability that you choose a pair with a penny is:

10. Since there are nine pairs that contain a penny but do not contain a marble, and nine pairs that contain a marble but do not contain a penny, there are eighteen pairs in this event. Since there are 55 possible pairs, the probability that this event occurs is

11. This is simply a generalization of the previous question. Since the presence of a particular object in the tin is random with respect to other types of objects, the probability that you find a pair that contains one of the objects in your tin but not the other object of interest is the same as the probability that you find that you have a pair of objects in your tin with a marble or a penny, but not both, or


Extended Links:
Carl Sagan describes how a scientist figured out the circumference of the earth 2200 years ago through experimentation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dBipPfFQJM&feature=fvwrel

They Might Be Giants – Put it to the Test (music video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kf51FpBuXQ

___________________

In Biology by Numbers, learn about the ways math can solve biological problems. Produced by the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS). NIMBioS brings together researchers from around the world to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to investigate solutions to basic and applied problems in the life sciences. NIMBioS is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/discover-the-black-box%e2%80%99s-secrets-scientific-inquiry/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/science-keeps-sandwich-fresh-for-two-years/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/science-keeps-sandwich-fresh-for-two-years/#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:03:42 +0000 Zach Lynn http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=22705 By Zach Lynn, Carleton College Since 1966, the US Army has been providing its troops in the field with Meals Ready to Eat or MREs. MREs are "completely self-contained meals that provide all the nutrition a solider-on-the-go needs to sustain him/herself." As of this year, there are 24 different entrees including options like chili and cheese tortellini. The science that goes into producing these meals is quite impressive. ]]> By Zach Lynn, Carleton College

Since 1966, the US Army has been providing its troops in the field with Meals Ready to Eat or MREs. MREs are "completely self-contained meals that provide all the nutrition a solider-on-the-go needs to sustain him/herself." As of this year, there are 24 different entrees including options like chili and cheese tortellini. The science that goes into producing these meals is quite impressive.

MREs must be able to withstand parachute drops of 1,250ft and non-parachute drops of nearly 100ft. MREs are designed to stay fresh for years below 81 degrees Fahrenheit and short periods of time at extreme temperatures. They even contain a "flameless ration heater", which releases energy when exposed to water, allowing soldiers to enjoy hot meals. MREs contain drink mixes and other dehydrated foods that are often fortified with nutrients. Unfortunately MREs have earned more than a few nasty nicknames due to their sub-par taste. Among the more clever are Meals Rejected by Everyone and Materials Resembling Edibles.

In response to the criticisms of traditional MREs the US army has released a series of sandwiches that are palatable and stay fresh for up to 2 years. These sandwiches contain ingredients like jam or honey that retain moisture with humectants. Humectants, like sugar in the case of jam, bind water allowing food to retain moisture. Since the moisture is locked away, it is not accessible to bacteria and it won't seep into the bread. These sandwiches are sealed in a package with an oxygen scavenger, a small packet of iron shavings. The iron shavings deplete the oxygen in the package as they rust (and become iron oxide).

The sandwiches have received good reviews as well. Watch this video to see for yourself.

_______________________
Zach first discovered his passion for science as a high school student at Trinity School in New York City. He now attends Carleton College, where he plans on majoring in Physics. His interests in science include high energy physics, medicine, and technology.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/science-keeps-sandwich-fresh-for-two-years/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/not-quite-earths-twin-but-getting-closer/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/not-quite-earths-twin-but-getting-closer/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:06:52 +0000 Kaitlyn Gerber http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=22648 By Kaitlyn Gerber, Carleton College NASA's Kepler mission, which seeks to detect and analyze extraterrestrial planets of near-Earth size, has confirmed the existence of a planet that could be suitable for life. With a radius that is 2.4 times that of Earth, Kepler-22b is the smallest confirmed planet in the "habitable" zone, the region around a star where conditions could permit liquid water to form. ]]> By Kaitlyn Gerber, Carleton College


Artist's conception of Kepler-22b. Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Kepler mission, which seeks to detect and analyze extraterrestrial planets of near-Earth size, has confirmed the existence of a planet that could be suitable for life. With a radius that is 2.4 times that of Earth, Kepler-22b is the smallest confirmed planet in the "habitable" zone, the region around a star where conditions could permit liquid water to form.

Two other planets had previously been identified within habitable zones, but because they were located on the fringes of the regions, they were likely to be too hot or too cold to feasibly sustain life. The stars near which the other planets were spotted are also much cooler than our sun, making them unlikely to support life. Kepler-22b's star is in the same class as our sun, although it is slightly smaller and cooler; as a result, the planet is about 15% closer to its star than we are to our sun.

Modeling also suggests that Kepler-22b may have a similar temperature to Earth's. At its ongoing Kepler Science Conference, Bill Borucki, Kepler Principle Investigator at the NASA Ames Research Center, explained that if Kepler-22b had similar greenhouse warming, its surface temperature "would be something like 72 degrees Fahrenheit, a very pleasant temperature here on Earth." The surface temperature of a planet is extremely important, because an earth-like temperature allows water to remain in a liquid state, increasing the chances that the planet can support life.

Launched in 2009, the Kepler observatory orbits the sun and uses a telescope lens called a photometer to measure the brightness of light. It detects planets through a method known as the transit method, which detects changes in the brightness of stars. When a planet crosses in front of the face of a star, it blocks some of the star's light, causing a minute dip in the star's brightness of about 1/10,000. This dip lasts between two and sixteen hours. Three of these dips, or transits, are needed before Kepler flags the potential extraterrestrial planet. The planet's existence is then verified using large, ground-based telescopes and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to review the observations. Although these dips can sometimes be caused by binary stars rather than planets, a team of researchers, led by Jean-Michel Desert of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, announced at the same conference that the probability of these "false positives" is less than one percent.

The Kepler team also announced that it has discovered an additional 1,094 potential planet candidates. Of these, 207 are near-Earth sized, and 48 are located in the hospitable zone (down from 54 in February, as the team has refined its criteria). At 600 light-years away, Kepler-22b is the first planet to be confirmed in the region.

"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe."

____________________________



Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she likes soccer, reading, and science, especially ecology and astronomy.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/not-quite-earths-twin-but-getting-closer/feed/ 8 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/space-worms-and-the-biological-impact-of-long-duration-spaceflight/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/space-worms-and-the-biological-impact-of-long-duration-spaceflight/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:52:29 +0000 Kara Rogers http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=22610 planets. Habitable planets, however, lie beyond the roughly 1,200-mile-boundary of low Earth orbit (LEO), which humans have not flown past since the final Apollo mission in December 1972. Beyond-LEO travel poses significant challenges to human survival—problems that researchers are now addressing through studies in space with the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, an organism that shares 40 to 50 percent genetic similarity with humans and hence offers insight into potential impacts of distant space travel on human physiology.]]> Space explorers and science fiction authors have long dreamed of space colonization, of the day when the human species will inhabit distant planets. Habitable planets, however, lie beyond the roughly 1,200-mile-boundary of low Earth orbit (LEO), which humans have not flown past since the final Apollo mission in December 1972. Indeed, beyond-LEO travel is fraught with technological and logistical issues. And it poses significant challenges to human survival—problems that researchers are now addressing through studies in space with the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, an organism that shares 40 to 50 percent genetic similarity with humans and hence offers insight into potential impacts of distant space travel on human physiology.

In a recent paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, scientists from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada described an automated, remotely monitored culture system for growing C. elegans during long-duration LEO spaceflight. The scientists successfully tested the system in a six-month-long trial aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and now say that the automated system is ready for deployment on unmanned missions beyond LEO, to other planets, such as Mars.

The worms lived in specialized culture cells connected by peristaltic pumps and filled with a liquid medium that supported their survival. For launch and flight to the ISS, the worms were maintained in a growth-arrested state, which helped them resist stress. Once aboard the space station, they were revived through feeding and began to grow and reproduce. Their growth, reproduction, and movement in response to long-duration spaceflight were monitored and analyzed from a laboratory on Earth via remote uplink to cameras mounted on the culture cells. Hence, there was never any need for humans aboard the ISS to handle the cells.

The scientists observed C. elegans for 12 generations in space and compared their findings with their observations of Earth-bound worms, which served as controls. The comparisons revealed that long-duration flight aboard the ISS had no effect on worm development. In addition, when fully fed, space C. elegans demonstrated rates of movement comparable to their Earth counterparts, and when deprived of food, both populations showed similar declines in movement, which recovered to normal after feeding. The experiments demonstrated not only that C. elegans could serve as a biological model in long-duration spaceflight but also that a biological species could reproduce and grow normally under spaceflight conditions.

Unmanned missions using space worms as biological models offer key advantages to understanding the effects of long-duration, beyond-LEO travel on living organisms. For example, it is far less expensive and much safer to send worms into space instead of humans. In addition, the success of the liquid life-support system designed for C. elegans may help scientists conceive of new ideas for mechanisms of human life support and radiation shielding technologies, which will be required for space colonization. Radiation in space, in fact, is a significant threat to human health and survival.

While space colonization likely remains a long way off, the need to escape from Earth in the future may be real, and it may be approaching more rapidly than we suspect. As the world population grows and resources become scarce, and with another ice age possibly looming a few millennia ahead, the future of our species could someday depend on the human colonization of other planets.
____________
Kara Rogers is a freelance science writer and senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and author of Science Up Front on the Britannica Blog. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology, but enjoys reading and writing about all things science. You can follow her on Twitter at @karaerogers.

This post also appears on the Britannica Blog.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/12/space-worms-and-the-biological-impact-of-long-duration-spaceflight/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/for-the-love-of-bugs/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/for-the-love-of-bugs/#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:09:15 +0000 The Bug Chicks http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=22550 A big part of our work as The Bug Chicks is bringing the world of insects and the science of entomology to students all over the country.  Recently, we were featured on EarthFix news, an environmental news collaboration between several PBS stations in the Pacific Northwest.  The video and article that came from the EarthFix team really showed what our work is about and we are so proud to share it!

We had the incredible opportunity to teach at Tucker Maxon Oral School. Most students wear cochlear implants and hearing aids.  At the end of the workshop, one boy told us, "This is the best day of my life!"

And hearing that made it one of the best days of our lives.

Check out what we do and why we do it here:

For the Love of Bugs from EarthFix on Vimeo.

To read the full article, click here.

________________________________________________
Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker are The Bug Chicks. They each have Masters Degrees in Entomology and love to teach people about insects and spiders. For more from The Bug Chicks, check out their website -- including their new teacher resources -- at http://www.thebugchicks.com!

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/for-the-love-of-bugs/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/the-color-of-47-million-year-old-moths/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/the-color-of-47-million-year-old-moths/#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:33:55 +0000 Kara Rogers http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=22482 lepidopterans (moths and butterflies) recovered from the Grube Messel oil shales in Germany.]]> The color of a fossil species is often its greatest secret, its pigmented tissues having decayed and returned to the earth long before its discovery. An anomaly in this pattern was the recent reconstruction of wing coloration from color-producing structures discovered in the wing scales of 47-million-year-old fossil lepidopterans (moths and butterflies) recovered from the Grube Messel oil shales in Germany.

The study, which was published in the journal PLoS Biology and involved researchers from the United States, Ireland, and Germany, is one of the first to describe the preservation of structural color in fossil lepidopterans. Structural color is responsible for the iridescent qualities of many beetles, birds, and butterflies.

The biological architecture that supports structural color is different from the mechanisms underlying pigmentation and from macrostructures capable of producing light and dark tones, which have been described in the wings of some fossil lepidopteran specimens. In moths and butterflies, structural color is imparted by modifications in nano-sized wing scale components (one nanometer = 10^-9 meter). For example, there may be alterations in the spacing between tiny ridges or between stiff structures called microribs on the wings.

Nano-level changes in lepidopteran wing architecture influence the physical interaction between light waves and the wing surface. Such modifications create what is known as a biophotonic nanostructure. Other nano-sized biophotonic structures known in nature include nanochannels and nanospheres. The blue color of the little blue penguin is the result of feather barbs made up of dense bundles of keratin nanofibers that reflect and scatter light of blue wavelengths. In lepidopterans, biophotonic structures are made from a polymer called chitin, which is similar to keratin in function.

Biophotonic nanostructures fulfill an important ecological role. For example, in morpho butterflies, which have bright blue iridescent wings, modified wing scales affect the brightness of the wings and increase the angle over which light is reflected; this presumably allows the butterflies to communicate over long distances. Bright coloration in nature is also often considered to be a warning signal, and thus structural color may play a role in signaling moths' or butterflies' unpalatability or toxicity to predators such as birds.

The reconstruction of the structural color in the fossil lepidopterans revealed that the insects possessed wings with an iridescent yellow-green upper surface trimmed with blue and brown margins. The findings suggest that their coloration may have served either as a mechanism of communication or as warning signal during activities such as feeding. When at rest, with the wings folded upward together, the color would have been concealed.

Evidence of structural color in 47-million-year-old lepidopterans suggests that biophotonic nanostructures are not a recently evolved phenomenon. Such knowledge of ancient structural color provides scientists with an opportunity to investigate the habitat preferences and communication and signaling mechanisms used by moths and butterflies of the Eocene Epoch (55.8 million to 33.9 million years ago). Further investigation could also shed light on the evolution of biological structures and their functional roles in ecology and behavior.
____________
Kara Rogers is a freelance science writer and senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and author of Science Up Front on the Britannica Blog. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology, but enjoys reading and writing about all things science. You can follow her on Twitter at @karaerogers.

This post also appears on the Britannica Blog.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/the-color-of-47-million-year-old-moths/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/imagine-science-films/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/imagine-science-films/#comments Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:23:37 +0000 Mary Brennan http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=21643 By Mary Brennan, Clarkstown High School South, Class of 2011 The Imagine Science Film Festival took place this past October. Imagine is a festival that showcases films that feature science in an interesting way that captures an audience. Saturday night's show, Avant-Garde Science, showed ten short experimental films. Avant-garde is a French term for those artists, writers, musicians, etc. whose techniques and ideas are markedly experimental. All of these films were beautifully made and very interesting.]]> By Mary Brennan, Clarkstown High School South, Class of 2011


Time Freak

The fourth annual Imagine Science Film Festival took place this past October. I was lucky enough to attend Saturday night's event at the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan. The festival began in 2008 and takes place for one week every year, in various theaters in New York City. Imagine is a festival that showcases films that feature science in an interesting way that captures an audience.

Saturday night's show, Avant-Garde Science, showed ten short experimental films. Avant-garde is a French term for those artists, writers, musicians, etc. whose techniques and ideas are markedly experimental. All of these films were beautifully made and very interesting.

The films included were: Welcome to Planet Earth, Everything is a remix - Part 3, Telegraphics, (in)visible, The Chronoscope, The World of Synthetic Biology, Found Footage: The Telephone, Thorium Dream, Man Machine, and Time Freak.

I enjoyed the films. My favorites were The Chronoscope, Thorium Dream, and Time Freak.

The Chronoscope was a mock documentary film about Charlotte Keppel who was "well before her time," and built a machine that looked into the past. I had never thought of such an invention, so this particular film really caught my attention.

Thorium Dream suggested a new way to supply nuclear energy to our country. It talked about the ever-so-touchy topic of uranium which is what we currently use to fuel nuclear plants. The short film explained how uranium is old school, and since we're constantly upgrading everything else, why can't we do it with our energy supply too? The goal of thorium is to unlock an energy source that will last us up to tens of thousands of years. A question that surfaced from the audience was: What are people at Indian Point saying about Thorium? And for someone who just wrote an article on Indian Point -- I was looking for some dispute. Is thorium our solution to radioactive waste? According to world-nuclear.org thorium is much more abundant in nature than uranium.

Time Freak was about a guy who built a time machine but couldn't seem to get past re-living a conversation he had with a girl he liked and trying not to freak out on the tailor who lied about his shirt being ready. This movie inspired several laughs from the audience, including myself.

Here's the video for Everything is a Remix - Part 3, one of the other films I saw that night. Enjoy!

_________________________
Mary Brennan is a recent graduate of Clarkstown High School South who is making effective use of a gap year by interning this fall at TalkingScience. Mary loves to learn, to read, and to write.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/imagine-science-films/feed/ 10 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/the-science-scene-do-fish-sleep/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/the-science-scene-do-fish-sleep/#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:01:01 +0000 Ann Marie http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=22108 Dr. Judith S. Weis, author of Do Fish Sleep?: Fascinating Answers to Questions about Fishes, can tell you.]]> Yes, almost all fish do sleep -- but with their eyes open. They don’t have eyelids to close. What else don’t you know about fish? Dr. Judith S. Weis, author of Do Fish Sleep?: Fascinating Answers to Questions about Fishes, can tell you.

Weis loves watching fish, and has been studying them since she was an undergraduate. Today she is professor of biological sciences at Rutgers University, consultant to government agencies, including EPA and NOAA, and past president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). Recently she visited the Bird Homestead in Rye, NY, to talk about how fascinating fish are.

Bird sits across an estuary from Marshlands Conservancy, the only extensive local salt marsh. Weis visited two years ago to talk about her research in New Jersey’s marshlands -- work she described in Salt Marshes: A Natural and Unnatural History. During that talk, Weis’ listeners had been impressed by her relaxed attitude towards a common problem in salt marshes: invasive species. Weis described her philosophy as, "If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em.”

In her talk, Weis was asked if that philosophy applies to the invasive species featured on the cover of her book -- the lionfish, an Indo-Pacific species that sports venomous spines along its back. "Not many predators eat lionfish," observed Dr. Weis. Since the early to mid-1990s, lionfish have been taking over the eastern coastal waters of south Florida and the Caribbean. So does Weis advocate eating lionfish? "Definitely. I hear they are delicious." She added that lionfish spearfishing tournaments have been held in the Florida Keys and the Bahamas.

Among other fascinating fish facts that Weis covered were:

•  Three bones in our inner ear evolved from a shark’s jaw.
• Fish have the same five senses that we do, plus a sixth called a lateral line, an interior canal that picks up water movements.
• For camouflage, fish can change color -- flounders especially. Weis showed an amazing photo of a flounder blending into a chessboard.
• The candiru, an almost invisible, eel-shaped catfish in the Amazon River, is attracted to urine, and will attach itself to your urinary tract. The moral of the story, according to Weis: "If you swim in the Amazon, wear a bathing suit and don’t pee!"

Commercial fishing practices are a huge threat to many species of fish, especially larger ones. The ten-year Census of Marine Life, launched in 2000, was an international effort to log all species in the world’s oceans. The Census' discoveries of many new species strengthened the idea of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), sanctuaries that are the underwater equivalents of American national parks. At present there are very few, said Weis: "We know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about deep-sea life."

In the absence of very many MPAs, you can help fish by being careful about which ones you eat. The science journal Nature publishes online a free wallet card, No Fish Go Fish. Weis said that your best choice is small fish –- sardines, anchovies, whiting –- that are still unthreatened.

Keep an eye open for Weis' next book. It is about crabs.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/11/the-science-scene-do-fish-sleep/feed/ 1 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/science-dad-on-the-weight-of-the-atmosphere/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/science-dad-on-the-weight-of-the-atmosphere/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:24:50 +0000 Vince Harriman http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=21875 As much as Beckett loves science, he also loves magic. So we decided to combine the two and see what kind of science-based magic tricks we could have fun with.  My first question for Beckett was how much does air weigh?  It seems like an impossible question for a young kid -- first, it doesn't seem like air weighs anything, then second, it seems impossible to try to weigh it.  So we decided to see if we could find other ways to feel the weight of the air.  Remember that both science and magic is best done with adult supervision -- and adult participation!

We started with a classic magic trick:  Can you pick up a coin in a pool of water without getting your fingers wet?  The set up is simple:  put a coin on a plate, light a candle, and submerge the coin with water.   Challenge the audience to pick up the coin without getting fingers wet.  Finally, place a glass over the candle -- but not the coin -- and wait until the candle uses up all the oxygen in the glass:

What happens is that as the candle burns all the oxygen that is in the glass, two things happen:  the glass is fills with carbon dioxide, and the candle heats the water vapor in the air so it becomes warmer than room temperature.  When the candle goes out and is no longer heating the air and water vapor, the moisture in the warm air condenses on the inside of the glass and becomes liquid.  As it does so, the air pressure in the glass goes down and the air pressure of the atmosphere outside the glass now pushes the water into the glass -- the area of lower pressure.  Why?  Because even though we can't feel the weight of air, it does have weight that exerts pressure. In fact, air pressure at sea level is about 14.7 pounds per square inch (14.7psi).  Just lowering the pressure in the glass a little is enough to move the water.

Now that we could actually see air pushing down, we decided to see if air could also push something up.  For this trick, all you need is a glass of water and a sturdy (not so absorbant) piece of paper or card stock.  Becket began by demonstrating the strength of gravity -- pouring water from one glass to another and then dropping the paper.  Then he placed the paper on the glass and carefully turned it upside down, and that's when the magic happens:

The way this trick works is remarkably similar to the first:  when turning the glass over, a tiny bit of water squeezes out, creating a lower pressure in the glass than in the atmosphere outside the glass.  There is also a tiny bit of surface tension and water molecule cohesion holding the paper to the glass, but the water is sitting on top of the high pressure air below it!

So just how much does air weigh if you just want to weigh it? We decided to find out. The easiest way to weigh air would be to put some in a bottle and throw it on a scale! Beckett found the family scale while I was getting a compressor from the basement. We started by weighing the empty tank:



The empty air tank

While it is hard to read the scale, without air it weighed 28.2 pounds.  We plugged in the compressor in and pumped it up to 150 pounds per square inch then weighed it again:



the filled tank

When we filled it up, it weighed .4 pounds more!  The air in the tank was pressurized to ten times the air pressure of the atmosphere, and all those extra molecules of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and, in our case, candle smoke added up to almost half a pound.  Now we were not using a scientific scale, so we weighed several times and took an average. The photograph shows the scale when we were actually on the average, but you can see that there is a measurable difference between an empty tank and a full tank.

 

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/science-dad-on-the-weight-of-the-atmosphere/feed/ 4 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/worm-watcher/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/worm-watcher/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:29:19 +0000 The Bug Chicks http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=21820 WormWatcher. The WormWatcher is an indoor vermiculture bin. Its so easy to use and its a fantastic way to get people into the often messy business of worm bins -- without the mess. This video kicks off our WormWatcher experiment. Over the next couple of months, we'll be writing about our experience with the WormWatcher, from set up to other arthropods that inhabit the bin. To learn more, watch our fun video!]]> Several months ago, we met Gina Ridgway, the founder and inventor of WormWatcher.  The WormWatcher is an indoor vermiculture bin.  Its so easy to use and its a fantastic way to get people into the often messy business of worm bins -- without the mess.

This video kicks off our WormWatcher experiment.  Over the next couple of months, we'll be writing about our experience with the WormWatcher, from set up to other arthropods that inhabit the bin.  To learn more, watch our fun video!

 


 
________________________________________________
Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker are The Bug Chicks. They each have Masters Degrees in Entomology and love to teach people about insects and spiders. For more from The Bug Chicks, check out their website -- including their new teacher resources -- at http://www.thebugchicks.com!

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/worm-watcher/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/the-shadow-of-the-moose-wyomings-herds-in-decline/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/the-shadow-of-the-moose-wyomings-herds-in-decline/#comments Tue, 18 Oct 2011 19:05:22 +0000 Kara Rogers http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=21628 moose has an uncanny ability for slipping silently into forest shadows and escaping notice. But in areas of Montana and western Wyoming, moose themselves are becoming shadows. Indeed, in those states, herds of the Shiras moose (Alces alces shirasi) are shrinking, and with no clear explanation why and no way of stopping the decline, biologists are concerned that some herds may soon vanish entirely.]]> For an animal that stands as tall as 7 feet at the shoulder and weighs as many as 1,500 pounds, the moose has an uncanny ability for slipping silently into forest shadows and escaping notice. But in areas of Montana and western Wyoming, moose themselves are becoming shadows. Indeed, in those states, herds of the Shiras moose (Alces alces shirasi) are shrinking, and with no clear explanation why and no way of stopping the decline, biologists are concerned that some herds may soon vanish entirely.

Shiras moose populations began dwindling sometime around 1988-89 and the early 1990s. The losses have been most severe in Wyoming, particularly in Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and the Bridger-Teton National Forest, which extends south from Yellowstone to the Wyoming Range. The current drop-off stands in stark contrast to the moose's rapid growth in these areas little more than a century ago. Indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, Shiras herds expanded, in part because of the establishment of Yellowstone in 1872 and in part because of the removal of livestock-threatening predators, namely gray wolves and grizzly bears. And until recently, the greatest threat to the moose's survival was overhunting, an issue mitigated largely by regulations limiting the number of individuals killed annually by hunters.

Although precisely what triggered the current decline remains a mystery, two factors -- the Yellowstone fires of 1988, which burned a total of 1.2 million acres (793,000 of which were within the park’s boundaries), and drought -- converged at the onset of the moose's descent. Moose thrive on the new vegetation that grows following a wildfire, but wildfire combined with drought may have limited the successional growth of aspen and other nutrient-filled plants on which moose depend.

Nutrient availability is especially important for pregnant females, which require areas with abundant and diverse vegetation. Such areas offer the greatest quantity and quality of nutrients, which help the developing fetus grow. Some biologists suspect that low-quality forage that came to occupy the burn areas following the 1988 fires contributed to nutritional deficiencies that caused a reduction in reproductive output among females. In addition, nutritional deficiencies render moose more susceptible to other factors, such as severe winters, tick infestation, and predation by wolves and grizzlies.

But while decreased quality and abundance of food may have played (and may still be playing) a significant role in Wyoming’s moose declines, researchers have also estimated that an astonishing 50 percent or more of the state’s moose are infected with a fly-borne nematode known as Elaeophora schneideri. In moose and elk, E. schneideri invades blood vessels in the head and neck, thereby impeding blood flow to vital tissues and potentially causing blindness, abnormal growth of antlers, gangrene of facial parts, or loss of coordination and other symptoms of brain damage. Whereas E. schneideri infestation often is not fatal in animals such as deer, it can cause death in elk and moose.

The Shiras moose is also facing other threats, perhaps the most significant of which is habitat loss from human activities. And despite regulations, overhunting remains a real concern. But while Shiras populations on the western side of Wyoming are in decline, populations in other areas of the state appear to be stable. Conservationists are hopeful that efforts to better understand the factors underlying both population stability and population decline will help with finding ways to rescue Shiras herds at risk of extirpation.
____________
Kara Rogers is a freelance science writer and senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and author of Science Up Front on the Britannica Blog. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology, but enjoys reading and writing about all things science. You can follow her on Twitter at @karaerogers.

This post also appears on the Britannica Blog.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/the-shadow-of-the-moose-wyomings-herds-in-decline/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/science-dad-on-crystals/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/science-dad-on-crystals/#comments Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:50:57 +0000 Vince Harriman http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=21606 our little experiments on the different states of matter, science went ahead and discovered another state. Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on quasi-crystals. As I stated then and will re-state now, there are so many states of matter that didn't exist ten or twenty years ago that I hesitate to try to name them all. But Beckett and I did start talking and thinking about crystals. We decided to attempt a two part experiment: this week we will look at the structure that makes a crystal a crystal then next week we will actually grow some crystals.]]> Not two weeks after we posted our little experiments on the different states of matter, science went ahead and discovered another state.  Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on quasi-crystals.  As I stated then and will re-state now, there are so many states of matter that didn't exist ten or twenty years ago that I hesitate to try to name them all. But Beckett and I did start talking and thinking about crystals. We decided to attempt a two part experiment: this week we will look at the structure that makes a crystal a crystal then next week we will actually grow some crystals.

First, what is a crystal? What makes a crystal different from other types of matter? The defining characteristic of a crystal is pattern. Beckett pulled out a box of blocks and we started arranging. First, he dumped them all out on his table. This is what matter with no form looks like.  Dirt, sand, most amorphous solids:



unorganized 'atoms'

We decided that the blocks were atoms and would represent the different ways that matter can be organized.  Here they have no discernible pattern, and no pattern that is likely to repeat in nature.

Next, Beckett arranged the blocks in the simplest pattern possible:



The simplest pattern with rectilinear tiles

The atoms all follow a simple pattern.  But even a pattern this simple can have a variation:



Variations on a simple pattern

Very little has changed, but in a crystal, this would represent a monumental change!  Imagine the blocks are atoms or molecules, and arranging them in this slightly different pattern represents atoms or molecules bonding on different sites, different electrons.

We decided to get fancy:



A simple herringbone pattern

The patterns were getting more interesting, the atoms and molecules were interacting in new and exciting ways.  How many ways could there be to arrange so simple an atom or molecule?  We went back to a square pattern:



Classic square basket weave

We were arranging the atoms of our crystals into patterns with no end in sight!  I asked Beckett to see what else he could come up with:



Rotating out from center

This pattern is interesting because it has holes and gaps in it.  It looks like the pattern can continue, but in a very different way than the very square patterns above.  We tried another:



Two different 'atoms' or 'molecules'

Finally, I asked Beckett to think outside the box, way outside.  What hadn't we done yet?  Clearly there were hundreds of patterns that could be accomplished with a single basic tile.  Were there more patterns though?  We tried this:



Adding depth

There are half a dozen additional ways the blocks can be laid against one another giving hundreds more possibilities. I'm sure a mathematician will come along and reassure me that there are an infinite number of possibilities for how a single shape can be arranged in patterns.  Our goal here was to see how a single shape-an atom or molecule-could be arranged in many different ways.  This is not just an academic exercise -- scientists are finding new ways to arrange crystals all the time.

For your own crystal building exercise, start by looking around and noticing things that have patterns and those that don't.  We noticed a box of straws in a restaurant, for example.  Next, find something you can use to build patterns -- like building blocks -- and see what you can come up with.  For added fun, try tiling with different size coins or using a variety of different but repeating shapes.

Next week we will move deeper into crystals -- we will grow some, and take another look at structure and pattern.  If you come up with an interesting way to visualize crystal structure, please leave a comment below. 

You can read the announcement of Shechtmann's prize on the Nobel Prize page.  You can also learn about liquid crystals by playing this great game at the Nobel Prize website.

 

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/science-dad-on-crystals/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/bug-bytes-toil-and-trouble/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/bug-bytes-toil-and-trouble/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:41:34 +0000 The Bug Chicks http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=12882 Listen now:

 



A female black witch moth, Ascalapha odorata
Photo Credit: Forest & Kim Starr (USGS)

Look out, Harry Potter.  This episode of Bug Bytes is all treats, no tricks!  See how cultures around the world have used insects for centuries in magic and divination. (original post October 2010)

 

Photos and Cool Links:

Information about the Black Witch Moth

http://www.texasento.net/witch.htm

Information and photos about insects in Traditional Chinese Medicine

http://www.chinavine.ucf.edu/barney_and_loye/nonflash/folk_medicine/

 

______________________________


Bug Bytes is a collaboration between Solpugid Productions and Texas A&M University's Department of Entomology.You can subscribe to the Bug Bytes podcast on iTunes.

 

 

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/10/bug-bytes-toil-and-trouble/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/lean-on-me/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/lean-on-me/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:27:21 +0000 The Bug Chicks http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=18493 In our most recent episode, we teach about mutualism for the US Forest Service's Pollinator LIVE distance education program.  Learn about the yucca moth and why pollinators are so important!

Episode 6: Lean on Me

We also filmed a version in Spanish!  See it below.

Episode 6: Apoyate en mi

________________________________________________
Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker are The Bug Chicks. They each have Masters Degrees in Entomology and love to teach people about insects and spiders. They also run Solpugid Productions where they are involved in all sorts of entomological endeavors including the popular Bug Bytes podcast, produced in collaboration with the Texas A&M University Department of Entomology. For more from The Bug Chicks, check out their website at http://www.thebugchicks.com!


]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/lean-on-me/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/diy-insect-collecting-gear/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/diy-insect-collecting-gear/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 12:12:37 +0000 The Bug Chicks http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=17849 Parents and teachers!  Want to collect insects but don't have the tools?  A couple of years ago, we teamed up with Junior Master Gardener and the Borlaug Institute to create insect nets, a Burlese funnel and aspirators out of common household items!  These videos are based on activities in the fabulous JMG workbook.


 

Lets Sweep Up!


 

It’s a Small World
 


 

Suck a Bug


 

To learn more about Junior Master Gardener program, click here.

To learn more about the Borlaug Institute, click here.

Hablan espanol?  Check out the Spanish versions here!

Barramos!
Que Pequeno es el Mundo!
La Aspiradora de Insectos!

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/diy-insect-collecting-gear/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/the-discovery-of-the-burrunan-dolphin/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/the-discovery-of-the-burrunan-dolphin/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:59:43 +0000 Kara Rogers http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=17826 dolphin inhabiting the coastal waters off southeastern Australia. Their suspicions were confirmed last week, when a team of researchers in Australia reported that the dolphin, long classified as Tursiops truncatus, one of two recognized species of bottlenose dolphin, in fact represents a previously unknown third bottlenose species, Tursiops australis.]]> For about a century, scientists have questioned the identity of a dolphin inhabiting the coastal waters off southeastern Australia. Their suspicions were confirmed last week, when a team of researchers in Australia reported that the dolphin, long classified as Tursiops truncatus, one of two recognized species of bottlenose dolphin, in fact represents a previously unknown third bottlenose species, Tursiops australis.

The researchers, who published their work in the journal PLoS One and proposed that the new species be given the name Burrunan dolphin, verified that the dolphin is in fact a new species using a combination of techniques. For example, analysis of mitochondrial DNA, which has a high mutation rate allowing scientists to discern a species' ancestry, revealed an evolutionary divergence between the Burrunan dolphin and the other two species of bottlenose dolphins. The genetic evidence was supported by observations of a distinct pattern of tri-coloration in the Burrunan dolphin, as well as a distinct combination of body size, cranial features, and rostrum (beak) and dorsal fin morphology.

In the paper describing the new species, the researchers discuss the unified species concept, an idea introduced in 2007 by zoologist Kevin De Queiroz from the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution. Scientists typically define species based on one of several different species concepts. For example, the biological species concept defines species based on reproductive isolation (or their inability to interbreed with other species), and the phenetic species concept defines species as sets of organisms that look similar. The unified species concept, however, is based on the idea that spatially separated populations of species are headed in different evolutionary directions, and therefore evidence of divergence, whether morphological, genetic, or behavioral, is relevant in defining species.

Prior to the new research, the Burrunan dolphin was thought to be a metapopulation (a geographically separate population) of T. truncatus. In fact, in the early 20th century, the smaller Burrunan was believed to represent the female version of T. truncatus, and the discovery of large and small specimens was used as evidence of sexual dimorphism in bottlenose dolphins. But in the ensuing decades, researchers realized that the larger dolphins were found primarily in offshore waters, whereas the smaller dolphins were found mainly in semi-enclosed bodies of water. Their ranges overlapped only in some areas.

In recent years, the taxonomic position of the smaller form became increasingly suspect, having been described in the early 2000s as both T. truncatus and T. aduncus and even simply as Tursiops sp. But with multiple lines of evidence indicating that the Burrunan dolphin is unique from other bottlenose species, the latest research may finally bring the debate to an end.

The naming of a new species of dolphin marks an exciting discovery and brings the number of known dolphin species close to 40. More than 1.7 million species, including plants, animals, and fungi, have been described, but scientists estimate that many more are awaiting discovery. And while we might wonder where these unknown species are lurking, as the discovery of the Burrunan dolphin suggests, they may be right in front of us.
____________
Kara Rogers is a freelance science writer and senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and author of Science Up Front on the Britannica Blog. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology, but enjoys reading and writing about all things science. You can follow her on Twitter at @karaerogers.

This post also appears on the Britannica Blog.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/the-discovery-of-the-burrunan-dolphin/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/10-back-to-school-projects-for-young-citizen-scientists/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/10-back-to-school-projects-for-young-citizen-scientists/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:42:01 +0000 John Ohab http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=17693 As summer comes to a close, a young person’s fancy may turn to fretting at the thought of being cooped up in a classroom. But for fans of science and nature—and by that we mean kids who like to watch clouds, hunt mushrooms, prowl around graveyards, and check out what gets squashed on the side of the road—fall need not signal the end of fun.

To keep entertained and enlightened this fall, try the following back-to-school projects for student citizen scientists. Teachers and parents, please note: Many of these programs provide materials around which you can build lessons. To search for more science projects that are looking for volunteers, visit the Science for Citizens Project Finder.



Kids of all ages will be examining water quality during World Water Monitoring Day.

World Water Monitoring Day: World Water Monitoring Day is an international program that encourages citizen volunteers to monitor their local water bodies. An easy-to-use test kit enables everyone from children to adults to sample local water bodies for basic water quality parameters: temperature, acidity (pH), clarity (turbidity), and dissolved oxygen. Though World Water Monitoring Day is officially celebrated on September 18, the monitoring window is extended to cover the period from March 22 (World Water Day) until December 31. Check out what an intern with World Water Monitoring Day said about the project.

School of Ants: Join North Carolina State University researchers in a citizen-scientist driven study of the ants that live in urban areas, particularly around homes and schools. Collection kits are available to anyone interested in participating. Teachers, students, parents, kids, junior-scientists, senior citizens and enthusiasts of all stripes are involved in collecting ants in schoolyards and backyards using a standardized protocol so that project coordinators can make detailed maps of the wildlife that lives just outside their doorsteps.

The Albedo Project: Wherever you are – anywhere in the world – on September 23th, contribute to science by taking a photo of a blank white piece of paper, outside in the sun, between 4:00 and 7:00 pm local time. Your photo will used to to help students measure how much of the sun’s energy is reflected back from the Earth — our planet’s “albedo.” It’s one way scientists can monitor how much energy – and heat – is being absorbed by our planet.

Students’ Cloud Observations On-Line (S’COOL): Report your observations of clouds—their shapes, height, coverage, and related conditions—so that NASA scientists can compare them with data from weather satellites passing over your area. Tutorials and observing guides are available for students. For teachers, the program provides lesson plans, charts, and advice on related educational standards.

Physics Songs:  Physics Songs aims to be the world’s premier website devoted to collecting and organizing all songs about physics. It is managed by Walter F. Smith, Professor of Physics at Haverford College. Songs about physics can help students to remember critical concepts and formulas, but perhaps more importantly they communicate the lesson that physics can be fun.

Tracking Climate in Your Backyard: This project teaches volunteer meteorologists aged 8 to 12 about the scientific process by enlisting them in the collection of weather data in their communities. Download free support material and curriculum.

Gravestone Project: With Halloween less than two months off, here’s an appropriate activity for young citizen scientists: Map the location of cemeteries near you using a GPS device. Then, following instructions on the project website, measure the rate at which marble gravestones erode at each site due to weathering. You’ll be helping researchers determine changes in the acidity of rainfall between locations and over time.

Celebrate Urban Birds: Join the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and citizen ornithologists around the country in studying the presence and behavior of 16 species of birds in urban habitats. You’ll stake out an area about half the size of a basketball court and then spend 10 minutes on a designated day reporting on the presence or absence of these resident and migratory birds. A kit including posts and stickers is available from Cornell—or you can download most of the supporting materials from the website.

Great Lakes Worm Watch: What red-blooded student scientist could resist a hunt for earthworms? This program is limited to the critters in Minnesota, which, being non-native worms imported by early Europeans, are presumed to be changing the native forests of the region. Worm Watch needs volunteers to collect specimens; record habitat data in farmland, pastures, and parks; and conduct soil surveys where these “exotic” worms are found.

Stellar Classification Online Public Exploration: SCOPE needs citizen scientists to classify stars based on images of their spectra. After a quick registration and online tutorial, you can examine your first stellar spectrum and compare it to the “light signature” of well-known reference stars. Check out what high school student Eli Moorhouse wrote about his recent adventures working on SCOPE.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/10-back-to-school-projects-for-young-citizen-scientists/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/fall-into-citizen-science-watch-a-plant/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/fall-into-citizen-science-watch-a-plant/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:39:38 +0000 Lisa Gardiner http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=17705

The leaves of red maple trees turn bright red as temperatures cool in the fall.

Plants have a lot going on as autumn temperatures cool. Some leaves turn bright yellow or red and fall from trees. Fruits grow large and ripe. Grasses become brittle and brown. Some flowers, like California poppies, bloom in the autumn too.

Project BudBurst is looking for volunteers to take note of what plants are doing as the seasons change. During the “Fall into Phenology” event volunteers around the country will be heading outside between September 17 and 26 to collect data about how plants respond to changes in their environment.

Phenology is the science that examines life cycles of plants and animals and how they are affected by seasons and climate.

A timed event like Fall into Phenology can create a snapshot of seasonal change across the country. The more people who take part, the better the picture and the more useful the data is to science.  Check the Project BudBurst website to for a map of observations across the country and see how the picture is developing during the event.

To participate:

1. Download the Single Report form.
2. Observe a plant September 17 – 26.
3. Report your data online

The Project BudBurst scientists are also interested in knowing how plants respond to changes in their environment all year long. They invite volunteers to keep watching their plants all year too, so check the website if you'd like to become a long term plant monitor.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/fall-into-citizen-science-watch-a-plant/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/episode-1-bug-bits/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/episode-1-bug-bits/#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:52:13 +0000 The Bug Chicks http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=17525 This is the episode that started it all!  We introduce what makes an insect an insect and show you the unusual way insects taste their food.  Don't forget to check out the Remix Challenge at the end -- scan and send us your ideas and we'll post them on our Web site!

________________________________________________
Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker are The Bug Chicks. They each have Masters Degrees in Entomology and love to teach people about insects and spiders. They also run Solpugid Productions where they are involved in all sorts of entomological endeavors including the popular Bug Bytes podcast, produced in collaboration with the Texas A&M University Department of Entomology. For more from The Bug Chicks, check out their website at http://www.thebugchicks.com!


]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/09/episode-1-bug-bits/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/08/the-tammar-wallaby-genome-a-closer-look-at-marsupial-reproduction/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/08/the-tammar-wallaby-genome-a-closer-look-at-marsupial-reproduction/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:44:13 +0000 Kara Rogers http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=17294 wallaby is one of the most thoroughly studied marsupials in the world. And it is now the first member of the kangaroo family (Macropodidae) to have its genome sequenced, providing scientists with an opportunity to investigate the genes underlying marsupial reproduction and development and to take a closer look at marsupial and mammalian evolution.]]> The tammar wallaby is one of the most thoroughly studied marsupials in the world. And it is now the first member of the kangaroo family (Macropodidae) to have its genome sequenced, providing scientists with an opportunity to investigate the genes underlying marsupial reproduction and development and to take a closer look at marsupial and mammalian evolution.

Marsupials form one of three divisions of mammals (the other two are the monotremes and the placental mammals) and are distinguished by their unique reproductive strategy. Female tammar wallabies (Macropus eugenii), for example, give birth to live but incompletely developed young. Relative to placental mammals such as humans, gestation time is short, lasting only about 26–28 days, at which time the newly born bean-sized joey climbs up and into the mother’s pouch, where it attaches to a teat and suckles milk. The joey will spend the next nine months completing its development in the pouch before finally being weaned.

This extraordinary reproductive strategy has been the source of intense investigation, particularly because of its evolutionary significance. Placental mammals are by far the most numerous type of mammal alive today, likely in part because placental development provides time for offspring to develop completely by birth. While this process is more demanding on the mother, environmental risks to offspring are low, thereby improving the chances of survival once born.

In contrast, newborn marsupials, in their incompletely developed state, are highly vulnerable to environmental factors. But there is a trade-off—the energy investment in reproduction by adult female marsupials is relatively low, which can be valuable in environments where food resources are subject to rapid change. Hence, the complete development of marsupial offspring will occur only in years when environmental conditions favor the survival of both mother and offspring.

Marsupials are also among a unique group of animals that make use of a phenomenon known as embryonic diapause, in which the development of a new embryo is suspended for a period time. Thus, in the tammar wallaby, shortly after the joey is born and enters the pouch, its mother will mate again. The development of the embryo from this new pairing, however, is delayed for about 11 months in diapause, its growth being inhibited by lactation that supports the joey already growing in the mother’s pouch. Embryonic diapause allows the tammer wallaby and other marsupials to maintain their seasonal breeding patterns.

With the full genetic code of the tammar wallaby now known, scientists will be able to gain insight into the evolution of the genes and molecular biology behind marsupials' development and reproductive strategy. In addition, the latest research offers an exciting opportunity for new discoveries concerning mammal biology and the mammalian genome in general.
____________
Kara Rogers is the senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. She is also a member of the National Association of Science Writers and a contributor to the Britannica Blog, where she runs a series called Science Up Front. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology, but enjoys reading and writing about all things science. You can follow her on Twitter at @karaerogers.

This post also appears on the Britannica Blog.

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/08/the-tammar-wallaby-genome-a-closer-look-at-marsupial-reproduction/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/08/wind-power/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/08/wind-power/#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:13:10 +0000 TalkingScience http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=17164 For centuries, humans have harnessed wind power as a form of energy by various means, from wind sails to windmills. Today, windmills have evolved into wind farms, consisting of hundreds of wind turbines that generate enough electricity to power thousands of homes.

In this activity, students will discuss the differences between the Bear Creek Wind Park and Bergey Windpower turbines. Students will learn the basic parts of a wind turbine and then build their own model wind turbine out of recyclable materials. Students will test their model wind turbines using three different-sized blades to determine which size harnesses the most wind.

Click here to download a pdf of this lesson plan>>

Grade Level: 6th – 8th grade
Subject Matter: Physical Science
National Standards:NS.5-8.1, NS.58.2


Wind Turbines: Size Matters, http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10294

How would you describe the size of a wind turbine? There's no right answer. Turbines come in different varieties tuned for different uses. Compare the 256-foot-tall Gamesa G87 turbines, found at Bear Creek Wind Park in Penn., with the mini turbines developed by Bergey Windpower in Norman, Okla. The scale of both may surprise you.

Activity Materials:
Milk cartons, one quart size – one for each group of students
Sand – each group of students will need one cup
Measuring cups – one per group of students
Roll of masking tape
Rulers – one for each group of students
Pens – one for each group of students
Plastic straws – one for each group of students
Small round pushpins – each group of students will need two.
Ball of string or yarn
Paperclips – each group of students will need one
Scissors – one pair for each group of students
Quarters – each group of students will need one or two
Brass fasteners – each group of students will need several.
Measuring cup
Electric fan
Yardstick
Stopwatch
Turbine blade circles: Prepare the turbine blade circles before the lesson by using a compass to make three circles on cardstock paper with the following diameters: 10cm, 15cm, 20cm. Cut out enough circles so that each group of students will have one circle of each size.

Vocabulary
Blade: the part of the turbine or windmill that spins when it catches the wind.
Windmill: a building or device that harnesses wind power.
Turbine: a machine that uses rotating blades to generate energy.
Simple machine: a basic device that reduces the amount of force required to do work.

What To Do

1. Begin the lesson by having the students watch the Science Friday video, “Wind Turbines: Size Matters.” Review with students how the turbines at Bear Creek Wind Park and Bergey Windpower Company work. What are some of the similarities and differences between the two? Which turbine produced the most power? Does the size or shape of the blade matter?

2. Inform students that they will be working in groups to build wind turbine models, and testing the effects of using different sized blades on each model. Review with students the basic parts of a wind turbine: base, axle and blades. How do these parts relate to a simple machine?

Activity One: Wind Turbine Base
Note: In order to conserve materials students will be making one turbine base per group.

1. Organize students into groups so that each group will be building one wind turbine base. Hand out to each group: one milk carton, one cup of sand, masking tape, a pen, a ruler, a straw, a paperclip, two pushpins and a roll of string.

2. Have students measure out one cup of sand, and pour it into the milk carton and then tape the spout closed with masking tape. Why do they think it is important to add sand to the base of their wind turbine?

3. On the center of one side of the milk carton, have students use a ruler to measure three centimeters down from the top edge. Have them mark this spot with a pen, then turn the carton to the opposite side of the carton and repeat. Why do they think these spots are being marked?

4. With a pen, have students carefully poke a hole through these two marks. What part of the wind turbine should these holes be for? What material do they have that can serve as the axle? Have students insert a straw through the holes, to ensure that the holes are large enough for the straw to fit through both holes. The straw should be able to turn easily, and should have an equal length exposed through the hole on each side of the carton.

5. Have students push one small round pushpin through both protruding parts of the straw close to the carton, so that the straw will not slip out during the experiment. Remind students to be careful and not to poke themselves with the pins as they continue building their turbines.

6. Have students measure and cut a piece of 15cm-long string. They should tie one end of the string to a paper clip and tape the other end of the string to one end of a straw. Tell students that the string will be used to measure how quickly the blades turn. What do they think will go on the other end of the straw? Inform students that the milk carton will serve as the wind turbine base to test three different-sized blades.

Activity Two: Wind Turbine Blades

1. Hand out the turbine blade circles, and inform the students that they are going to be testing three different blade sizes (10cm, 15cm, 20cm). Ask the students to predict which size they think will wind up the string with the paperclip the fastest, and why. Students should record the predictions in their science notebooks.

2. Have students trace a quarter at the center of each of the cardstock circles. This smaller circle will be the area of the windmill blade that will be attached to the straw.

3. Have students use a ruler to draw two lines so that each circle is divided into four equal quarters. Cut along the four drawn lines, making sure not to cut into the inner circle.

4. Have students fold each quarter of the circle in half so that half of each quarter stands up, resembling a pinwheel. Ask students what they think would happen if the circles were left flat.

5. Push a brass fastener though the center of each of the inner circles.

Activity Three: Testing Turbines
Prep: Prepare the testing area by setting a fan on a table and taping a yardstick on the table, so that the distance between the fan and the windmill can be measured. Prior to the class, mark on the yardstick where turbines should be placed for testing. The appropriate distance for the blades to turn will vary depending on the strength of the fan being used.

1. Have students draw the following data collection table in their science notebooks:



2. Inform students that they will use their wind turbine base to test each of the turbine blades. Students should follow these steps to test each of the turbine blades:

• Tape the brass fastener from the end of one of the turbine blade circles onto the empty end of the straw;
• Place their completed turbine at the marked distance from the fan with the string and paperclip hanging over the edge of the table;
• Turn the fan on and with a stopwatch record in seconds how long it takes for the string to wind around the straw and the paperclip to reach the top.

3. Have students record their findings on the data collection table, and take the average of the three trials for the three different windmill blade sizes.
4. Compare and contrast the results with the entire class. Which of the three turbine blades raised the paperclip the fastest? Did the results match the students’ predictions?

What’s Happening?
When designing wind turbines, engineers must take various factors into consideration. These factors include the turbine’s location, height of the tower, shape, length and number of blades, and the amount of electrical energy that needs to be generated.

The model wind turbine in this activity more closely represents a windmill. This model is a simple machine, specifically a wheel and axle. The wind blows on the blades (the paper wheel), which turns the axle (the straw). As the straw turns, the piece of string starts to wind around the straw and the paperclip rises. The most efficient blade size will vary, depending on how the blades are constructed or folded, the type of fan used and the location of the model wind turbine on the table. Usually, the turbine with the largest blades can harness the most wind energy and will move the paper clip the fastest.

Topics for Science Class Discussion
• How can we re-design the wind turbines so that they lift the paper clip faster?
• What are other ways people can use renewable resources to generate energy?
• What are the benefits and disadvantages of using wind power?
• What are the effects of wind turbines on birds and bats? Are there any solutions?

Extended Activities and Links
Extend the activity by experimenting with different variables, such as the length and width of blades, constructing blades from different materials or changing the number of blades used. Have students record and present results to the class.

Have students make a Wind Power Map by researching and mapping any of the following:
• Best geographical areas around the world suitable for building wind turbines (high winds, flat land, etc.);
• Worst geographical areas for building wind turbines due to lack of wind;
• Countries around the world that are the biggest producers of wind energy;
• Wind farms in the United States.

Learn more about the turbines in this clip by watching two additional Science Friday videos about wind turbines:
•Wind Power
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201004093
•Cape Wind Project Moves Forward:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201004302

Explore more about wind power:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=wind_home-basics-k.cfm

View an interactive animation on the advantages of wind power and how it works:
http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/electricity/index.cfm/mytopic=10501

Click here to download a pdf of this lesson plan>>

 

]]> http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/08/wind-power/feed/ 0 http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/08/mission-pollination/ http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/08/mission-pollination/#comments Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:36:09 +0000 The Bug Chicks http://www.talkingscience.org/?p=16895

For this episode, filmed for the US Forest Service's National PollinatorLIVE program, we bring you into the bizarre world of pollination.  Check out the Bug Chicks Remix Challenge at the end - see if you can snap a photo of what you find in the garden and send it to us!  We'll put it on our website!

For more great Bug Chicks videos, check out:
Spider Specifics
Fantastic Feats
Flower Power
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Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker are The Bug Chicks. They each have Masters Degrees in Entomology and love to teach people about insects and spiders. They also run Solpugid Productions where they are involved in all sorts of entomological endeavors including the popular Bug Bytes podcast, produced in collaboration with the Texas A&M University Department of Entomology. For more from The Bug Chicks, check out their website at http://www.thebugchicks.com!


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