Fire Ant Raft

yall are crazy.

Part of why I think studying animals is awesome is because it encapsulates a broad interdisciplinary range of topics.  Now, engineers at Georgia Tech have delved into one of my favorite insect events  EVER: The Fire. Ant. Raft.  yes. 

Every now and then, the Amazon jungle has enough flooding to destroy the network of local fire ant tunnels.  So, in a typical mechanized insect fashion, all the ants collect their eggs and join together to float down the Amazon for days or even weeks--unharmed.  The rafts can be around 3 feet in diameter and are so air-tight that even the ants on the bottom of the raft never get submerged in water.  They will finally reach land, unload, and start a new colony wherever that may be. 

It's a quirk of the Amazon fire ants that has gotten fairly popular but, until now, has not been sufficiently studied.  

Maybe it's because I'm from Georgia, or maybe it's because I think fire ants are terrifying, but I was absolutely thrilled when I heard that this topic was being taking up for study.  So far, the engineers have found that...jeez, I'm so thrilled I don't even feel like putting this in my own words: 

"By freezing the ants, the Georgia Tech team observed that fire ants construct rafts when placed in water by gripping each other with mandibles, claw and adhesive pads at a force 400 times their body weight.

The result is a viscous and elastic material that is almost like a fluid composed of ant “molecules,” researchers said. The ants spread out from a sphere into a pancake-shaped raft that resisted perturbations and submergence techniques."-How Fire Ants Build Waterproof Rafts, Georgia Tech 

That's just a littClick above to read the whole thing...you really should!

So, in conclusion, ant colonies behave like super-organisms, this is awesome, and I can't wait to see all the crazy studies and technology that comes from it.  

WELL DONE GEORGIA TECH!

Sandy and the Storm Surge

Oh Sandy, why must you complicate things so?


<------ Pictured here is the Brooklyn Waterfront Arts Coalition gallery where I currently have the Dog with Penguins painting.  And this picture was taken when the water receded!  Apparently, it was 5 feet high on the bottom floor.  But luckily, our wonderful directors moved all of the art work to the second flood.  Still though, the damage is pretty bad…Oh Sandy.

My art show at the LaunchPad was cancelled due to the difficulty of everythingin New York right now.  The traffic, lack of gas, lack of electricity, lack of subways, and from all of that comes the anger of everyone.  For Brooklyn specifically, I would say lack of gas and subways is the pinnacle of our chaos.  The streets went from being grid-locked with angry honking drivers, to being lined with silent dead cars and no people.  Gas stations are blocked off with caution tape and long lines of people holding red gas cans go on for blocks.  Policemen and National Guardsmen look flustered and panicked and freak out if you walk on the sidewalk next to the gas station.  It's pretty surreal, but then again, I've just been trying to leave my apartment as little as possible so I really haven't seen much of it.  Apparently there has been a lot of shootings and from what I can hear from my apartment, lots of fights.

I had to get to Queens for a job interview on Friday.  Although I got there, it was the most difficult and frustrating trip ever.  Busses were full, taxi's wouldn't go out of Brooklyn, and people were obnoxious  and cops were nervous.  I finally made it there by telling the cab driver the name of an obscure street in Queens.  He looked at me suspiciously, asked if I knew how to get there, and let me in the cab.  After he started driving I told him that it was in Queens.  He was kinda pissed…but I gave him a good tip and expressed my gratitude.

Then on the way back I waited, along with maybe 50 others, at a bus stop in the freezing cold for about and hour and a half while full busses passed by.  They would open their doors at our stop, allowing one scared individual look at the crowd wide-eyed and nervous bracing himself against the edge of the bus doors, then everyone sighs, pissed off, the doors close, the individual relaxes and plasters himself against the glass, and bus drives off.  Then we wait for another twenty minutes till the process repeats itself.

I went to get a beer and a BLT.  I talked to some ridiculous men from Long Island that told pretty racist jokes, relentlessly flirted with the waitress and had really thick accents.  They both had daughters my age and gave me lots of sad eyes and pity smiles.  We talked a lot and I was secretly hoping they would pay for my beer, but they didn't.  So now I've decided that when I get a job I'm going to pay for some poor young persons beer on a cold, unemployed, subwayless day.

Then the altruism began.  I went back to the bus stop and waited and watched full busses drive by for about another half hour.  Then a car drove up and a girl around my age got out.  I saw her lean over and say to a woman waiting for the bus "hey, do you need to go to downtown Brooklyn?", then they both start going towards the car.  I ran over, "WAIT, are you going to downtown Brooklyn???" "Yeah…….wanna ride?" "YES."

And that's how I got to Brooklyn.  A nice young couple listening to NPR in their snazzy sedan and 3 cold, lowly bus riders.

Of course, I don't live in downtown Brooklyn.  So, I started walking home.  I figured it would take a little over an hour.  And I think it did.  OH!  But I did end up catching a bus!  Five blocks from my house.  I think I did it just to make myself feel better.  I imagine the bus driver was confused.


Thanks Sandy. 

Frogs of Central America

I was looking up the Golden Frog because I read an article about how they wave to communicate.  Their beautiful pure gold color has given them legendary powers for good luck and made them sought after for poachers.  Needless to say, they're quite rare.

After searching the web for a little bit, I found out that they are most likely extinct in the wild.  So sad.  I thought I'd post 1) the video of the frog waving--brought to you by the amazing Sir David Attenborough, and 2) the video of the incredible, dedicated, and brilliant scientists trying to save the frogs of Central America.  

I typically think of frogs as twitchy and manic and am in awe after the video shows Golden Frogs so poised in their movements and interactions.  They really are beautiful.

But sadly, the Chytrid Fungus has spread throughout Central America and is threatening to spread further into North America, killing out mass amounts of amphibians.  It's thought to have affected 30% of amphibians world-wide.  Efforts to pass laws making the sale of frogs illegal has been halted by cultural groups that eat frogs as part of their historic diet.  Yet, in an article by the New York Times, out of 493 frogs from San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, 62% were infected with Chytrid.  Some of these frogs are eaten (an average of 2,280 metric tons of frog legs are brought into this country every year), some are kept as pets, but either way, the fungus has been spreading for the past 15 years and is not slowing any time soon.


Here's the video on scientists helping to save frogs in Central America. 

I need to write a blog about balancing cultural sensitivity with environmental protection…it's an obnoxiously reoccurring theme in so many topics I read about.

I'll get on that…

Something More Light-hearted

This is, perhaps, an ode to video pop-culture.
Whatever, we're all guilty of it.

I paint animals, sooooo inevitably when googling  ___(insert animal here)____  the little youtube tab pops up with ridiculous results that I have to sift through to find anything with substance.  I generally don't watch them until I begin procrastinating.  So….give it like ten minutes.

Here are some for your internet enjoyment!  Maybe I'll order them based on their Mind-Numbing Qualities….Least to Most.


#1!  The amazing Mimic Octopus….discovered in the 1990's.  Crazy and interesting.  The Internet at it's finest! 

Awesome.  Now for something a little less documentary-like and more feel-good.  Cue the Adorable Clueless Neglected Ducks!!  Awww, they're confused and freeeeee (sort of)

#3.  "Haaaahaaaaa" and "Oh that's interesting…" all at the same time

#4.  The worst, most hilarious, youtubey, amazing, video.  How do you know it's mind-numbing?  It involves a cat, theme music, and it is maaaayyyybe 45 seconds long.  This is what I watch when I've had a bad day. 

Ok, that's enough of that.
I feel horribly unproductive.  I'm going to go clean my room.

Art Show!!!

I'm showing all of my work at the LaunchPad in Brooklyn!!  I'm still working on the details, but hopefully there will be music, food, drinks, and maybe a speaker or two.  More info to come soon!!

New painting! "Waiting for Salmon"

"Waiting for Salmon" 36in x 26in Oil on Canvass   Every year in Alaska, starting around spring, salmon begin their journey up stream to spawn.  They bring nutrients from the ocean  through the web of streams etched into Alaska's coast, and into the mainland.  There, they are the source of fat and protein for countless predators like bears, wolves, otters, seals, and eagles.  Then, their bodies decompose, leaving minerals to soak the soil and seep through the watershed dispersing nutrients and sustaining the Alaska wilderness.   In essence, Alaska is a salmon-based ecosystem. And even though their presence is known, the weight of their influence can still slip by unnoticed or under appreciated.  But, this year, the danger of a salmon-less Alaska sat bold and ugly right in our faces. The La Niña weather system of 2010-2011 cooled the ocean and caused this years salmon run to be months later than usual.  Bears paced along the shoreline day after day and slowly began losing muscle mass.  Eagles sat in trees, searching for movement downstream.  Some predators went to find food elsewhere, like clams and crabs that are way less fatty and less abundant, but most waited.  Alaska sat tense and still, waiting for salmon. After a couple months, the salmon finally came.  Predators scarfed them down, salmon decomposed, minerals dispersed, and local people fished and ate.  Whew, close one. Here's Richard Nelson talking about salmon…he really, really loves salmon.  Of course, currently, Pebble Partnership is proposing to build North America's largest mine (possibly 150 square miles) right near a major salmon breeding ground.  They expect to find 80 billion pounds of copper, plus 100 million pounds of gold, adding up to roughly $800 billion dollars in minerals. Yes, the mine would be massive, but the multiple tailing dams built to hold the leftover toxic mining waste is of almost greater concern.  Since there is no method of disposing of the waste, it would sit forever, needing constant surveillance to prevent any leak which would destroy the water system.  Tailing dams fail at a rate of about 2 per year, and the threat of a spill is heightened in an earthquake zone like Bristol Bay. Pebble says they're producing the best science for the project.  That the toxic waste will be forever contained and that there is zero risk to the watershed and surrounding environment.  But local fisherman and tribes have called on the EPA to investigate and potentially stop Pebble, which has led to a division within Alaska, politically and socially. The New York Times does a great outline of the debate and the tension arising in Alaska: I didn't want to create an in-your-face political statement painting.  I wanted to show the beauty of an ecosystem that thrives on salmon and the subsequent dense weight that sits on it when this one animal isn't there.  It's dependency on a single yearly mass  migration is what makes this region so delicate and unique.  I was completely captured by this story and the surrounding debate and I hope that my painting does it justice.  << Previous

BWAC Show "Coming To Brooklyn"!

Head over to Red Hook to view my "Sheepdog and Penguins" at the Brooklyn Waterfront Arts Coalition Gallery!  Open on weekends 1-6!