Marmorkrebs in SciAm’s Guest Blog

“The decade the clones came” is the title of a new post I wrote for Scientific American’s Guest Blog. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, so please check it out.

Writing a blog like this, where I try to have something every week, has one little disadvantage: you tell the story in bits and pieces. When I was asked if I wanted to contribute to the guest blog, it occurred to me that this was a chance to pull the story of marbled crayfish together in one place. That the first mention of Marmorkrebs on the CRUST-L list was about ten years ago was also a nice coincidence, and made me think that a cohesive retrospective would be worthwhile.

I’d like to thank Bora Zivkovic for the opportunity to pull the piece. Though I say it as a contributor now, Bora has done an fantastic job of getting top notch material for the Guest Blog. If you haven’t been reading it lately, you’re missing out on some good stuff. I’m proud to be part of it!

Nominate your favourite posts for Open Lab 2010

There is still time to nominate science writing for the fifth annual blogging anthology:





It can be a post that is long and technical.

Or it could be something that is short and whimsical.

Hints aside, please nominate writing from any blog that enjoy. It is a wonderful present to a writer to know a reader thought something he or she did was good.

You can nominate posts from 1 December 2009 until 30 November 2010.

For your consideration

The nomination deadline for The Open Laboratory anthology, the annual collection of science writing on blogs, is in two weeks. If there’s a post from this blog that you liked, I’d like to ask that you consider nominating it for the anthology. Posts from 1 December 2008 to 30 November 2009 are eligible.

Some suggestions, in chronological order:

• Stochastic resonance
• Haiku
• Muscle receptor organs
• Before he was famous

Click here to submit an entry. A Blog Around the Clock regularly updates the list of entries; here’s a recent one (probably out of date by the time you read this).

In case you’re wondering why I don’t just nominate myself, I think it’s better for readers to decide what’s good than writers. And because it feels gauche to nominate a bunch of your own stuff.

Circus of the Spineless #44

Welcome to the 44^th and latest edition of Circus of the Spineless, the monthly celebration of animal diversity. Although this blog is devoted to just one invertebrate species, I’m pleased to host this carnival and showcase all the other wonderful forms that invertebrates take. Please take a moment to visit the home page and have look around.

I find the biggest problem is always how to sort the posts. Sadly, I am not imaginative, so I broke it down into the nicknames that I often hear my colleagues who study invertebrates: “crunchies” (things with exoskeletons) and “squishies” (things with soft bodies).

Crunchy posts

Because this is a crustacean blog, please forgive a little double favouritism by me starting off with a post from NeuroDojo (a sibling blog that I also author). In it, I take serious ethological research on hermit crabs, and turn it into a fairy tale.

Not only do I love fairy tales, I love mysteries, too. It can be a simple mystery, like “Who’s easting the Photinias?” Jason at Xenogere takes on the case and gets photographic evidence.

Adrian at The Bug Whisperer also tries to take photos, but seems to cause a crime rather than preventing one, as a fight breaks out between his ant subjects. Models can be such divas.

Staying with ants for the moment, the Wild About Ants blog shows ants visiting extrafloral nectaries on cacti. Roberta Gibson want to know if you’ve seen ants visiting nectaries; go help her out.

At Hill-Stead’s Nature Blog, Diane Tucker features dragonflies and envies their ability to rise above it all.

Trees, Plants and More catches photos of a lynx spider among some plant leaves.

Marcia Bonta looks at charismatic invertebrates. And I guess if you’re an invertebrate and want to be charismatic, it helps to have long legs, since she focuses in on daddy long legs and stick insects.

But if you want beautiful, Ted MacRae at Beetles in the Bush reckons he’s got the most beautiful beetle on the North American continent. I took the liberty of including a picture at right; isn’t it a beauty?

Wandering’ Weeta also has a gallery of insects who take advantage of her warm home in fall.

At The DC Birding Blog, John discusses and documents several insects lured by the promise of cheap beer. I am not making this up. If that’s a little to crazy for you, just look at the nice butterflies.

Another birding blog, 10,000 Birds momentarily joins the spineless celebration with carpet moths.

Dave Ingram, writing on the modestly titled Dave Ingram’s Natural History Blog, rounds out the crunchy section of our program with some pictures and note on millipedes.

Squishy posts

Wanderin’ Weeta finds a jellyfish in a tide pool, and gets the event on camera.

Trees, Plants and More serves up a hammerhead worm in the “More” category.

While I would never claim to have saved the best for last, I do think you’ll admit this last post is worth the wait. Hill-Stead’s Nature Blog brings us... slug poetry!

Next time, on Circus of the Spineless...

That concludes this installment of Circus of the Spineless! Please join us again in about 30 days over at Greg Laden’s Blog. Email your submissions to Greg. (And come on, squishy lovers, show your colours!)

Submit to Circus of the Spineless!

Next month, I am pleased to host the Circus of the Spineless carnival on this blog. Submit your squishy and / or crunchy blog links to me throughout October, so we’ll be ready to roll at the start of November!

Brief cameo in American Scientist

This blog makes a brief cameo appearance in the “Members in the News” section of the new issue of American Scientist. I guess they used the subtitle because “Marmorkrebs” alone was too cryptic...

Carnival!

The latest Circus of the Spineless, #36, is now out, this month hosted by Invertebrate Diaries. Support invert blogging!

Open Laboaratory 2008 now available

The third annual science blogging anthology is now available at Lulu. When you get your copy, you’ll want to turn to page 86.

Additional: In the spirit of openness, I will remind everyone that you can read the book for free by following the links here. Inconvenient compared to a nice, unified, cleanly typeset, high-resolution, portable compilation, if you ask me.

There is, however, another reason to buy the compilation (which is available for immediate download as a PDF as well as a traditional paperback format). Bora writes:

In a few weeks, the book will also be available at other online retailers, e.g., Amazon.com, but we prefer that you buy from Lulu.com as the proceeds will go towards organizing ScienceOnline‘10 next January.

ScienceOnline is a science blogging conference. Next year’s will be the fourth such event. Of course, people blogged about it at length, but a very brief intro to last year’s is here.

Big top inverts

Circus of the Spineless is a blog carnival celebrating invertebrates both crunchy and squishy. Check out the latest edition, #35, here, and the main blog for the carnival here. I'd be recommending it even if this edition didn't feature a recent post on Marmorkrebs, rhythms, and aggression.

And if I may direct your attention to our center ring, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to say that this blog will be hosting an upcoming edition of the Circus of the Spineless later this year! (Much later, as it happens. November, to be exact.)

Coming attractions

A Blog Around The Clock posted a preview of the cover for The Open Laboratory: The Best In Science Writing on Blogs, The 2008 Edition. As noted previously, it'll feature a post from this blog. It should be available, like the the 2006 and 2007 editions, at Lulu.

Blogrolling

One of the good things about the Open Laboratory competition is that you discover new blogs, of course. I was pleased to find another crustacean blog among the finalists for the Open Laboratory 2008, Dear Blue Lobster. The winning post is "Bloop: A Crustacean Phenomenon?"

I'm also tickled that he had a post about Marmorkrebs last year, which I somehow managed to miss until recently. The post includes a rumour that I have yet to confirm, namely that research is going on in China to aquaculture Marmorkrebs.

(Blue lobster picture from Photo of the month from the Lobster Institute.)