Posts

May 23, 2013

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3:13 PM | Thrifty Thursday: A common dandelion, a common sunset, a common phone camera

Thrifty Thursdays feature photographs taken with equipment costing less than $500. [iPhone 4S - $330] Cell phone cameras have tiny lenses, and while that’s a drawback for most photo applications, the little cameras do a remarkable job of impersonating a bug’s-eye view. The iPhone turns out to be quite in its element for micro photos like [...]

May 22, 2013

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9:25 PM | Recipe for a Photograph #2: Bee in Flight

Few insects so conspicuously mark the arrival of late spring in North America as Xylocopa virginica carpenter bees. Males are especially visible as they raucously guard territories around females’ wooden burrows. Because carpenter bees are common, nearly an inch long, not easily spooked, and tend to hover in place, they make ideal subjects for dramatic photographs [...]

May 17, 2013

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7:48 PM | On not overdiffusing flash in macro photography

Earlier, I blogged about one of my flash diffusers, and about how most flash macro photography is improved by softening the flash’s harsh artificial light. My observations were not novel, of course, and I love spying on the various contraptions macrophotographers invent as they aim for perfect diffusion. See, for example, recent posts by Seth [...]

May 16, 2013

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6:50 PM | Thrifty Thursday: The Digital Herbarium

Thrifty Thursdays feature photographs taken with equipment costing less than $500. [HP deskjet F4280 printer/scanner - $150] This week’s inexpensive photo project makes use of a desktop scanner to translate a living plant into a digital specimen. Creating virtual natural history collections is an activity well-suited for elementary school science classrooms, for children old enough [...]

May 12, 2013

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5:46 PM | Ants and the problem of impostor mothers

In honor of Mother’s day, I present a portrait of a Tennessee winnow ant with her mom. But wait! This scene is not as heart-warming as it may seem. This mother has a dark past of murder, impersonation, and trickery. To explain the story, I’ll start with a perhaps oversimplified observation about ant families. Ants [...]

May 09, 2013

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8:08 PM | My longest blog post ever

A South American Mischocyttarus paper wasp hangs out on its characteristically long nest. The nest is made of chewed, processed plant fibers, similar to those of our temperate paper wasps but taking a much more unusual form. How long is the nest? Warm up your scrolling muscles! Here is a life-size photograph: photo details: Canon EF 17-40mm [...]

April 23, 2013

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6:11 PM | Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not f*cking love artists

Elise Andrew runs the most popular Science page on facebook. I know so, because I see her content reshared dozens of times daily in my news feed. Well, it’s not really her content, but I’ll get back to that in a minute. The point is, I F*cking Love Science is big. By posting photos, cartoons, news [...]

April 22, 2013

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6:07 PM | With depth of field, more is not always better

In the comments, HBG_Dave makes a salient observation: I’ve always wondered why I like your photographs even though my personal theme has always been maximum sharp focus (not that I get it very often) and I tend to consider any blurring as a flaw. I think it must be because your compositions use the range [...]

April 18, 2013

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9:13 PM | Social Insect Photography Tip: Emphasize the Individual

As you know, I photograph ants. Lots of them. There’s good reason for this, aside from my formal training as an ant biologist. Ants and other social insects make fascinating subjects. Their social habits parallel our own enough to allow us the illusion of relating to the insects. In ants, we see a little bit [...]

April 17, 2013

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8:04 PM | Snowflakes, Bias, and Science Photography

“Science Photography” can be read two ways: 1. as illustration of scientific subject matter, or 2. as a tool to gather data as part of the scientific process. What’s the difference? Images can be intended to convey information, or to collect it. Most science photography, including the majority of images featured in this blog, is of [...]

April 11, 2013

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1:50 PM | Thrifty Thursday: Patterns in Nature

Thrifty Thursdays feature photographs taken with equipment costing less than $500. [iPhone 4S - $336] The best camera is the one you have with you, they say. And when I saw the afternoon sun filtering through this palmetto leaf in Gainesville’s Austin Cary Forest last week I had to take a shot. Simple patterns in [...]

March 29, 2013

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4:27 AM | A Martian landscape in four billion pixels

Stop whatever you are doing now and click on this: It’s a massive image composited from several days of captures by the Mars Curiosity rover. The level of detail is astounding. You could spend days zooming around in there looking at martian rocks. It’s accomplishments like this that make me proud of my species.

March 28, 2013

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1:51 AM | On the difference between natural history art photography, and natural history photojournalism

Meet Tetradonia, a pugnacious little rove beetle that eats army ants: Any animal specialized to feed on army ants is seriously badass, especially those that are smaller than the ants themselves. I’ve wanted to photograph Tetradonia for years, and this January during the BugShot workshop we happened across this one sniping at the edges of an [...]

March 26, 2013

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6:00 PM | Opinion :: NERC PhD skills review

NERC (the National Environmental Research Council), a major funding body for Environmental Science PhDs (and research in general) recently announced the outcome of a skills review, publishing “Most Wanted II – Postgraduate and Professional Skills needed in the Environment Sector”. … Continue reading →

March 20, 2013

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6:14 PM | Art/sci shorts :: Gardens of Alcatraz

Alcatraz never seemed far from view when I was in San Francisco last autumn, peeking between tall buildings or dominating the skyline from the coast. We did the tourist trip out to the island (hint: a summery dress and the … Continue reading →

March 15, 2013

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3:34 PM | Then, and Now

I started photographing insects about 10 years ago. Here’s a shot from the beginning: And a congener, from this week: Aside from the obvious improvements to technology, what has changed? I’d say my two biggest improvements come from an obsession with simplifying composition so the background doesn’t compete with the subject, and from my lowered [...]

March 08, 2013

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4:16 PM | A Fake Makes it to the Smithsonian’s Photo Contest Finalists

I was surprised to see this as a finalist in the Smithsonian’s 2012 Photo Contest: I was surprised because, to this ant biologist’s eyes, the scene is obviously faked. Ants don’t do that. And why would they? They’re not herbivores, this species, and that’s an extraordinarily inefficient way to transport food, anyway. The image is [...]

March 07, 2013

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11:38 PM | Thrifty Thursday: The Ant and the Watery Lens

Thrifty Thursdays feature photographs taken with equipment costing less than $500. [iPhone 4S - $336; water droplet - free] One year ago I posted a short note describing how to turn your cell phone into a microscope using a droplet of water. I haven’t used the technique much since, but this afternoon I turned on [...]

March 05, 2013

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10:57 PM | Beat It, 80beats

It’s the end of an era. No, not the 80s, those will never die. Instead today we say goodbye to the venerable 80beats news blog. Over the last five years 80beats has brought you more than 4,000 news stories. We’ve written about dead fish flying in wind tunnels, why ancient Romans are partially to blame [...]

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4:42 PM | Watch This: Cicadas Kill Bacteria with Structures on Their Wings

Cicadas don’t use antibacterial wing sanitizer, so how do these insects keep their wings free of bacteria? Hint: it’s structural. The wings of the Clanger cicada kill certain bacteria by ripping their cell membranes. A pattern of pillar-like nanostructures on the wings’ surface put pressure on the bacterial cell membrane, causing it to stretch and eventually tear. In a study [...]

March 04, 2013

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9:10 PM | A simple diffuser for Canon’s MT-24EX macro flash

My standard macro kit costs several thousand dollars (camera, $1800; lens, $1000; flash, $600; various accessories, $300). Yet, most of what I consider the more unique aspects of my style are down to a mere few cents of tape, paper clips, and plastic diffusion. Consider: A homemade diffuser inserted below the flash heads makes a [...]

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8:26 PM | Look at This: Map of Future Arctic Shipping Routes

The extent of Arctic sea ice has been diminishing since the late 1970s due to climate change, and this decline is predicted to continue in the coming decades. The prospect of open water in these previously icy areas has sparked a lot of speculation about ships being able to navigate between the Pacific and Atlantic [...]

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5:11 PM | Watch This: Knots Made of Water, Seen in 3-D

When air flows around the wing of an airplane, it creates vortices of swirling air. When that wing accelerates suddenly, two vortices form and circle in opposite directions. Sometimes these circles link with one another to create knots. Knots occur in nature and physicists have theorized for the last hundred years that they could be [...]

March 02, 2013

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6:39 PM | The Scientific American Blog Network is not Scientific American

If you spend time reading Scientific American, you’ll know the magazine does not tiptoe around controversial topics. The same is true for the 50-ish people who are part of the online blog network. I happen to regard this focus as a strength of both organizations, though not all do. To that end I would like to [...]

March 01, 2013

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8:04 PM | SpaceX’s Dragon Launch Not Smooth But Sailing

This morning’s launch of SpaceX’s third Dragon capsule has the twittersphere all a-flutter. Falcon 9′s blastoff from Cape Canaveral initially appeared to be a success. Just after the Falcon 9 rocket launched around 10:10 AM EST, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was tweeting its praises. Falcon 9 delivered Dragon to its target orbit. [...]

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5:18 PM | Watch This: Video Tech Reveals Invisible Color and Movement

Forget 3-D and HD. This new kind of video isn’t almost as good as real life; it’s even better. The technique amplifies colors and movements that are invisible to the naked eye. The resulting view is not only enhanced but dynamic. “What we’re doing here is a particular project at the intersection of vision and graphics that [...]

February 28, 2013

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8:30 PM | Rat Brains Wired to Communicate at a Distance

Can rats read minds? Perhaps not usually, but researchers at Duke University have developed what they call a brain-to-brain interface, which transfers information directly from one rat’s brain to another. The interface allows the decisions of a rat on one continent to control the behaviors of a rat on another. To accomplish this, researchers in [...]

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6:36 PM | Thrifty Thursday: The iPhone and the Grasshopper

Thrifty Thursdays feature photographs taken with equipment costing less than $500. [iPhone 4S - $336] The ubiquitous iPhone isn’t designed for macro photography, but when the subject is as large as this 3-inch lubber the little camera’s optics do just fine. The challenge of making this photo was not optics but lighting. I built a [...]

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9:30 AM | “Good” Bacteria is Secret to Clear Skin

Zit happens. Acne is an unwelcome reality for 80 percent of us at some point in our lives, but researchers have discovered the secret to clear skin may be the kind of bacteria that’s taken up residence there. According to findings published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology today, certain strains of Propionibacterium acnes, a [...]

February 27, 2013

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10:00 PM | A more realistic focus-stack

Why is this beetle so crisp? The clarity results from the image being not a single photograph but a composite. I took 50 exposures at different focal depths and merged them in a file sharp enough to cut diamonds. This extra-clean look is increasingly common, and for a reason. Digital cameras and focus-stacking software are [...]