Recently in Science Category
Some numbers related to my three previous posts:
Total Number of Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August: 4,234
Number of Pledged Delegates: 3,409
Number of Superdelegates: 825
Number of Delegates Needed to Clinch the Democratic Nomination: 2,118
Number of Delegates Allocated to Barack Obama: 2,156 (1,762 pledged, 394 super)
Number of Delegates Allocated to Hillary Clinton: 1,923 (1,636, 287 super)
Number of Potential Running Mates for Obama Mentioned in CNN.com's Article: 18
[Figures from CNNPolitics.com as of 9:30 a.m.]
Days Until Election Day: 153
Days Until George W. Bush Is Out of A Job: 214
Last Night's Yankees Score: Toronto 9, Yankees 3
Number of Innings Pitched by Phenom Joba Chamberlain Last Night in His First Major League Start: 2.1
Number of Joba Chamberlain's Uniform: 62
Number of Pitches Thrown By Joba Last Night: 62
Number of Runs Allowed by Joba: 2 (1 earned)
Yankees' Record: 28-30
Yankees' Place in their Division: Fifth (Last)
Games Behind the First-Place Tampa Bay Devil Rays (!): 7
Last Night's Mets Score: Mets 9, San Francisco 6
Number of Innings Pitched by Veteran Ace Pedro Martinez Last Night in His First Start Since Injuring His Hamstring on April 1: 6
Number of Pitches Thrown By Pedro Last Night: 109
Number of Runs Allowed By Pedro: 3 (all earned)
Number of Hits Made By Pedro: 2
Number of Runs Batted In By Pedro: 1
Mets' Record: 29-28
Mets' Place in their Division: Fourth
Games Behind the First-Place Philadelphia Phillies: 4.5
Number of Baby Stick Insects Currently Resident in Our House: at least 12
We had despaired of our stick bugs' ever having babies. My older son, whose science teacher had given him the three stick bugs that I described in an earlier post, had told me that one of his friend's stick bugs had had babies very soon after they were brought home from school -- and that the parent bugs proceeded to eat all their babies!
I'd read that the insects produce eggs after a certain number of moltings, but I figured that we were well past that number by now. I was also beginning to think that my son's science teacher was correct: that they didn't reproduced parthenogenically, there were male and female insects, and that we'd somehow managed to get three of the same sex.
After eight months, the stick insects had grown quite big and were now indistinguishable from one another. Then about six weeks ago, one of them went toes up, leaving us with only two. I think my wife was looking forward to being stick bug-free in the not too distant future.
And then yesterday, when I was adding a bit of lettuce to the cage, I noticed something on one of the bugs' legs: a miniature bug! Look, I shouted to my wife, the stick bugs have bred! And then, looking more closely at the cage, I began to see little stick bugs everywhere and tiny stick bug casings lying in the soil. (I'm hoping it's because the little fellas have already molted. The alternative would be that the parents have sucked the juice out of the little carcasses.) I ended up pulling about ten from the cage, luring them onto chopsticks, and putting them in our original cage, safe from the clutches of their parents.
So much for the stick bug-free future! Meanwhile, I haven't been able to convince anyone else in my household that we should take the two big ones out of the cage and let them roam around a bit, maybe race down the hallway -- a little fling before they go the way of all things.
What do you suppose would be on a stick bug's bucket list?
My older son has three stick insects (order Phasmatodea) living in a vivarium. He calls them "stick bugs." They were given to him by his science teacher last fall. We figured they were going to part of some school science project, but so far there's been no curricular connection. Meanwhile, the phasmids have grown. When we got them in September, they were each about an inch long. Now the longest of them is nearly four inches in length, though at first glance it often looks longer because of its penchant for sticking its two forelegs straight out in front of it. (In the picture below the insect in the foreground is standing next to an actual stick.)
My son's teacher said that he was giving us three insects in the hope that there would be two different sexes among the trio, enabling them to have babies. We haven't figured out precisely what species of phasmid these are. I'd assumed that they were the most common type, the Indian or Laboratory stick insect (Carausius morosus). But the Indian stick insect reproduces parthenogenically, and ours haven't reproduced at all. (One of my son's friends was luckier: his insects laid eggs, which hatched. Of course, the adults then ate the young ...)
The phasmids eat lettuce, and they molt periodically. The picture below shows a complete molted exoskeleton. Apparently the insects find their old shells tasty, so often these ghostly skeletons will disappear from the vivarium after a few days. The newly molted insect is a plant-like green, but it soon returns to its bark-like brown coloring.
The phasmids seem to be more active at night. During the day they prowl around the vivarium a little bit, but mostly they're still and rather stick-like. I keep asking my son if he'll let me take them out of the cage for a little exercise in the hallway, but so far he's refused all requests. My wife isn't so crazy about the idea of walking the stick bugs either.
But here's what's really cool about stick bugs: they can regenerate limbs. Two of the insects were damaged when we received them: the biggest was missing its right foreleg, and another was missing its left hindleg. Then, one morning I noticed that the smaller one had all of its legs. It had grown a new hindleg, which was in fact bigger than its surviving hindleg. A few weeks later, the big one regenerated its foreleg. The new legs seemed to have regrown under the exoskeleton and then uncurled after molting.
How marvelous to be able to regrow a lost limb! No need for the bluetooth bionics that are being tested these days on veterans of the Iraq war who have had their legs amputated (click here for a CNN report.) Of course, in my current state, I'd be happy with the ability to regenerate damaged knee cartilage spontaneously.
On the other hand, stick bugs don't live very long: life expectancy for most species is less than a year. I guess you can't have everything.
