- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Take professional seamstress and aerobics instructor Teresa Hickman of Vacaville, Calif., who is devoting much of her time to sewing two-layer cotton face masks, now that her classes are on hiatus.
Over the last three weeks, the wife and mother of two gave away 72 fabric masks to family, friends, neighbors and business associates—and their friends and contacts.
Now, as a public service project, Teresa is crafting them at cost, or for a donation of $5 each. She just purchased $45 worth of elastic, and another shipment is back-ordered.
Teresa doesn't do custom masks but “if I have it, I'll make something.”
If you're an entomologist or someone who loves insects, this could be a good time to wear a face mask adorned with honey bees or dragonflies. (In our household, we're bee-ing close to honey bees and bumble bees via our face masks.)
Teresa also sews masks geared toward sports fans, dog and cat lovers, food enthusiasts, gardeners, movie-goers and more. The pattern themes range from A (apples) to Z (zebra) for both adults and children.
“I began sewing professionally 19 years ago,” Teresa said. “I started because I was sick. I had to stop teaching aerobics and I needed another business to get me through.”
Alarmed by the coronavirus pandemic, Teresa began sewing the face masks three weeks ago. “They're helpful to people so they can stay safe. And it's something that's useful; I like to make useful projects. Everything I make has a purpose to it.”
She wears them outside her home and encourages others to do so, too.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is “considering altering the official guidance to encourage people to take measures to cover their faces amid the coronavirus pandemic,” according to an article published March 30 in the Washington Post.
The Post quoted Thomas Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, as recommending the general populace wear nonmedical masks and not the short-in-supply surgical and N95 masks for health workers.
The recommendation under consideration "calls for using do-it-yourself (DIY) cloth coverings, according to a second official who shared that thinking on a personal Facebook account,” the Post related. It's a way to help “flatten the curve.”
"Such DIY cloth masks would potentially lower the risk that the wearer, if infected, would transmit the virus to other people. Current CDC guidance is that healthy people don't need masks or face coverings."
That policy may indeed change. Fast masks can also serve as a reminder not to touch your face.
(Editor's Note: Teresa Hickman can be reached via “Handmade by Teresa” on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/HandmadeByTeresa/) or teresa_h@pacbell.net for more information. She also does Zelle.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you marked your calendar to attend the Saturday, March 21 open house at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis campus, you can unmark it.
For now.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology has postponed its open house to comply with the new UC Davis policies regarding coronavirus pandemic cautions. Officials initially set the open house, themed "Pollinators and Microbes," from 1 to 4 p.m.
In the meantime, head out to your favorite pollinator garden and see what's foraging. You might see not only honey bees, but yellow-faced bumble bees (Bombus vosnesenskii), Gulf Fritillaries (Agraulis vanillae) mourning cloaks (Nymphalis antiopa) and more. Spring begins March 19!
"Studying insects is something you can do anytime or anywhere," Bohart officials said. "We recommend that individuals and families get outside and explore arthropods. Here are great info sheets for many of the common arthropods in a California backyard or a local park.
- Common Insects, Information Sheets (Written by Bohart director Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis professor of entomology.
- How to Collect Insects (Video)
The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, and directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis professor of entomology, houses nearly 8 million insect specimens, a live petting zoo, and a gift shop.
Department Seminars
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology weekly Wednesday seminars are now virtual seminars and are being live-streamed through Zoom and linked on the department's website, says coordinator Rachel Vannette, community ecologist and assistant professor. (See list of spring seminars)
Plant Sale
The UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden Plant Sale, initially slated March 14, is also canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak, now global.
For information on the coronavirus, see the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
UC Davis Directives as of March 12 (See website for updates)
From Chancellor Gary May:
Acting out of an abundance of caution amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, we have decided to take additional steps in our efforts to protect our students, faculty and staff, and the community at large, as we all do our part to help contain the spread of the virus.
We take these actions in consultation with the UC Office of the President, the Academic Senate and campus administrators, as well as Yolo County Public Health (which, as of today, has reported one confirmed case of COVID-19 in the county, none on the Davis campus). As this situation continues to evolve rapidly, we will respond with further directives. For now, this letter addresses the following topics:
Gatherings — Mandating the cancellation or postponement of events with planned attendance of more than 150 people, from Thursday, March 12, through March 31. We are evaluating this timing on an ongoing basis, as we continue to consult with public health officials. This mandate does not apply to instruction through the end of this week. Our overarching goals: For the sake of everyone's health, we want to minimize face-to-face contact, in instruction and office hours, in workspaces and large gatherings. And we want to emphasize to students, staff and faculty: If you are sick, stay home.
Instruction
As we strive to minimize face-to-face contact, we announced March 7 that faculty and students have maximum flexibility to complete their Winter Quarter work without having in-class instruction. We are now strongly encouraging faculty to go online with their teaching. We said webinars would be available to faculty who needed assistance making the conversion — and we now have a schedule of four different webinars on quizzes/exams and other Canvas tools, and web conferencing and video. Each is being presented daily, every day this week. The schedule and links are here on the Keep Teaching website. It is very likely that we will need to have online capacity in place for Spring Quarter classes.
Faculty also are strongly encouraged to make use of other technologies, such as Zoom and Facetime, to provide opportunities for students to approach them with questions.
Graduate and professional instruction: Given the special nature of graduate and professional instruction, we ask the faculty involved to use their discretion in endeavoring to optimize curricular delivery (as well as graduate advising and mentoring) while remaining mindful of public health advice to observe social distancing to the extent possible. We encourage graduate and professional instructors to utilize opportunities for virtual instruction and testing where appropriate.
See more at https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/coronavirus-new-campus-directives/
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Titled "Miss Bee Haven," it anchors the half-acre bee garden, which was installed in the fall of 2009 and named for its primary donor.
The sculpture is the work of self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick of Davis. She designed, fabricated and constructed Miss Bee Haven, using rebar, chicken wire, sand, cement, tile, bronze, steel, grout, fiberglass and handmade ceramic pieces. The project took her four months to complete.
Miss Bee Haven, appropriately placed beneath an almond tree in June, 2010, is no lightweight. Anchored with 200 pounds of cement and with six bronze legs drilled into the pedestal, this worker bee is destined to stay put—unlike the thousands of bees that forage from the hives at the nearby Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility.
Billick used lost wax bronze casting to craft the six legs, which extend from the thorax to rest on a ceramic “purple dome” aster, fabricated by Davis artist Sarah Rizzo. The purple dome aster is among the flowers in the garden.
She created the double set of translucent wings with three sheets of fiberglass. The result: wings that are fragile-looking and true to life, but strong.
During this entire process, I developed a real in-depth relationship with honey bees,” Billick told us back in 2010. For inspiration and detail, she visited the Laidlaw facility apiary, read about the functions of bees, and held the thoughts close. “It was not about expressing anything other than the beeness. I have a lot of respect for bees. It was fun and satisfying to do. I learned a ton.”
Billick toyed with a scientific career before opting for a career that fuses art with science. She received her bachelor of science degree in genetics in 1973 and her master's degree in fine arts in 1977, studying art with such masters as Bob Arneson, Roy De Forest, Wayne Thiebaud and Manuel Neri.
Billick traces her interest in an art career to the mid-1970s when then Gov. Jerry Brown supported the arts and offered the necessary resources to encourage the growth of art. He reorganized the California Arts Council, boosting its funding by 1300 percent.
The mid-1990s is when Billick and Ullman began teaching classes that fused art with science; those classes led to the formation of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion.
The garden, maintained and operated by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is directed by Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño and managed by Christine Casey. It is open to the public from dawn to dusk. Admission is free.
Meanwhile, "Miss Bee Haven" is likely the most photographed bee in the garden. Visitors pull out their cell phones to take a selfie. Children love to touch it and help the younger ones climb to the ledge. Bee scientists marvel at the anatomical accuracy, right down to pollen baskets and stinger.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Meanwhile, scientists want to know where the monarchs are in the early spring. When the iconic butterflies head inland from their coastal overwintering sites, where do they go?
To participate in the Western Monarch Mystery Challenge:
- If you see a monarch outside of overwintering groves, take a picture! (Don't worry, it can be far away and blurry.)
- Report it to iNaturalist (the app is free) OR email MonarchMystery@wsu.edu and be sure to include date, species and location for both methods
- You will automatically be entered to win a variety of prizes every week you report a sighting.
All data will be added to the Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper, a year-round community science project tracking milkweeds and monarchs in the West.
UC Davis alumnus Christopher Jason, a technician in the Schultz lab, said WSU researchers are collaborating with the Elizabeth Crone lab at Tufts University; Xerces Society of Invertebrate Conservation; and UC Santa Cruz. Crone, a biology professor recently on a research sabbatical at UC Davis, told the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology at a seminar Jan. 30 (the same day that Shapiro sighted a monarch in Sacramento) that more research needs to be done on where monarchs are in the spring, as that is a "critical point in their life cycle." Monarch populations are at their lowest at this time of year, Crone said, and individual butterflies may be at their "weakest right after their long overwintering diapause.”
In an email, Jason reiterated that "The Western Monarch Mystery Challenge is a campaign to find out where western monarch butterflies are in early spring. We know they spend the winter months (November to February) in groves along the California coast, and start breeding in central California in May, and in some cases, as early as February. However, we know a lot less about where they are and what they're up to in February, March, and April. Solving the mystery of where western monarchs spend the spring is central to conserving and restoring the phenomenon of monarch migration in the West."And keep your eyes open for Western monarchs. You may help solve the mystery.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Bohart Museum, home of nearly eight million insect specimens collected worldwide, will be one of the 13 museums or collections open on Saturday, Feb. 15 during the ninth annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day.
Directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, the Bohart Museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane. Scientists at the insect museum will greet visitors, show specimens, and answer questions from 9 a.m. to noon. The insect museum is also the home of a live "petting zoo," including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks, and tarantulas. Its year-around gift shop is stocked insect-themed t-shirts and jewelry, books, posters, and collecting equipment.
Here's what's on tap for the campuswide Biodiversity Museum Day, a science-based day that's free and family friendly. The event drew 4000 visitors last year.
The schedule:
- The Botanical Conservatory, the Greenhouses along Kleiber Hall Drive, will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The following five will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.:
- Arboretum and Public Garden, Shields Oak Grove, alongside the Vet School, Garrod Drive on campus
- Bohart Museum of Entomology, Room 1124 and Main Hall of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
- California Raptor Center, 340 Equine Lane, off Old Davis Road
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Room 1394 and Mail Hall, Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
- Paleontology Collection, Earth and Physical Sciences Building, 434 LaRue Road
Two collections will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.:
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
- Viticulture and Enology Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
These five will be open from noon to 4 p.m.:
- Anthropology Museum, 328 Young Hall and grounds
- Center for Plant Diversity, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
- Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, Bee Biology Road, off Hopkins Road (take West Hutchison Drive to Hopkins)
- Nematode Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
- Marine Invertebrate Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
New this year will be public talks from noon to 1 p.m. in 194 Young Hall. The slate of speakers:
- Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, will discuss “Are Our Butterflies in Trouble?” (“Yes, they mostly are in trouble,” he says. He will discuss “How do we know and why?”)
- Gabrielle Nevitt, professor of animal behavior (on leave), will speak on “How Do Sub-Antarctic Seabirds Find their Food in the Vast Ocean?” (“They follow their nose," she says, "and sometimes it gets them into trouble.”)
- Melanie Truan, research ecologist, UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, will cover “Biodiversity Studies at the UC Davis Wildlife Museum.” Biodiversity studies, she says, “can tell us a lot about the world and how it is functioning. This is especially important today where the influence of Homo sapiens is having profound impacts on the planet and its inhabitants.” She will touch on some of the ways that the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology incorporates biodiversity into its research.
Each scientist will present a 15-minute talk, with a question-and-answer session to follow.
All participating museums and collections have active education and outreach programs, said Biodiversity Museum Day coordinator Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum, but the collections are not always accessible to the public. Maps, signs and guides will be available at all the collections, and also online at http://biodiversitymuseumday.edu, and on social media, including Facebook and Twitter, @BioDivDay.
