Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Once upon a time, I spent 30 years studying mushrooms and other fungi. Now, as my scientific interests broaden with my waistline, I would like to share three things that I have learned about the meaning of life from thinking about these extraordinary sex organs and the microbes that produce them.
By Jonathan Crowe
After the greyness of winter, the arrival of spring is heralded by a splash of colour as plants emerge from the soil, and trees seemingly erupt with leaves. Soon, much of the countryside has moved from being something of a grey, barren wasteland to a sea of verdant green. But why is it that so much vegetation is green? Why not a sea of red, or blue? To answer this question let me take you on a colourful journey from the sun to within the cells of plant leaves.
By Jeff Lockwood
It’s hard to know what any organism experiences. For that matter, I’m not even sure that you feel pain—or at least that your internal, mental states are the same as mine. This is the “other minds” problem in philosophy. At least other people can tell us what they feel (even if we can’t be certain that their experience is the same as ours), but we can’t even ask insects.
By Jeff Lockwood
If people have told you that daddy-longlegs are deadly, then those people are dead wrong. This tale is debunked on the website of the University of California Riverside, and I trust my colleagues at UCR. I know a several of the entomologists there, and they’re a really smart bunch of scientists (a claim that one might question, given that they chose to live in Riverside, but my concern is for their entomological acumen, not their geographic aesthetics). So, I’m going to use what they say about daddy-longlegs and if you end up dying from a bite, then it’s on them.
By Corina Logan
It’s 4:00 am and I can’t believe I’m (just barely) awake. Not only that, but I have to go out there in the cold and rain. It’s so cold! I’m in the tropics – it’s not supposed to be cold in the tropics. I pull on my clothes (quickly, while still hiding under the covers), grab my gear, and head out into the darkness. I hurriedly walk up the muddy path; time is of the essence.
In this article, Professor Jeff Lockwood answers a query regarding the possibility of exterminating all cockroaches. He replies: ‘A world without cockroaches would pretty much keep on doing what it’s doing now. Probably. At least if by ‘all cockroaches’ you mean the species that share our homes.’
What are those super-fast, reddish, fuzzy-looking, centipede-like things? It would sure help hapless entomologists if people would provide just a teensy bit more information when asking, ‘What is it?’ sorts of questions. Helpful clues include things like: where you live, where you saw it, etc.
Professor Jeff Lockwood answers a reader’s question regarding Cave Crickets: ‘The cave crickets belong to the Family Rhaphidophoridae. Technically they’re not ‘true’ crickets (like field crickets), but they’re close enough. In fact, they’re truer crickets than beasts like the Mormon cricket.’
By John D. Altringham
2011-12 is the International Year of the Bat sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme. Yes, that’s right – we are devoting a whole year to these neglected and largely misunderstood creatures. Perhaps if I give you a few bat facts and figures you might begin to see why.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written a Linked Up, but with releasing a new episode of The Oxford Comment, working “frak” into my daily vocabulary, and trying to keep up on developments in Egypt, I’ve not found the time! Hopefully, today’s will make up for it. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
P.S. I promised our Twitter followers that if they came up with at least 5 good questions about insects I would have an entomologist answer them, so send in yours!
By Anatoly Liberman
Part 1 appeared long ago and dealt with blackguard, blackleg, and blackmail, three words whose history is unclear despite the seeming transparency of their structure. Were those guards as black as they were painted? Who had black legs, and did anyone ever receive black mail? As I then noted, the etymology of compounds may be evasive. One begins with obvious words (doormat, for example), passes by dormouse with its impenetrable first element, wonders at moonstone (does it have anything to do with the moon?), moonlighting, and moonshine (be it “foolish talk” or “illegally distilled whiskey”), experiences a temporary relief at the sight of roommate, and stops in bewilderment at mushroom. The way from dormouse to mushroom is full of pitfalls. (And shouldn’t pitfall be fallpit? Originally a pitfall was a trapdoor, a snare, a device for catching birds, but then why pit?).
An excerpt from The Lives of Ants.
Jeremy Taylor on how “Ardi” proves chimps and humans are far less similar than we have been led to believe.
An excerpt from Extinction In Our Times, explain why we should care about amphibians disappearing.
Professor Dave Goulson writes about declining bumblebee numbers, and why we should care.
Can an ancient disease be linked to cannibalism?