Category Archives: Science

I was collecting some tools from our stable (no longer used for horses) and noticed, not for the first time, a hornet buzzing about there. A careful examination confirmed my suspicion that there was a nest hiding in the corner of the ceiling. I decided that with several grandchildren due to be tromping about in there this month, disturbing a few hundred of these of these not especially aggressive, but certainly large and well-armed creatures was not to be entertained. So I confess I terminated their natural history with an insecticide.

… but nothing at all to do with the book of that name by George Gurdjieff. Science Daily has an article about an interesting recent paper on genes and disease, that in effect sounds the death knoll for the genetic model of disease and opens a potential can of extremely hungry worms for biology as a whole.

That title is, of course, a gross exaggeration or indeed a calumny (but hey, it sounds good!): cladistics is a tool that is useful according to how it is used. But a major 2009 paper on the evolution of birds addresses some pitfalls in its common use, and points out that: Cladistics should be treated not as a way to test phylogenetic hypotheses but as an exploratory method, useful, if handled sensitively, for comparing and evaluating hypotheses.

Last month we brought you the living fossil in my study. This month, for your oblectation, I present the astonishing acrobatic abilities of Megachile centuncularis, which has evolved to make its nest in steel patio tables.