zycr22

Do dolphins drown in water?

I have been meaning to write about the sleeping habits of dolphins and frigatebirds since my last post on the sleeping habits of mallard ducks. The original pla...

The art of staying half-awake: unihemispheric sleep keeps ducks (and humans) safe

Imagine being able to fall asleep with half of your brain while the other half still functions. Wouldn’t that be interesting! Several animals seem to be capable...

The dreams of an ant, or Why everybody needs to sleep well

I have not posted anything for a whole week, mostly because I have had to meet some deadlines at work. Apart from a pause from all social media and writing, dea...

Agriculture in the ant colonies: a story of evolution, mutualism, and antibiotics

I have been writing about bats for a while and I had also stopped reading the book on ants for a week. I picked it up again this week and started reading the Ec...

On the bats dying around us

In my last post on bats, I talked about how these animals can spread dangerous diseases among humans. This post is also about diseases, but the victims in this ...

Bats, diseases, and the Ebola epidemic

After discussing in length about how wonderful bats are for our agriculture and for our forests, in my last post, I hinted at the fact that they also carry dise...

Appreciating Bats Part 2: Insect-eating bats save our crops

In my last post on bats, I talked about how these animals are useful pollinators in our agricultural fields as well as in the wild. In this post, I am going to ...

Appreciating Bats Part 1: Cross pollination and tequila plants

Fair warning: This is not a post about ants. I have been reading quite a few articles about bats recently, mostly because it is the last week of October, and is...

Con artists among the ants: deceptive beetles and convergent evolution

Getting the Greek straight This post is about an intriguing phenomenon called myrmecophily, which, if you go into the Greek roots of the word, means “ant-love.”...

Not so busy ants and the Pareto principle

This weekend, I went through the chapter called Ants at work: maids, nannies, laborers, soldiers in the book by Jae Choe that I have mentioned in previous posts...

Ant eyes, ultraviolet vision, and death spirals

The question for this post is this: How do ants see things? “With their eyes, of course,” would be an obvious answer to that question. But do ants have eyes? An...

Ants and the sun: knowing where to go

Let us begin by saying that the world is a big scary place and it is difficult to know where to go next. Still, let us assume for now that you have the knowledg...

Ant sounds (and dances), robotic bees, and a few words about the Encarta Encyclopedia

First, the waggle dance of bees In my last post on ant communication, I talked about how ants rely on the sense of touch and on chemical cues for much of their ...

How to talk to ants: touches and smells

In my last post about ants, I mentioned the book by Jae Choe that I have started reading and how that book describes the economics, culture, and politics of ant...

Antsy thoughts: the curious world of ants

Yes, the word antsy does come from the word ant. The dictionaries will tell you that it means restless, and that it comes from the expression have ants in one's...

Poem -- A tired lover explains his darkness and his light

I saw a dead squirrel on my way to work today. Its open eyes reminded me of the emptiness within. The world was suddenly a fragile dream where death walked with...

Short Story -- The Picture on the Wall

Old Alinani Akira lived alone in his mansion in the mountains on a little glowing planet in the cluster of galaxies known as Abell 2065 and thought about the me...

Marvelous Tales #16 - The Dancing Partner

How can we know the dancer from the dance? --William Butler Yeats If you have any interest in dances, you must surely have heard about Madam Nina who used to be...

On noticing things

And we all are too busy (or too happy) to notice things. That is a Chekhov thought again. Do you notice whether it is summer or winter? When you do not, is it b...

On everyday struggles

"Any idiot can face a crisis," says Anton Chekhov, "It's day to day living that wears you out." Not having a crisis to deal with right now, and not being partic...