LSU's own Dr. Zhaorigetu Chen Sings at the ESA's Annual Meeting in Indianapolis.
Showing posts with label entomology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entomology. Show all posts
Dr. Zhaorigetu Chen Sings at the ESA's Annual Meeting
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 entomological society of america, entomology, LSU, singing
Random buggy news...
Thursday, September 10, 2009 art, book review, entomology, insects, links, math, pestival
* BibliOddesy has a neat collection of vintage illustrations from bee/apiculture literature with links to some other resources. (LINK)
* PESTIVAL was held from the 3rd-6th of September in the UK and featured all sorts of cool insect inspired art. Check out their website (LINK).
* A new book out called "The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics" by Clifford Pickover has a neat exerpt that talks about cicadas:
Cicada-Generated Prime Numbers
Cicadas are winged insects that evolved around 1.8 million years ago during the Pleistocene epoch, when glaciers advanced and retreated across North America. Cicadas of the genus Magicicada spend most of their lives below the ground, feeding on the juices of plant roots, and then emerge, mate, and die quickly. These creatures display a startling behavior: Their emergence is synchronized with periods of years that are usually the prime numbers 13 and 17. (A prime number is an integer such as 11, 13, and 17 that has only two integer divisors: 1 and itself.) During the spring of their 13th or 17th year, these periodical cicadas construct an exit tunnel. Sometimes more than 1.5 million individuals emerge in a single acre; this abundance of bodies may have survival value as they overwhelm predators such as birds that cannot possibly eat them all at once.
Some researchers have speculated that the evolution of prime-number life cycles occurred so that the creatures increased their chances of evading shorter-lived predators and parasites. For example, if these cicadas had 12-year life cycles, all predators with life cycles of 2, 3, 4, or 6 years might more easily find the insects. Mario Markus of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology in Dortmund, Germany, and his coworkers discovered that these kinds of prime-number cycles arise naturally from evolutionary mathematical models of interactions between predator and prey. In order to experiment, they first assigned random life-cycle durations to their computer-simulated populations. After some time, a sequence of mutations always locked the synthetic cicadas into a stable prime-number cycle.
Of course, this research is still in its infancy and many questions remain. What is special about 13 and 17? What predators or parasites have actually existed to drive the cicadas to these periods? Also, a mystery remain as to why, of the 1,500 cicada species worldwide, only a small number of the genus Magicicada are known to be periodical.
* PESTIVAL was held from the 3rd-6th of September in the UK and featured all sorts of cool insect inspired art. Check out their website (LINK).
* A new book out called "The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics" by Clifford Pickover has a neat exerpt that talks about cicadas:
Cicada-Generated Prime Numbers
Cicadas are winged insects that evolved around 1.8 million years ago during the Pleistocene epoch, when glaciers advanced and retreated across North America. Cicadas of the genus Magicicada spend most of their lives below the ground, feeding on the juices of plant roots, and then emerge, mate, and die quickly. These creatures display a startling behavior: Their emergence is synchronized with periods of years that are usually the prime numbers 13 and 17. (A prime number is an integer such as 11, 13, and 17 that has only two integer divisors: 1 and itself.) During the spring of their 13th or 17th year, these periodical cicadas construct an exit tunnel. Sometimes more than 1.5 million individuals emerge in a single acre; this abundance of bodies may have survival value as they overwhelm predators such as birds that cannot possibly eat them all at once.
Some researchers have speculated that the evolution of prime-number life cycles occurred so that the creatures increased their chances of evading shorter-lived predators and parasites. For example, if these cicadas had 12-year life cycles, all predators with life cycles of 2, 3, 4, or 6 years might more easily find the insects. Mario Markus of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology in Dortmund, Germany, and his coworkers discovered that these kinds of prime-number cycles arise naturally from evolutionary mathematical models of interactions between predator and prey. In order to experiment, they first assigned random life-cycle durations to their computer-simulated populations. After some time, a sequence of mutations always locked the synthetic cicadas into a stable prime-number cycle.
Of course, this research is still in its infancy and many questions remain. What is special about 13 and 17? What predators or parasites have actually existed to drive the cicadas to these periods? Also, a mystery remain as to why, of the 1,500 cicada species worldwide, only a small number of the genus Magicicada are known to be periodical.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
bot,
entomology,
fly,
human,
removal
Very cool vlog about a human bot fly.
0
Very cool vlog about a human bot fly.
Entomology in the News
Friday, March 27, 2009 arms race, cabinet, curiosities, entomology, morbid anatomy, nytimes
Two cool news items in the past couple of days-
The New York Times did a really interesting article called "Extravagant Results of Nature’s Arms Race" by Nicholas Wade.
And the blog Morbid Anatomy wrote about a visit to the "Cabinet of Curiosities" Paris, which is filled with preserved insects.
UPDATE: Cabinet magazine did a large feature on the entire cabinet and it's history here.
Ent. Club at the Garden Show!
Monday, March 23, 2009 education, entomology, Garden show, insects
The Entomology Club presence in the Kids Zone at the Seventh Annual Baton Rouge Spring Garden Show (March 21 and 22) was a great success! We had about 400 adults and children come by and talk to us on Saturday, and another 200 visited the booth on Sunday. Many thanks to Bob Danka for bringing a display bee hive, and Linda Hooper-Bui for giving us a swarm of lady beetles. I am grateful to Stephanie Gil, Anna Meszaros, Helen Petre, and Dawn Simms for volunteering to work the booth on both days, and extra thanks to Stephanie Gil for help with display set up and take down.
LSU at the ESA Branch Meeting: Awards
Thursday, March 12, 2009 award, conference, entomological society of america, entomology, ESA, LSU, meeting, SEBCongratulations to the following awardees at the Entomological Society of America, Southeastern Branch meeting in Montgomery, AL Mar 8-10, 2009:
Dr. Gene Reagan, Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching
Dr. Gregg Henderson, Recognition Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology
Drs. Dale Pollet and Dennis Ring were included in the 2009 Friends of Southern IPM Bright Idea Award. The award recognized members of the Southern Region School IPM working Group that is implementing IPM for schools in Louisiana. This is the first Team Award conferred by the society.
These awards represented 3 of the 8 top professional awards conferred by the society.
Kyle Fontenot (M.S. student under Dr. Roger Leonard) won First Place in the Master’s Student Paper Competition.
The department’s Linnaean Team (Julien Beuzelin, Ph.D. student under Dr. Gene Reagan, Matt Gimmel, Ph.D. student under Dr. Chris Carlton, Jennifer Gordon, M.S. student under Dr. Jim Ottea, and Katherine Parys, Ph.D. student under Dr. Seth Johnson; alternate Grant Aucoin, M.S. student under Dr. Wayne Kramer), coached by Dr. Natalie Hummel and Dr. Jeremy Allison, was the runner-up out of 9 teams representing Southeastern Branch universities. This event is a College Bowl-style competition testing each team’s knowledge of entomological concepts, history, biographies, current advances and trivia. Our team won the extra initial round (vs. Georgia) to establish an 8-team pool and went on to defeat Clemson and Arkansas before losing to North Carolina State. Our team distinguished itself by having all four contestants receiving points for the team. Each Branch sends two teams to the national ESA competition, which will be held in December this year in Indianapolis, IN. Our team brought back a $600 check to help toward travel to the national meeting.
Additional awards were received for photos entered in the Photo Salon:
Anna Meszaros received a 2nd place award in the Action category
Katherine Parys received a 3rd place award in the Traditional Macro category
Dr. Claudia Husseneder received both 1st and 2nd place awards in the Artistic category.
Welcome
Saturday, February 28, 2009 entomology, louisiana, LSU, state, university
Welcome to the new website/blog from the Entomology Club at LSU! We're hoping to use this space for a great way to share news and events with both current members of the department, alumni, and friends!
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