Ants!
If it's Tuesday, this must be Ant Day!
Firstly, we continue the seemingly interminable portrait series with the dashing and myrmecophilous Roberto Keller, former Cornell labmate and purveyor of the very finest in ant morphology blogging (see previous link). Roberto, let me know if you want something more cartoony; I don't suppose this will scale down so well.
(and the starting sketch, which I sort of like)
Secondly, a shout-out to superhuman nature photographer/ insect systematist Alex Wild, who has just moved his absolutely delightful photography and ant systematics blog Myrmecos to the big time at Scienceblogs. If you're not acquainted with Alex's work, behold this portfolio. Some people are born with incredible talent... for the rest of us, there's Microptics.
Lastly! If you're an engineer or biomechanics nerd in the northeast looking for an unspeakably cool job, the Patek lab at UMass is hiring a research fellow/ lab manager. I was lucky enough to do a little work in this lab when it was based in Berkeley; it's absolutely one of the coolest lab environments imaginable, focusing on the biomechanics of high-speed movement in arthropods. Not only are they investigating the deadly strike of the stomatopod, but the group has recently been filming trap-jaw ants with high-speed cameras. They "jump" with their mandibles.
(it helps if you play this in another tab while you watch.)
Firstly, we continue the seemingly interminable portrait series with the dashing and myrmecophilous Roberto Keller, former Cornell labmate and purveyor of the very finest in ant morphology blogging (see previous link). Roberto, let me know if you want something more cartoony; I don't suppose this will scale down so well.
(and the starting sketch, which I sort of like)
Secondly, a shout-out to superhuman nature photographer/ insect systematist Alex Wild, who has just moved his absolutely delightful photography and ant systematics blog Myrmecos to the big time at Scienceblogs. If you're not acquainted with Alex's work, behold this portfolio. Some people are born with incredible talent... for the rest of us, there's Microptics.
Lastly! If you're an engineer or biomechanics nerd in the northeast looking for an unspeakably cool job, the Patek lab at UMass is hiring a research fellow/ lab manager. I was lucky enough to do a little work in this lab when it was based in Berkeley; it's absolutely one of the coolest lab environments imaginable, focusing on the biomechanics of high-speed movement in arthropods. Not only are they investigating the deadly strike of the stomatopod, but the group has recently been filming trap-jaw ants with high-speed cameras. They "jump" with their mandibles.
Click to view(it helps if you play this in another tab while you watch.)