Nature involves Science, too! (Nobody Cares...)

[Kokoro Fasching]

This morning Mrs. Beebo and I noticed a small thing, but nonetheless unsettling. All around our back porch and down the sidewalk were strewn the bodies of dead earwigs. There were at least two dozen of them. Now, normally a dead earwig is something to celebrate -- I'm not a big fan of this particular insect -- but a mass die-off does rather change the equation because we can't explain it. We don't spray chemicals of any kind around our garden, nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and yet they are all dead in what I would consider a most non-normal way.

Google wasn't any help. All the search results were about how to kill them, not how to explain them unexpectedly dying.

Ideas, anyone?

Did you clean up the yard, get rid of any dead vegetation? Did y'all have a sudden low humidity event?

 

[Beebo Brink]

Did you clean up the yard, get rid of any dead vegetation? Did y'all have a sudden low humidity event?

We (translation:Mrs. Beebo) are constantly cleaning up the yard, but none of that was around our back porch where the earwigs died. And it's been hot and humid for days now, with frequent rain.

Hmm, maybe they drowned. Although I'm not sure why they would drown this time and not every other time it's rained.

 

[Kokoro Fasching]

We (translation:Mrs. Beebo) are constantly cleaning up the yard, but none of that was around our back porch where the earwigs died. And it's been hot and humid for days now, with frequent rain.

Hmm, maybe they drowned. Although I'm not sure why they would drown this time and not every other time it's rained.

Like you I checked the search engines and all, and found nothing that would naturally kill that many that quickly. So either the city/county did a night time spray and it took them out, or you found a magic item that if you can identify it, will be the next huge natural pest control agent!

 

[Free]

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

What's with that lens flare?

 

[Free]

What's with that lens flare?

This year's solstice is being produced by J.J. Abrams.

 

[danielravennest]

What's with that lens flare?

That's the setting Sun in the picture, on its way to being directly behind the opening at sunset. Since the Sun is so bright, they probably decreased the aperture so as not to overexpose the image. If the aperture has six petals, that can result in a hexagonal hole, and thus 6 flare rays:

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

So that's not the light of the sun at the back of the chamber.

 

[danielravennest]

So that's not the light of the sun at the back of the chamber.

No. The tomb faces sunrise on the solstice, and the light inside is a different color than the sun or the interior stones. Some light does come in the back because the mound doesn't cover all the megaliths that outline the chamber, but not enough to be that bright. Someone either put a light inside the tomb for the picture, or photoshopped it.

 

[bubblesort]

Siberia is gonna have lots of new beach front property soon!

It’s 118 Degrees in Siberia. Great.

Parts of the area are so hot that touching the ground could burn your skin.

www.vice.com

 

[Isabeau]

This morning Mrs. Beebo and I noticed a small thing, but nonetheless unsettling. All around our back porch and down the sidewalk were strewn the bodies of dead earwigs. There were at least two dozen of them. Now, normally a dead earwig is something to celebrate -- I'm not a big fan of this particular insect -- but a mass die-off does rather change the equation because we can't explain it. We don't spray chemicals of any kind around our garden, nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and yet they are all dead in what I would consider a most non-normal way.

Google wasn't any help. All the search results were about how to kill them, not how to explain them unexpectedly dying.

Ideas, anyone?

If a neighbouring house sprayed their home for pests, these could be some that got away but eventually died. When people spray for cockroaches/bed bugs, etc. depending on what they use, they don’t die on contact so perceiving the danger, they leave the area “en masse” even though many will eventually be affected and die. Some may live, though, so that’s why when you treat one apartment, you have to treat those above, below, and beside. May be this is what happened? Just a guess.

I remember fondly when neighbours treated their apartment for bedbug without telling everyone in the building.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Barking severe weather: Lightning and torrential rain hit capital

Roads, houses and vehicles are damaged in Barking after residents claim they were hit by a tornado.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Grandma Bates]

Which way do bats fly?

 

[bubblesort]

The next hurricane is called Elsa, which is a terrible name for a hurricane. Disney's licensing department is totally out of control.

Let it blow, let it blow
Can't hold it back any more
Let it blow, let it blow
Till it blows a tree through the door
I don't care what the dopplars say...
The rain never bothered me anyway.

Elsa weakens to tropical storm but still worries forecasters

Elsa still has near-hurricane force winds.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Free]

Disney's licensing department is totally out of control.

 

[Beebo Brink]

 

[Free]

Crows Are Self-Aware Just Like Humans, And They May Be as Smart as Gorillas

Studies show that crows have a high number of tightly packed neurons that process information, allowing them to work out complex tasks.

www.popularmechanics.com

In what now feels like an annual update, crows are even more surprisingly smart than we thought. But do they have true consciousness? New research shows that crows and other corvids "know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds," according to STAT. This is considered a cornerstone of self-awareness and shared by just a handful of animal species besides humans.

In new research published in Science, German scientists put crows through a series of puzzling tasks. During those tasks, the scientists measured neural activity in different kinds of neurons with the goal of tracking how crows were sensing and reasoning through their work. They sought to study a specific kind of thinking called sensory consciousness, and they chose birds in particular as an evolutionary history pivot.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Here in the UK, too

Baby beaver born on Exmoor for first time in 400 years

Six-week-old kit seen on National Trust’s Holnicote Estate in Somerset after pair of adults were reintroduced

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link because why not

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Arkansas introduced alligators to keep beavers from cutting down trees on the levees.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Legit.

Alligators vs. Pests in Arkansas (Published 1976)

Work of Ark Game and Fish Comm in importing alligators from Louisiana for use in controlling beaver and muskrat populations discussed; comm official Dick Broach and farmer Wayne Hampton comment; illus (M)

www.nytimes.com