Bug Squad

Chemical ecologists at the University of California, Davis, are changing their navel-orangeworm research direction after an elementary school students science project found that the major agricultural pest prefers pistachios over almonds and walnuts.

Twenty-nine days to go. If you love bees and know how to design a bee friendly garden, remember Jan. 30. Jan. 30 is the deadline to submit your design for the half-acre bee friendly garden at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis.

For my New Year's resolution, I resolve to turn over a new leaf. Oh, sure, most folks resolve to eat less, exercise more, drink less, read more, stress less, save more, gripe less, and volunteer more. Not me. I'm turning over a new leaf.

Ponce Denis couchard Lebrun compared the butterfly to a flying flower: The butterfly is a flying flower, The flower a tethered butterfly. At the recent Entomological Society of America meeting in Reno, a blue butterfly drew the attention of lepidopterists and photographers alike.

Right out of Champaign, Ill., comes a research story about honey bees on coke. Cocaine. University of Illinois entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson and his colleagues have found that honey bees on cocaine dance more.