Bug Squad

Forget about getting the red out. It's time to get the red in. And if you're a red lady beetle, aka ladybug, you need not worry. Ditto for the gentlemen lady beetles. You're good to go.

We're still in the throes of January but already UC Davis entomologist Diane Ullman and her colleagues are busily organizing two consecutive mid-May conferences at the Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove.

Sunday, Feb. 8 is a Super Science Day! Visitors to the University of California, Davis campus can visit six museums at the fourth annual Biodiversity Museum Day. It's a week after Super Bowl Sunday, and by then all talk about deflated footballs may have ended.

The Beer-for-a-Butterfly contest is over. And we have a winner! Drum roll...Art Shapiro...

When the week is about butterflies instead of guerrilla attacks, murderous rampages, measles outbreaks, and deflated footballs, it's a good week. Butterflies draw smiles instead of scowls, pleasure instead of pain, glee instead of grief. So, here's Part 1 of the good news.