This article was originally posted on the IPM Innovation Lab website.
Advancing technology has indisputably sharpened the tools of scientific inquiry. The most powerful telescope can see 15 billion light years away, particle accelerators can drive a proton to the speed of light in a matter of hours, and the newest microscopes have a resolution that’s more than 20 million times that of human sight.
These incredibly precise instruments are extensions of human faculties: The computer extends our brain, microscopes and telescopes extend our eyes, lasers and accelerators extend our hands. In many cases, we don’t even have to physically observe anymore. Our machines observe for us, and they tell us what we would see if we could see that far, that close, that deep. Scientists connect the dots, draw conclusions, and fit these conclusions into our growing understanding of the world.
Although this rapid technological evolution has given the scientific process a face-lift, it’s still the same underneath. The scientific method (hypothesize, test, analyze, etc.) is the foundation, but, depending on the discipline and the experiment, many of the steps are now digitized.
As a science communicator, this can make my job difficult. It’s tricky to get the general public psyched about an excel file of experiment results.
But one of my favorite things about working with the
Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab is that, although we do stare at computers most of the day, occasionally we get to see
sciencehappening. And that people bring snacks to the office. It’s really cool when those two things combine.
Here’s how it happened today:
It was a slow, rainy Friday morning in the
Office of International Research, Education, Development. But someone (cough-me) brought in a giant bucket of wild pears for colleagues to munch on and take home. They’re pesticide-free, but, in order to preserve the integrity of the pears, I did not wash them.
Naturally, IPM Director Muni Muniappan snags a pear and pops it, not into his mouth, but under his microscope. I don’t know how long he pored over the puckered surface of the fruit, but before I had finished eating my first one, he found what he was looking for: a tiny insect.
When Muni called me into his office, IPM Associate Director Amer Fayad was peering into a microscope crooning, “I don’t know what it is, but it is so cute!”
It was cute. Even after Muni informed us that it was a wingless psocid, or in laymen’s terms, a booklouse. On my pears. So embarrassing. Good thing it was so darn cute.
In a few minutes, most of us working in the IPM quad had crowded into the office. The insect was difficult to pin down, so to speak. It was too small to be seen by the naked eye, and it could move fast. Muni explained that it probably didn’t like the bright microscope light and was searching for shadows. I thought that perhaps it was a little camera shy. Finally Amer got it in focus, and we snapped a few pictures.
Booklice, we learned, are not true lice. While they resemble lice in size and shape, they feed only on fungi or mold. In fact, Muni told us that this little guy was probably eating the fungi growing on the pear skin. If you find them in grain or other stored food products, it is an indication of high humidity, which encourages mold growth. They can also be found under wallpaper, in furniture, along the sides of windows or in — you guessed it — books!
The starchy paste of old books can support mold growth and booklice. But thankfully, outside of annoyance, their damage is insignificant.
And, yes, on fruit, they can be taken care of with a quick rinse in the faucet.
And, after all the lousy excitement, I went back to the kitchen and stuck a post-it note on the pears.
“Help me eat these pears! But, please, wash them first!”
Happy pear-season and have a great weekend!
Booklice information from:
http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/booklice
Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech
Throughout my life, the view from every January has been a vague, shadowy expanse of months wheeling out untried and untrod. The only certainty was that the next year would be full of unexpected things.
And here we are again – plunging into the deep waters of a new year, (and my goodness, they are cold this time). But it has occurred to me that this year looks different. Two milestones are visible from here; they stand so tall and stark, the landscape of the unknown year seems to curve around them.
Firstly, I will be gainfully employed. The Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab has recently been awarded an $18 million grant to implement and lead a program that works to raise the standard of living of people around the world through healthy agricultural practices.
As the communications coordinator for this program, I’m looking forward to new adventures and challenges. We will be working with farmers and researchers in two groups of countries: one in Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania) and one in Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, and Bangladesh). We’re going to be fighting pests and diseases that plague farmers who grow rice and horticultural crops. The Nepalese project will also map the effects of climate change on biodiversity.
The projects in eastern Africa will tackle pest infestations in countries where farmers with limited resources are predicted to be heavily affected by climate change. Much of our resources will be dedicated to reducing malnutrition by working with farmers who grow staple crops like maize, wheat, and chickpea in Ethiopia; rice and maize in Tanzania; and vegetables in Kenya and Tanzania.
Secondly, my husband and I will be welcoming a new person into the world! We’re expecting a baby in late June. At this point, it still seems like a hazy what-if. But, with each passing week, our terror and elation seem to be taking a more solid form. We’ll be walking in the woods, watching a movie, cooking dinner – regular stuff – and suddenly look at each other in astonishment, asking, “Where would the baby be right now? Strapped across my back in a baby carrier, there in a high chair, here between us.” It’s wonderfully odd to think about.
I read recently that “becoming a mother is like discovering the existence of a strange new room in the house where you already live.” I like this simile because it helps me get a handle on the intimacy of the coming transformation. As usual, everything will change, but this time it’s happening in my domain. I’m not jetting off on an exotic internship, or going to a new school. A new person is coming, and although we do not know them yet, we will love them and they will remake our life.
That’s quite a new beginning.
“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
