Category: Natural Sciences

Andy Brunning presents an infographic of the Mohs Hardness Scale, something I learned about when I was a squirt and received a student’s geology kit and have subsequently forgotten about. But behind that tidy 0-to-10 scale is a dirty little secret:

There’s no fixed value of hardness between the different numbers in the scale — in fact, diamond at 10 is several times harder than corundum at 9, but corundum is only around twice as hard as topaz at 8.

Andrin Caviezel has the coolest job in science.

It looks like every outlet has picked up this story by now, but ICYMI: a small citizen science study suggests that a house cat will sit in a box, even if it’s only lines on the floor, and even if the box is an optical illusion.

A little bit pitch drop experiment, a little bit Michael Apted, a little bit genetic repository: William Beal’s 142-year-old seed viability experiment, reported by Nell Greenfieldboyce.

A microbiologist named Richard Lenski looked on. “The others were digging and trying to figure everything out, and I sort of held the map and held it under my jacket to keep it dry at one point. That was my hard work,” says Lenski. “I was wondering if cops might show up at some point.”

Hannah Kingsley-Ma goes mushrooming in Green-Wood Cemetery with the New York Mycological Society.

[Potter] Palmer and [Sigrid] Jakob think that one of the reasons for this fungal diversity is that some trees in Green-Wood—of which there are thousands, and hundreds of species—date back to the cemetery’s earliest years. (Green-Wood was founded in 1838.)

Yes, Asian Giant Hornets are big and scary, but they’re not here in the mid-Atlantic, and present no cause for alarm.

Toni Burnham, the president of the D.C. Bee Keepers Alliance, says that, actually, “everyone should chill the hell out.”

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While the murder hornet concerns may be less irrational than calls over putting toxic chemicals into a human body, Burnham says bee experts and entomologists in Washington are on the case, and that there’s no reason for those in the region to worry.

“Let [Washington state] handle it, and everyone calm down,” Burnham says. “Have a beer.”

A new non-native wasp has been spotted in the Pacific Northwest, Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia). These suckers could devastate native bee populations. Mike Baker reports.

Individuals are two inches long, and are big enough to be RFID-tagged for tracking.

I attended a workshop focused on early detection of Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) (SLF) in Fairfax County. Speakers represented the Virginia Cooperative Extension, the Virginia Department of Forestry, and the Fairfax County Urban Forest Management Division.

Spotted Lanternfly is native to China, and has also been found in India, Vietnam, and Japan. Introduced in Korea in 2006, it is considered a pest in that country. The insect was first detected in the US in September 2014, in Berks Country, Pennsylvania, where it was likely imported as egg masses laid on landscaping stone. The first Virginia populations were detected in the Winchester area last year.

A hemipteran, L. delicatula is highly invasive and can expand its range rapidly; it can use at least 70 North American host species, although it has a particular association with Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima). A phloem feeder, the lanternfly sucks sap from its host plant, leading to wilting and reduced photosynthesis. Spotted Lanternfly also exudes honeydew, which promotes the growth of sooty mold, further impairing the health of its host plant.

Because its American hosts include species of grapes, hops, stone fruits, and Malus, the threat of significant economic losses looms.

Egg masses are laid on the roughened, brocaded bark of A. altissima, other tree species, and even weathered stone, concrete, and metal. Spotted Lanternfly undergoes incomplete metamorphosis, the eggs hatching into nymphs that go through several instars before transforming into winged adults. It is conjectured the lanternfly extracts and isolates toxins from its ailanthus host, and hence that the bright red coloration of its later instars and adults constitutes aposematic coloration. The adult, about an inch long, resembles a colorful black-brown-and-red moth.

In Virginia, first instar nymphs for this season were observed on 26 April 2019. If you see an egg mass, nymph, or adult that you suspect to be Spotted Lanternfly, please report it via https://ext.vt.edu/spotted-lanternfly.

But, wait, there’s more! Fairfax County foresters hope to monitor possible sites where SLF might first appear, and that means monitoring populations of A. altissima, itself a non-native invasive species. It turns out that our map of ailanthus patches in the county is incomplete, especially on private property. Therefore, please report any Fairfax County observations of Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) to the MAEDN (Mid-Atlantic Early Detection Network), either via its mobile app or the web site.