New Ant Exhibit Opening This Weekend
BALTIMORE, MD-- The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History will be opening a new exhibit this weekend, and its all about ants! The exhibit will be called "Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The...
View ArticleMy Fifteen Minutes
WASHINGTON, DC-- Andy Warhol famously stated that everyone gets fifteen minutes of fame. In the modern world of blogging, this can be literally true. "The Ant Hunter" was recently featured in...
View ArticleOn the radio
BALTIMORE, MD-- I'll be interviewed on the radio tonight, along with my labmate Natasha Mehdiabadi. If you happen to be near Fairfax, Virginia this evening, tune in to WEBR from 8-9 PM. Otherwise you...
View ArticleScience blogging vs. Peer-review
BALTIMORE, MD-- Alex Wild over at Myrmecos has started a discussion about a very interesting topic for us blogging scientists: what impact can sharing one's scientific opinions on a blog affect their...
View ArticleTraffic Lessons from Ants and Physicists
BALTIMORE, MD-- A recent article in Seed suggests a few lessons about the flow of traffic that may be discerned from two seemingly unconnected branches of science: particle physics and myrmecology (the...
View ArticleAre people sick of nature?
BALTIMORE, MD-- A recent study suggested that there has been a steady per capita decrease in visits to parks and other natural areas by Americans (as well as Japanese and Spaniards) over the last 20...
View ArticleDon't Know Much About History
WASHINGTON, D.C.-- Yesterday, while strolling through the exhibits in the Natural History Museum, I overheard the following conversation:WOMAN: "What is that?" (pointing at a fossil skeleton of a...
View ArticleWatch leafcutter ants live!
Click here to watch a live video feed from a laboratory colony of Atta cephalotes leafcutter ants at the Smithsonian's Ant Lab.The worker ants in a leafcutter colony come in all different sizes, and...
View ArticleScience Cafes
HOUSTON, TX-- On a recent flight, I was flipping through the in-flight magazine and came across an article that caught my attention. It was about a new phenomenon that began in Europe and has since...
View ArticleNot all bacteria are germs
HOUSTON, TX—A balanced diet is important for all animals. When a critical nutrient is lacking—such as salt in the case of many herbivores that consume only saltless plants—they must somehow seek out...
View ArticleAnts can count!
Most ants use chemical cues known as pheromones to find their way home, like leaving a trail of cookie crumbs. But what happens when they live in an environment where pheromones get blown away, like in...
View ArticleShould we let Pandas go extinct?
HOUSTON, TX-- Naturalist and photographer Chris Packham made headlines recently when he suggested that it might be more productive to allow critically endangered species like the Giant Panda to go...
View ArticleAre women more "ape-like" than men?
HOUSTON, TX-- You may have heard that we humans share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. A recent study seems to suggest that this may be more true for women than for men.The study by Jennifer Hughes and...
View ArticleDarwin movie released today
There is a new movie out today about Charles Darwin. Defiantly entitled Creation, the film is said to chronicle the later year's of the naturalist's life as he developed his theory of evolution by...
View ArticleUnlocking the molecular secrets of echolocation
Bats navigate through the air using sophisticated echolocation, allowing them to "see" at night as well as deep inside the darkest caverns. In a similar way, dolphins use a form of sonar that...
View ArticleGlobal Warming Debate
HOUSTON, TX-- Wednesday evening I attended a public debate here at Rice on global climate change between two very qualified climate scientists.On one side of the debate was Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred...
View ArticleScientific literacy...and lack thereof
HOUSTON, TX-- Author Chris Mooney was on campus yesterday, speaking at Rice's Baker Institute about his latest book (with coauthor Sheril Kirshenbaum), "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy...
View ArticleOn the origin of primates
HOUSTON, TX-- Last night I attended a talk at the Houston Museum of Natural Science by NYU "Molecular Primatologist" Todd Disotell. Dr. Disotell, sporting a mohawk, spoke in the museum's IMAX theater...
View ArticleIt's time to tidy up the colony!
Please excuse the long break from new posts. I am in the process of restructuring this blog. Please check back soon for an update...Image from: http://www.shelleyandjoshua.com/power_point_&_video.htm
View ArticleAnts navigate with an internal compass
Research on the South American ant species Pachycondyla marginata shows that worker ants navigate by means of a magnetic compass housed within their antennae.Photo by Alex Wild
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