BlogCadre - insects

Advertising First: Banner Ads Attached to Flies

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:19:16 +0000

At the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, a German book company, Eichborn, attached banner ads to flies and let them loose in the convention center.

I don't particularly like having flies buzzing all around me, but kudos to Eichborn for their creativity and attention getting stunt.

Link [via Mashable]

Cyborg Spy Beetles

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:12:45 +0000

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has created cyborg beetles, which are guided wirelessly via a laptop, with the intent to spy on conversations.

According to Professor Noel Sharkey, an international expert on artificial intelligence and robotics from Sheffield University, there have been attempts in the past to control insects such as cockroaches, but this is the first time the flight of insects has been controlled remotely.

Professor Sharkey questioned the ultimate military application of remotely controlled beetles as you would also need to implant a GPS transmitter and a camera too.

This would be too heavy for even the largest beetle to carry.

The Berkeley researchers suggested the 'cyborg' beetles - part beetle, part machine - could serve as models for micro air vehicles.

Sato and colleagues also said the beetles could serve as couriers to inaccessible locations. The Berkeley team is also experimenting on dragonflies, flies and moths because of their 'unmatched flight capabilities'.

DARPA's ultimate aim is to create cyborg insects that can fly more than 300ft to their target and then stay put until commanded to buzz off again.

Link [via Wonderment Blog]

Fly Carcasses Made Into Art

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:14:48 +0000

Swedish photographer Magnus Muhr takes dead fly carcasses and breathes new life into them with a few strokes of his pencil. Link to gallery.

[Pictured above, Acrobatics]

Previously on BC:
Insect Lab: Customized insects by Mike Libby - Link

Ancient "Unicorn" Fly Discovered

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:52:50 +0000

Researchers have discovered a new fly, which they have named Cascoplecia insolitis, that was said to have lived during the time of the dinosaurs 100 million years ago in the jungles of Myanmar. A single specimen of the monster-like fly was preserved in Burmese amber.

Scientists are nicknaming the fly the "unicorn" fly because it has a small horn that emerges from its head and on top of the horn are three eyes. Because of the unusual characteristics of this fly, researchers have placed it in a new family, genus and species of fly.

“If we had seen nothing but the wings of this insect, it would have looked similar to some other flies in the family Bibionomorpha,” Poinar said. “But this was near the end of the Early Cretacous when a lot of strange evolutionary adaptations were going on. Its specialized horn and eyes must have given this insect an advantage on very tiny flowers, but didn’t serve as well when larger flowers evolved. So it went extinct.”

The fly also had other very unusual characteristics, the study found, such as an odd-shaped antenna, unusually long legs that would have helped it crawl over flowers and extremely small vestigial mandibles that would have limited it to nibbling on very tiny particles of food.

“None of the specialized body characters of Cascoplecia occurs on previously reported Cretaceous bibionids,” the report concluded. “This ‘unicorn’ fly was one of the oddities of the Cretaceous world and was obviously an evolutionary dead end.”

Link

[Photo from Oregon State University photostream]

Bee Swarm Capture

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:40:23 +0000

Here is a video of Kerry Cox performing a bee swarm capture from a house in California. To view more videos of Kerry Cox and bee howto's check out this link. [via MAKE]

Related:
A magic honey bee turned me into Popeye - Link
Splitting the Hive - Link

Fire Ants Turn Zombie by Phorid Flies

Fri, 15 May 2009 19:00:34 +0000

In hopes to control the fire ant population in Texas, University of Texas scientists are releasing phorid flies into fire ant colonies. Phorid flies will latch onto the fire ants and lay eggs on them. The larvae hatches inside the ants, eats their brains, and the ants walk around in a zombie-like state for a month until their heads fall off. True story.

Link (Thanks, starnami!)

Bee Boy hip hops to raise awareness

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:34:16 +0000

To help raise awareness of Colony Collapse disorder Haagen-Dazs produced this video and put together the website Help the Honey Bees.

It is a fact of nature: When a honey bee returns to the hive after finding a good source of nectar, it will perform a unique dance for its hive mates, detailing the distance, quality and quantity of the new food supply. Sadly, honey bees are mysteriously vanishing in staggering numbers - a crisis known as Colony Collapse disorder - which is alarming considering honey bees are responsible for pollinating one-third of our natural food supply.

Link to video. Link to Help the Honey Bees. [via Neatorama]

Splitting the Hive

Mon, 19 May 2008 04:05:07 +0000

Over the weekend, Jason, Colleen (Jason's mom) and Ted (beekeeping expert) split their hive in order to set up a secondary hive in another location. Chris Wiggins witnessed the hive splitting and lived to tell the tale. He wrote a great post over on his blog Beautiful Bokeh and also shared amazing photos he took on that day.

Link to Beautiful Bokeh. Link to photo gallery.

Update: Jason wrote up a post over at Make: Blog about his hive splitting experience and provides information on how to start your own backyard beehive. Link.

Cockroach Robots Infiltrate and Influence Cockroach Communities

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:15:21 +0000

They don't look much like cockroaches, but the robotic cockroaches created by Belgium researchers managed to infiltrate and influence cockroach colonies' behaviors.

Halloy and his colleagues suspected that a group decision emerges because every individual follows these simple rules: Wander around randomly, but spend more time in a place if you sense that it is (A) dark and (B) has other cockroaches.

So the researchers made sure their robotic cockroach could follow those rules. The robots had wheels, plus a light sensor and an infrared sensor to detect nearby roaches.

When they put these robots in with the living roaches, they all began to interact. Before long, the robots and cockroaches were huddled together under the same roof. "The robots and the cockroaches behave as a group," Halloy said.

So then the scientists decided to reprogram the robots and change one of their rules. "We change their preference for darkness," Halloy said. "We make the robots prefer lighter places than darker ones."

And they presented the group of robots and roaches with two shelters. One was dark, and one was light.

What the scientists found was that the whole group would generally end up resting in the brighter place, even though normally roaches would prefer a darker one.

The experiment, published in the journal Science, showed that just a few individuals can dramatically alter the behavior of the whole group.

Link [via digg]

Unmade beds keep away dust mites

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 05:10:40 +0000

I knew the real reason for not making my bed every morning wasn't pure laziness... it was to keep the dust mites away. Yeah, that's right.

Research suggests that while an unmade bed may look scruffy it is also unappealing to house dust mites thought to cause asthma and other allergies.

A Kingston University study discovered the bugs cannot survive in the warm, dry conditions found in an unmade bed.

The average bed could be home to up to 1.5 million house dust mites.

The bugs, which are less than a millimetre long, feed on scales of human skin and produce allergens which are easily inhaled during sleep.

The warm, damp conditions created in an occupied bed are ideal for the creatures, but they are less likely to thrive when moisture is in shorter supply.

Link [via Neatorama]

Insect Candy

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 23:27:20 +0000

If you have a sweet-tooth and enjoy the cold, wet slime of worms in your mouth than you will definitely dig these insect candies by Hotlix. [via MeFi]

Bell Jar Bee Hive

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:37:51 +0000

Here is an interesting photo gallery of bees creating a hive in a bell jar. [via digg]

Previously:
Scientists create 'bomb-sniffing' bees, Honeybees are disappearing, Nobody knows why, Insect Lab: Customized insects by Mike Libby

Tiny Animals on Fingers

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:33:16 +0000

Here is a very cute, very adorable Flickr photoset of tiny animals on fingers.

[via digg]

Buddhist Monks practice nonviolence during ant infestation

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:42:33 +0000

Buddhist monks in the Hong Hock See Temple are plagued with a stinging red ant infestation, which has caused one worshipper to be sent to the hospital for treatment for several bites.

In most infestation problems people would call the exterminator or start stomping those bugs dead, but Buddhist monks practice nonviolence by which they are bound by faith to not hurt any living creature.

They have had this problem for a year and have been unable to find any nonviolent methods to rid their temple of the ants. At this point, all they can do is "shake them off".

[Image: "Fire Ant" taken by Jason Striegel. San Pablo City, Philippines. 2006]

Honeybees are disappearing, Nobody knows why

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 17:22:25 +0000

Crop pollinating bees across the nation (approximately in 22 states) are mysteriously disappearing (called Colony Collapse Disorder) at rates up to 60 percent. Researchers, beekeepers and farmers are baffled as to why massive amounts of bee colonies are disappearing at such an enormous rate.

Researchers have pinpointed some possibilities for this strange tragedy:

More stress--to increase pollination frequency, bees are being raised to survive a shorter off-season, which could be lowering their immunity to viruses
Hive-damaging mites
Improperly applied pesiticides
Viruses

Although researchers have thoughts as to why the bees are dying off, no definite conclusions can be made because there are no traces of dead bees around or within miles of their beehives. Because of this researchers are unable to perform any autopsies on the dead bees.

Because bees are essential to pollinating the nations crops, significant economic stress may or will occur.

Related articles:
Honeybees, Gone With the Wind, Leave Crops and Keepers in Peril (NYTimes, requires free registration to view full article)
Vanishing bees threaten US crops (BBC)
Honeybees disappearing at alarming rate, cause unknown (Digital Journal)