Garden Carnage and Tuition Hikes

I spent some of the afternoon trying to pick up after the hail storm and flooding.

So depressing. While I’m pretty sure things will recover (except maybe the sweet corn), it’s hard to look at. All the developing fruits I had (zukes, peas, tomatoes) needed to be picked and tossed, they were so damaged. More photos here, if you like looking at shredded plants.

In other Bad Michigan News: the state has cut the amount of aid it gives to public universities, so not only do we have to revise our budget downward at work, tuition is going up. Again.

“From the 2003 to 2008 fiscal years, average state tax allocations nationally for higher education rose 24.1 percent, according to the annual Grapevine report compiled by Illinois State University faculty. In contrast, Michigan cut its higher education tax support by 5.1 percent during that period. Michigan was the only state with lower aid levels for universities and community colleges than five years ago….

Michigan’s public university tuition increased about 11 percent last year, compared with 6 percent at private colleges….MSU’s Board of Trustees in June approved a 6.8 percent tuition and fee increase for in-state students, which will take effect this fall.”

MSU is now expected to raise tuition a third time in less than 2 years in January, since rising energy costs and the loss of income from the state means they are coming up short. No word on what other state schools plan yet.

And don’t forget, Michigan is too broke to offer student loans anymore.

I’m too bummed out to stick to the diet. Bring on the chocolate.

The Fly: An Opera (?)

Yep, Cronenberg has made his film into an Opera.

“The libretto by David Henry Hwang (”M. Butterfly”) has all the elements needed for good opera: a love story, a transformation, tragedy and death, not to mention a large dose of melodrama…. As Brundle, bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch has the unenviable task of performing arias in his birthday suit as he climbs in and out of the teleport machine.”

I had no idea the opera world was crying out for Sci Fi/Horror. At least Goldblum isn’t trying to sing the lead!

EDITED TO ADD: The official Fly Opera Website! Waggle of the Antennae for the tip to Jett.

OMG massive garden disaster

A huge storm rolled through Michigan tonight, dumping tons of water and hail. After I managed to make it home on roads with 2 feet of standing water, I discovered the garden had been utterly SHREDDED.

There is almost nothing left intact. Even the beans were stripped off the trellis.

*sobs*

The flooding also caused all sorts of damage to the bugmobile, and it will have to take an expensive trip to the shop for repairs.

Good news? Well, no trees have fallen on our house. Yet.

UPDATE 7/3/08: More photos of storm and flash floods; oddly enough, it hasn’t gotten much news coverage. Looks like the Bugmobile escaped serious harm; about $300 in repairs, and I feel lucky.

The other beetle-hunter

Today, July 1st, 150 years ago, the joint paper of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace was read to the Linnean Society of London: “On the tendency of species to form varieties, and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection.”

Nature had a nice essay about Wallace, who tends to be overshadowed by Darwin.  Of modest origins, Wallace financed his tropical travels (with Henry Walter Bates) by selling specimens to museums and collectors.   His first trip to the Amazon ended in ruin–after four years of collecting he lost nearly all his specimens when the ship he was returning to England on caught fire. I don’t think any graduate student could ever be unmoved by his life story!

There’s a great deal of back and forth about who was *first* to articulate the theory of natural selection and evolution, and I’m not terribly interested in that. The reality of science is that there usually isn’t a single brilliant mind working in isolation, or a single author of an idea.  Wallace was, however, unquestionably the spur to Darwin’s plodding, methodical writing, and sped up the announcement of a radical idea about the Origin of Species.

Nature printed an excerpt from the text of Wallace’s speech accepting the first Darwin-Wallace awards from the Linnean Society of London in 1908:

“His speech on “Why did so many of the greatest intellects fail, while Darwin and myself hit upon the solution of this problem” is vintage Wallace; a mixture of self-deprecation and insight. His conclusion? ‘In early life both Darwin and myself became ardent beetle hunters.‘” {emphasis mine}

Why beetles? Beetles represent 20% of ALL species described.
25% of all ANIMAL species that we have identified are beetles. Simply put, there’s just a shitload of beetle species.
And right now, your brain is probably asking the same question Darwin’s and Wallace’s did:

WHY?? Why in the world are there so MANY kinds of beetles?

Tracing down the answer to that…that’s the spark that started the evolutionary fire.   Long may it rage.

Fun Beetle Sites:

• An inordinate Fondness for Beetles
• A Collection of all sorts of random beetle factoids by the St. Petersburg Museum
• Living Jewels–amazing photos of beetles
• A non-technical answer to the question of “why so many beetles?”
• The Science paper they reference

Lovely Photo from Thomas Hawk

Mosquito Prevention

It’s been a very wet spring, and not surprisingly, many people have ended up at the BugBlog looking for ways to deal with mosquitoes. The “What’s the best way to repel mosquitoes” post has popped to the top of the “most-viewed” list.

Mosquitoes are so bad at my house, even spraying my clothes with DEET isn’t enough to stop them–a tiny gap between the buttons was all it took for some mozzies to buzz in and get tangled in my bra.  I’ve been bitten twice just while writing this post, and I’m inside my office right now.

One thing you can do to help keep things from getting worse is to prevent this crop of mosquitoes from breeding in and around your yard.

Although the adult females that bite have wings, the larval (baby) forms are aquatic and need standing water to live in.

• Empty water from flower pots, pet food and water dishes, birdbaths, swimming pool covers, buckets, barrels, and cans.
• Limit the number of places around your home for mosquitoes to breed by getting rid of trash items that hold water, such as old tires, tin cans, buckets, drums, and bottles.
• Make sure drainage ditches actually are draining, and don’t have standing water. Removing blockages can make a big difference.
• Clean your gutters! You’d be amazed at how many mosquitoes can breed in even a small pool of water in your gutters.

Lastly, make sure your screens are in good shape, too. There’s nothing worse than the whine of a lonely mosquito somewhere in your bedroom, late at night. By denying female mosquitoes a blood meal, you can prevent them from breeding as well.  They can’t lay eggs without that nourishing drink.

If you have standing water that you can’t get rid of, such as an ornamental pond or water feature, you might want to consider using “mosquito donuts.” (The fancy name for this is applying microbial larvicide.) These are usually little round disks that contain spores of a bacteria that kills fly larvae.

These spores are B. t. israelensis, which is a variant of the Bacillus thuringensis that is used to kill caterpillars.  Bt bacteria work by giving insects a sort of stomach flu–since humans are quite different than insects, it has no effect on us or other vertebrates (birds, pets, etc.).

Some of the brand names this biological control is sold under include Skeetal, Aquabac, Mosquito Attack, and Gnatrol. Any good garden center should know what you’re asking for and help you locate them in the pesticide section.

If you have a very large water area, that tends to not breed as many mosquitoes. Larger, permanent ponds and lakes tend to have plenty of predatory insects, amphibians, and fish that keep the mosquitoes under control.

Installing a fountain in any water feature helps to keep mosquitoes down as well. Mosquitoes essentially float with their butt on the surface of the water, breathing air through their hind end.  If you agitate the surface of the water with a fountain, it’s hard for the females to light on the water and lay eggs, and for the larvae to float (and breathe!)

All of these steps will help reduce the numbers of mosquitoes attacking you, and make you a good neighbor to boot.  Sadly, if you keep your gutters and yard tidy, and your neighbor doesn’t… better get some more repellent.

Related posts:

• Mosquito repellent clothing: does it work?
• What’s the best way to repel mosquitoes?

A vision of students today

I found this getting ready for my freshman seminar, and wish I could make every faculty member I know watch it.

This is from the maker of the wonderful “what is web 2.0?” video.

I so wish that when I get my video editing suite I could be this creative.

Interesting new pheromone research

In this week’s Cell, a completely new idea about how pheromones work at the molecular level is described for fruit flies.

Activation of Pheromone-Sensitive Neurons Is Mediated by Conformational Activation of Pheromone-Binding Protein. John D. Laughlin, Tal Soo Ha, David N.M. Jones and Dean P. Smith. Cell 133(7). doi:10.1016/j.cell.2008.04.046

You might remember that pheromones are detected by insects’ antennae–it’s been assumed that the pheromone molecule attached to a protein on the nerve cell surface, initiating a depolarization reaction, and ultimately changing the animal’s behavior by stimulating the nervous system.

In this study, they discovered that in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), pheromone actually attaches to a free-floating protein with the catchy name of LUSH.  Remember, proteins aren’t just straight chains of amino acids. Larger proteins have a tertiary structure (illustrated nicely here for non-science types with a telephone cord).  By binding to the molecule, the pheromone changes the shape of LUSH.
It’s the new, altered LUSH that actually binds and activates the neuron, not the pheromone molecule!

This is important not just because it’s a cool bit of science that shows us the inner workings of an antenna, but because it gives us an additional potential target to attack for pest insects.

One tweak the authors of this paper did was to genetically alter some of the amino acids in LUSH to change the shape of the molecule. They produced an altered LUSH molecule that could produce a neural reaction–even though there was no pheromone present!

IF this mechanism is active in other insects, and IF we can find a way to bind up LUSH or alter it, we could  completely prevent an insect from ever detecting its species’ pheromones.  No pheromone detection = disruption of mating, which would be a pretty nifty form of bug birth control.
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Where is the cheesemobile?

Someone told me about this, and I think it’s just the coolest thing ever:

Dairy farmers in Sullivan County, N.Y, are being visited by the CheeseMobile, a trailer with a custom-built, state approved dairy plant inside. The 12-by-36-foot unit is complete with boiler, air handler, sinks, coolers and a cheese makeroom containing all the necessary equipment to manufacture, package and age cheese. It is supplied by lines from the milk room that fill the 200-gallon pasteurizer three to four times a week for cheesemaking.

Unfortunately, the website they refer you to (www.thecheesemobile.com) is a lapsed domain.

Anyone seen or know about the CheeseMobile? Where is it now?  The most recent sighting was in 2006, in the New York Times.

Calling all interwebbers–help me find the CheeseMobile, so we can rent it! Doug, have you heard of this?

[yummy photo from cwbuecheler]

Now for something completely different

I got nothing, so how about you amuse yourself with these photoshopped bookcovers? Most amusing!

Other sources of amusement/bafflement:

You could not make stuff like this up.

“Two United States Senators implicated in extramarital sexual activity have named themselves as co-sponsors of S. J. RES. 43, dubbed the Marriage Protection Amendment. If ratified, the bill would amend the United States Constitution to state that marriage “shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.”  Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who was arrested June 11, 2007 on charges of lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport terminal, is co-sponsoring the amendment along with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA).

In July of 2007, Vitter was identified as a client of a prostitution firm owned by the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey, commonly known as The DC Madam.” [emphasis mine}

The sad thing is, too few people will see the humor in this. Even sadder, these deluded folks think their hate needs to be enshrined in the Constitution.

Larry and David could use a trip to the Pit of the Farting Sluggoth.

And to end on a happier note: Canadian CSI. I love Bizzaro.

Pretty Pollinator Friday

I am way swamped, and have had a rather stressful day, so here’s a pretty photo.

Enjoy, and check out Kaycatt’s other lovely photos.