So…what happened to Cheshire?

So…if you’ve been following this blog, you’ve probably noticed a distinct lack of posts. I wrote about this two posts ago, but I figured I’d share some details. For the past year, I’ve been trying to get into a graduate school. My grades are excellent-I’m one of the top in my class…it’s been a solid [...]

Youtube Gems: Eddie Izzard

Aphids have mutualistic viruses!

Aphids can be a pain in the ass to gardeners and farmers. Although they look pretty harmless, they’re to plants what mosquitoes are to people and more. They transmit some pretty serious diseases which cause millions of dollars in damage per year. They’re also famous for their fecundity-they’re parthenogenic and their daughters are actually born [...]

Cheshire’s Top 5 Entomology Videos

I post a lot of videos here on this blog because I find them a very useful and interesting teaching tool. Why explain the life cycle of a parasitoid wasp in two or three boring paragraphs when I can simply hop over to youtube and find a video explaining the same thing narrated by David [...]

Video of the week: The Winged Scourge

Man…I haven’t posted a youtube gem forever. Check this video out…it’s a really old video about malaria made by Disney in 1943. It shows how the parasite is transmitted, how the mosquito breeds and how to control them. It’s really an amazing video that shows what malaria does to the people infected by the parasite. [...]

Quite possibly the most incredible video I’ve ever seen.

Courtesy of Beetles in the Bush, I bring you a video of parasitic was development from inside a caterpillar. I also bring you a great opportunity to discuss wasp biology. A lot of people think parasites are just these idle, simple degenerate creatures. Hell…there’s an entire talkorigins page chastising creationists for touting them as ‘degenerate [...]

Okay…so no bug pic. But still something made of awesome

I can’t really explain what’s cool about dragonfly nymphs unless I actually show their method of feeding. I’ve always loved Odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) because they have this really cool modified lower lip that reaches out and catches prey. I can’t really tell what it is from this video, but if I were forced to [...]

Video: Macropinna microstoma

The latest animal darling of the blogosphere is the pacific barreleye, a fish that looks at the world literally through it’s skull. It has eyes that rotate within a transparent dome-like head to look at the world. Various other bloggers have covered this so I’m not gonna do a real thorough writeup, however I did [...]

Your life is now

I’ve had this song running through my head for like the last week.

Video of the Week: Special Valentine’s Day Edition!

This is such a sweet love song, isn’t it? Personal story below the fold. Watch the video first.