Queen bee

In Dr Deborah Gordon tech talk, “How Ant Colonies Get Things Done” she presents her findings from studying a collection of ant colonies in New Mexico for the past 25 years. More specifically, she focus on the Red Carpenter ant species. While colonies of ants may look at first glance like simply a bunch of ants running around aimlessly, a closer and more careful look shows substantial social organization. A colony can solve problems unthinkable for individual ants, such as finding the shortest…

In Science magazine, Jonas Geldmann and Juan P. González-Varo wrote a piece talking about the loss of western honey bees. It is done by compiling evidence performed by tests and other articles on the subject. They bring attention how society has grown to know that the loss of bees, or natural pollinators, has been an epidemic. They reference this to bring the attention that, “pollinators for global food security; ~75% of all globally important crops depend to some degree on pollination.” While…

Reading is essential to everyday living, the failure to read will restrict student’s ability to understand basic Math, Language Arts, Science or Social studies. Students with reading difficulties need support for their deficit in a specific skill with different strategies. The two reading difficulties for ESE students and how I will address the difficulties in my future classroom are difficulty with high – frequency sight words using a multi-sensory approach that combines language experience…

Imagine a world where your garden isn't plagued by ravenous Japanese beetles who eat every plant in sight. If you lived in America prior to 1912, you wouldn't have to imagine this scenario because you would be living it. As their name suggests, Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica) are native to Japan. The water surrounding the island and the insect's natural predators kept them contained there until the fateful day that a plant was shipped from Japan to the United States. Hiding in the soil of…

Introduction to Horse Flies (Tabanidae) Horse flies can be found in most areas of the United States with more than 160 species. They can grow up to 1 ¼ inches long and are generally black and gray in color. Female horse flies have blade-like mouthparts used for blood feeding which slash tissues and blood vessels in order for blood to flow to wounds. After which, they use their sponge-like mouthparts for sucking up blood. Male horse flies have weaker mouthparts compared to females and only feed…

Ashley Kuroki Science 9/8/15 Insect Olympiad Jigsaw Group B: The Difference between Problematic Insects Moths and butterflies- Moths and butterflies don’t have that many differences. However, moths have feathery antennae while the butterflies have thin antennae. Moths are nocturnal and butterflies are active during the day. Those are the main differences. Even though butterflies have better looking wings than a moth’s, there are some moths that look exactly like a butterfly like the Madagascan…

Throughout history, the human species have not always been able to read or write. One thing humans have always understood are pictures. The cavemen painted on walls in order to document and tell the stories of their lives. In the more modern era, books, especially for children, are filled with pictures in order to help convey the ideas of the writer to all who read his books. This idea of pictures to help support book is shown very well in Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco’s book Days of Destruction…

Introduction “Swedish Scientists Say Mead May Be the Key to Fight Antibiotic-resistant Pathogens" written by the WTOP Staff and published on their website, believe that with the right honey and preparations they can get rid of the more resistant pathogens. In this article, Swedish scientists believe that honey and lactic acids that are found in honey bees can be an alternate source other than normal medication for antibiotic-resistant pathogens. With support testing, they have found that they…

The films “Food Machine” and “Farmland” we watched in class were both very educational about agriculture. Food Machine was more of an indirect communication, whereas Farmland sent a very direct message. Both of the films brought life to the production of the foods we consume everyday. They showed their audience how these foods are grown and harvested. The film, Food Machine, scratched the surface of food production. The film was based on some of the United State’s largest places of ag…

To Bee or Not to Bee “According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible” (script-o-rama.com). Large amounts of bees are dying all around the world due to pesticides and fungicides on crops that contaminates pollen they collect. Bees are responsible for the pollination of more than half of the crops…