LJWorld.com

Should kids learn about Math?

A bit sexist, but the parallels with Kansas and what certain presidential candidates say about science needs no additional comment from me. ;-)

You may have noticed these large wasps flying around and making burrows in loose soil.

They may look fierce and frightening but they are actually not very aggressive. These are Cicada Killers and the female digs burrows in loose soil and she provisions the nest with cicadas that she paralyzes by stinging them before carrying them to the burrow. It is possible to be stung by these wasps but you have to little put your hand on one to get stung-which is a pretty stupid thing to do. The sting hurts momentarily and the site doesn't seem to swell as a hornet or paper wasp sting does.

How do I know this? Well, guess who was stupid.

At The University of Kansas they used to aggregate around the entrance of Strong Hall - the entrance facing Snow Hall. I haven't checked to see if they are still nesting there.

Here is a pretty good summary of the natural history of these wasps:

http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo/cickillr%20wasp.htm

You can control them with chemicals but there really doesn't seem any reason to do this from my way of thinking. Supposedly cultural practices like improving your turf in areas where they nest help, but I rather have the wasps myself.

In terms of identification there isn't a whole lot of insects with which you can confuse these wasps. The females are two inches or so long, their burrowing and swarming behavior in areas where you have loose soil is pretty distinctive. Again they are not likely to sting you; in fact I was standing in the middle of a cluster of wasp burrows on the JCCC campus when I took this particular shot. So use some common sense (not like me) and enjoy!

From Baker Wetlands today. Most critters had more sense than me. These lilies at least looked cool in spite of the 107F temp at the time. What would be the best critter to be on a day like today?

Water Lily at Baker Wetland by pdecell

Biologists? Now that my summer semester is over, I just had to get out yesterday to do some hiking so went over to Prairie Park for a couple of hours. What struck me was how green the prairie area was with no maintenance.

Prairie Park by pdecell

Do you think maybe this is an indication of the sorts of plants we should use around our yards rather than the usual garden store fare?

Here by the way are a couple of shots from my visit.

First up is a hummingbird moth-resting- until I went to take the NEXT shot.

Sphinx Moth by pdecell

Next a very nice orb weaving spider that was hanging out near the nature center itself.

Argiope aurantia by pdecell

There was at least one other photographer out-a fellow from Ottawa with his new camera- and I steered him to the spider. Hope his shots came out well and that enjoyed his visit to the park.

G+ or Google+ is supposed to be Google's answer to Facebook. I have been using G+ for a little over a week now and so far it is a mixed bag. The good is that I can set up different circles for people I know in different contexts. This set of slides you can scroll through explains the concept quite well.

You can set up what ever circles you want and that way separate people you know say from work from those you know at the local bar....of course maybe these are the same people. That way each group gets only those posts that you think they might enjoy. It's really cool.

You can also follow people you don't know, celebrities for instance, no need to friend them. In fact there is no friend button. You can also control whether or not your posts can be shared outside your circle. Another cool feature is that you can set up a video "Hangout" for your friends and you can have a video chat with up to 10 friends simultaneously. Set up is easy- though I have not felt the hankering to actually start a "Hangout". Besides I don't have enough people in my circles to wait around for visitors. But I can see this as a good way to hold virtual office hours for students.

Google is still at the beginning of this experiment and that has led to no little controversy about Google's profile requirements. Google requires you to use your real name when setting up profiles. In fact Google has allegedly been suspending accounts if the name even sounds fake. If you want, you can also on a separate line provide other names you go by. As you might expect, privacy advocates have been upset at Google-there are after all legitimate needs for pseudonymous profiles safety being one.

Here is a good concise discussion of the issue. What astounds me is the blindness of Google executives to the whole issue. Former CEO Eric Schmidt is alleged to have said: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Of course the fallacy here is that there are plenty of things that either you don't want everyone to know - example medical issues-. Then there are things that you might want everyone to know but not be able to trace the revelation back to you-whistle blower for instance.

At least some people in Google do understand the issue as evidenced by this post in Google's Public Policy Blog. The message seems to be that yes you can be what you want to be but don't expect to be able to use all of Google's products using a pseudonym. This is a tough balancing act for Google as it strives to integrate and rebrand it's diverse products.

Yesterday while in my backyard with my camera I happened upon a not very welcome visitor to my Purple Cone Flower-a Japanese Beetle.

Back East these are a serious pest of ornamentals but I had not seen them here in Lawrence before. The closest I have seen them is Arkansas-in fact I've blogged about them here: http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/dangerous-ideas/2008/aug/08/another-beetle-pest/

Fortunately I have only seen the one so far.

The other visitor is much more welcome. I have been growing fennel in the hopes of getting Black Swallowtails to reproduce in my garden and finally this year got at least one larva.

And my favorite picture of this "cat:"

Actually I first noticed an adult Black swallowtail visiting my fennel before I found the larva.

Of course what makes part of what makes the Japanese Beetle unwelcome is partly that it is a pest. I suppose too that if I was raising fennel for cooking I might consider the swallowtail a pest as well. Indeed this one larva is probably going to pretty much destroy one of my fennel plants by the time it is grown.

This brings me to an interesting segment on yesterday's Science Friday. The biologists featured in the segment argue that much of our concern about non native species is misplaced and that many of these species are now part of our landscape. You can listen here while you are cooling off with a Gin and Tonic or what ever beverage floats your boat.

While I am on this topic, there is a controversy brewing about wild horse control. The standard view point about wild horses is that they are non native and thus need to be controlled. Of course horse lovers and animal rights people don't agree and some have pointed out that the horse WAS a part of the natural fauna in North America as recently as 11,000 years ago and indeed evolved in the New World. So are they really non native?

Read about that controversy at LiveScience or here at New Scientist-again while you cooling off with your favorite liquid refreshment.

As if I don't have enough online distractions, along comes Google's G+, Google's answer to facebook. I managed to snag an invite and have been trying it out. One neat feature is that you can set up circles of contacts: family, friends, acquaintances and custom special interest circles. So for instance you can set up a circle for your photography friends. That way comments you make to to that group don't have to be shared with everyone. You can set your comment options so that a comment only goes a specific circle. Or you can post to all your circles.

So far NO idiotic Farmville updates or apps asking to click on it to learn whether or not some friend thinks I can keep a secret. I suppose though it is only a matter of time...

Anyone else using G+? What do you think? Will you abandon Facebook or other Social Network sites?

During the last week in May and first week in June, I went to Boise Idaho to visit my sister and do some sightseeing. Idaho has some of the most interesting geology and geography of any state and so combining family with hiking and picture taking and geology seemed like a perfect fit. Unfortunately it rained a good part of the trip, plus with the snow melt, the rivers up are full and the people who manage water flow in the Snake River weren't sure what to do with all the water. Fortunately for us, they are on the other side of the continental divide.

The last couple of days of my trip the weather did clear out and my sister and I took a road trip to Shoshone Falls which is about 120 miles East of Boise. These falls are 18 ft taller than Niagara-not sure how the flow rate compares- but the Shoshone Falls were running at about 18,000 cubic feet a second. I put together a little slide show showing the falls and the surrounding Snake River area.

Enjoy!

I couldn't get this to embed in my post so here is the link to the Flickr slide show:

[http://www.flickr.com//photos/pdecell...][1]

When you are done you may have to sue your browser's back key to get back to the blog entry.

Yesterday I was at Clinton Lake with my camera but didn't get a whole lot of shots-wrong lens for the conditions. But this little bloom in the sun caught my eye:

leading to this line:

"The humblest flowers have their moment in the light even if no one is watching."

Looks like it's open season on science again. Michelle Bachmann has decided that schools should teach intelligent design, according to CNN.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/17/bachmann-schools-should-teach-intelligent-design/

She allegedly said, after professing her belief in intelligent design:

"What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don't think it's a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides."

Now I am all for inquiry based science, and helping students develop scientific intuition but I wonder how you can do inquiry based science about intelligent design?