Steve

Top-down macro image in portrait orientation of an inpressively angular tank of an ant with broad, sharp shoulders and ahead that looks like a fancy helmet with retractable antennae. The ant is mostly black, but is covered in glittering fine silver hairs over its entire body.

One of my favorite ants, the Texas turtle ant Cephalotes texanus. Photo is a live stack of three images, to improve depth of field.

A penknife… a _small_ penknife!

A fly sits on a yellow flower in the sunshine.

My phone just suggested a random photo from my library. Mixed feelings.

A #fly from Whitby in 2021. Just before I left the family holiday a week early to go to a hospital appointment with my late father, and he was diagnosed with cancer.

#diptera

As I understand it, there is a reason that we don’t have a ‘universal vaccine’ for viruses. It’s how they work.

They have spent _billions_ of years mutating rapidly so that immune systems can’t have ‘universal immunity’.

Or am I wrong? Any #immunology or #virology researchers able to comment?

It really shows the flattening of the curve of the eye facing forwards, to give greater angular resolution for hunting.

Is that a single image? The focus is spot on with the detail in the eye and mouthparts! Excellent!

🤣

Ah yes, I don’t have a book problem… just a storage problem.

I have found that I sleep much better after reading for a while rather than an audiobook or radio program on streaming.

Just need to work out what order to attack the stack!

British information campaign: Know Your Parasites

#UK #Britain #parasites #politics #GreedyBastards #tyranny #elites #ObsceneWealth

Everyone hates wasps. But this scientist wants us to love them. | CNN If you think wasps only exist to spoil summer picnics, Professor Seirian Sumner is here to set you straight.

Our recently opened World of Wasps exhibition hopes to reveal the unseen lives of wasps. Speaking to @cnn.com, Professor Seirian Sumner (@waspwoman.bsky.social) gave her top five reasons why we should all love wasps as much as she does.

Top-down macro photograph of three blocky, black ants on a white background. All the ants are covered in evenly-spaced, silvery hairs, giving a glittery appearance. The ants at left and center have large, plate-like heads, the one at center, the queen, is quite elongated.

My project this evening was this composite photograph showing caste in Texas turtle ants: soldier, queen, and worker. This is one of those twig-nesting ants whose soldiers serve as living guard doors, using that massive head to block the entrance.

Dramatic portrait oriented macro photo of a blocky, armored ant with a rounded plate-like head, rearing up towards the sky, its antennae raised.

And this one's for the cover of Turtle Ant Weekly.

Macro photograph in side view of four small dark brown ants surrounding a fifth ant of the same species, holding her by the mandibles, lets, and waist.

Ant fight!

Pavement ants (Tetramorium immigrans) pin down a worker from a rival colony. These suprisingly non-lethal battles are common as colonies expand their territories in the spring and summer. Indiana Dunes National Park.

Did you go to The Plough up the road?

When Dad was ill in 2022, I tried to take him to local places for days out. I think we went there and the food was pretty good.

For #WildflowerHour here is Lathyrus japonicus or the Sea Pea. Growing in pure shingle on the beach at Shingle Street, #Suffolk.

Also, do you know if there is a way to leave feedback to the Latitude organisers?

We enjoyed it so much we have already booked the campervan in for next year.

If we liked wasps more, we could learn from them Wasps have a terrible image problem but, after seeing an exhibition that highlights their design abilities, Will Wiles thinks we could learn from them

Nice article by @willwiles.bsky.social in @apollo-magazine.com on the #WorldOfWasps! Be sure to visit @uclgrantmuseum.bsky.social!
apollo-magazine.com/wasps-nests-...

Take part in the 9th year of #BigWaspSurvey!
Register here:
www.bigwaspsurvey.org

And hang out your trap!

Pls share!
@adamhartscience.bsky.social

A painting of a beach scene, with lots of risks taken by people on the beach, including fossil spotting under the cliff, standing at the cliff edge and people ignoring coastal warning signs.

It's tempting to pick a spot on the beach near cliffs: they provide shade and wind protection.
But take a look at this pic: can you see the potential risks?

Click here to find the answers, and learn more about beach safety: www.resortdorset.com/features/227...

That looks a bit like West Bay.

At Durlston Bay someone managed to get planning permission (I heard stories about how, but can’t repeat) to build flats above the double fault.

Failure in the 1980’s came as no surprise if you knew the geo… but it surprised the owners as it slipped at their wall!

How’s your weekend going?

These central heating pipes weren’t there two weeks ago. I was repairing the floor boards before fitting new laminate flooring & I put a screw through the pipe!

Fortunately, I had a pipe clamp and ScrewFix sell push fit fittings.

Just cooking my wife a roast dinner!

It’s an astonishing, devastating dismantling of one of the world’s powerhouses of scientific research, both applied and bluesky.

Rebuilding the damage done already in the US will take years and massive investment.

Other countries such as China will continue to move forward.

Pre-LLMs if you were reviewing a paper, were you expected check each reference to see if it was real?

It seems that any reviewer now faces the problem of either authors who have added references like the one above (without checking it) or the insidious paper-mills which almost certainly use ‘AI’.

Ah socio-economic pressures leading to pseudo-extinction.

Absolutely no idea why BlueSky inserted a link there?

As a natural pH indicator your cabbage can probably be restored with a little vinegar. However, you’d get tart okonomiyaki which might either be a culinary sensation or nasty!

Thank you! I was planning to take more photos but it ‘jumped’ off my hand into the grass and was not seen again.

🤬

A closed-cap, immature fruiting body approximately 15cm or 6” tall. Ball-like with dark flakes on the upper surface. Scales growths on the stipe or stem

The open parasol-shaped top is high on the stipe or stem above a loose ring.

In this specimen the opened cap is clearly patterned with darker flakes and is approximately 6” or 15cm in diameter.

A larger, mature specimen within the restricted archaeological area so photographed at a distance. Probably 10” or 25cm diameter.

My thanks to @debivort.bsky.social for his helping with the ID of this one. Very probably Macrolepiota procera. Growing in the sandy soil at #SuttonHoo in Suffolk. It is one of the #NationalTrust properties. And the site of royal Anglo-Saxon burials.

#mycology
#fungi