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Inspiring Science

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Tag Archives: Parasitoid wasp

The wasp and the cockroach: a zombie story

09 Thursday May 2013

Posted by sedeer in Arthropods, Hymenoptera, Insects

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Ampulex, behaviour, biology, Emerald cockroach wasp, manipulation, nature, parasite, Parasitism, Parasitoid, Parasitoid wasp, Popular science, science

Ampulex compressa, commonly called Emerald Cockroach Wasp. Pictured in Dar es salaam, Tanzania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)The world of parasites is full of incredible tales of manipulation and mind-control as these creatures twist their hosts to their needs.  Ever since I first heard of parasitoid wasps, I’ve been drawn to them by a delicious mixture of schadenfreude and intellectual fascination.  (Technically, parasitoids are slightly different from parasites, but that’s not important right now.)  Some of the examples of manipulation by parasitoid wasps are just wonderfully, horribly macabre.  I briefly mentioned the emerald cockroach wasp in a previous post; this time I’ll give a few other examples and explain the emerald wasp more thoroughly.  Hopefully I’ll manage to share some of my excitement about these amazing creatures, which made Darwin once write: “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae [a group of parasitoid wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or the cat should play with mice.”
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What makes you who you are?

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by sedeer in Discussions, Humans

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Behavior, biology, Emerald cockroach wasp, identity, Parasitism, Parasitoid wasp, Popular science, science, Toxoplasma gondii, Toxoplasmosis

Ampulex compressa, commonly called Emerald Cockroach Wasp. Pictured in Dar es salaam, Tanzania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)“I’m sorry about what happened yesterday. I…I wasn’t myself.” Those words, or something like them, have been offered countless times as an explanation for (mis)behaviour, but what do they actually mean? People seem to have a sense of an intrinsic self, a personality they identify with, and many people are concerned about how outside factors might (like birth control pills) influence this personality or change the way they behave. In this post, I’d like to explore how we construct and define our sense of self, but rather than writing an essay on the subject, I’m hoping to start a discussion about it. Continue reading →

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All text and original images by Sedeer El-Showk. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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