Vladimir Nabokov (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

You’re in luck. Butterfly expert Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, will speak on “Butterflies in Illuminated Manuscripts and Renaissance Art--Homage to Vladimir Nabokov" at the LASER-UC Davis event from 7:25 to 7:50 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 2 in Room 3001, Plant and Environmental Sciences Building.

What’s LASER? The acronym stands for Leonard Art Science Evening Rendezvous. Basically, as the name implies, it integrates art and science.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. with socializing and networking, continues with four speakers, and ends with a discussion and networking from 9 to 9:30. Organized and moderated by Anna Davidson, a doctoral candidate in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, it is is free and open to all interested persons. 

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) was a Russian-born novelist best known for Lolita (1955) but he also made "serious contributions as a lepidopterist and chess composer," according to Wikipedia.

The schedule:

6:30-7 p.m.: Socializing/networking

7-7:25: Amy Franceschini, San Francisco area-based artist, speaking on “Excursions through Domains of Familiarity and Surprise”

7:25-7:50: Arthur Shapiro, professor, UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology, “Butterflies in Illuminated Manuscripts and Renaissance Art--Homage to Vladimir Nabokov"

7:50-8:10: BREAK.  (During the break anyone in the audience currently working within the intersections of art and science will have 30 seconds to share their work).

8:10-8:35: Justin Schuetz, San Francisco Art Institute faculty member and director of conservation science for National Audubon Society, “Approximating Equations: Visual and Statistical Explorations of Truth”

8:35-9: Mary Anne Kluth, interdisciplinary artist based in San Francisco, “Narratives of Inquiry in a Contemporary Art Practice”

9-9:30: Discussion/Networking

Speaker biosketches:

Amy Franceschini is an artist and founder of the San Francisco-based art and design collective, Futurefarmers. Her work is highly collaborative and usually involves a diverse group of practitioners who come together to make work that responds to a particular time and space. Franceschini creates tactile frameworks for exchange where the logic of a situation can disappear -- where moments of surprise and wonder open the possibility for unexpected encounters and new perspectives on a particular situation. This situational approach emerges as temporary architectural interventions, public programs, choreography, radical journalism and museum exhibitions.  Franceschini received her masters of fine arts degree from Stanford University. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and has exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art, New York Hall of Sciences and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.  

Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evoluation and ecology at UC Davis, monitors the butterfly population of Central California and posts on his website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/. He works on butterfly biogeography, evolution, and ecology and also does research in Argentina. Shapiro received his bachelor of arts degree in biology from the University of Pennslvania in 1966, and his doctorate in entomology from Cornell University in 1970. Shapiro joined the UC Davis faculty in 1971. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, California Academy of Sciences, Royal Entomological Society (U.K.) and Explorers Club. He also was selected a Fellow of the Davis Humanities Institute. His credits also include 300 scientific publications (one book, Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, University of California Press, 2007); and 16 completed doctoral and 15 masters students under his direction. He works on butterfly biogeography, evolution, and ecology.

Justin Schuetz is a visiting faculty member at San Francisco Art Institute; he co-teaches a class on scientific and artistic exploration of biological systems. “Recently I have been using images and text to explore the ideas of a Japanese mathematician whose work has changed how biologists construct statistical models of the world,” Schuetz said. He received his bachelor’s degree in biology and studio art from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine; his doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University; and his master’s degree in fine arts (photography) from the San Francisco Art Institute. As the director of conservation science for National Audubon Society, he leads a team “that aims to describe relationships between birds, people, and places so that we can better shape conservation outcomes. Much of our recent work has focused on reconstructing responses of birds to historical climate change and forecasting responses to future climate change."

Mary Anne Kluth is an interdisciplinary artist who received her master’s degree in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2008 and a bachelor’s of fine arts from California College of Arts in 2005. She says her work explores the nexus of landscape imagery, narrative, and information, and her most recent body of work deals with descriptions of landscape from the 1860s, and contemporary theme park simulations. Kluth recently completed a residence at the Kala Art Institute and exhibited at the Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, and the Contemporary Art Center, Las Vegas. Her work has been featured in ARTnews, Beautiful Decay, and Harper's, among other publications. Kluth has written catalog essays, reviews and contributed to various publications, including Art Practical, Artweek, Art Ltd. and Stretcher. She is represented by Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco.

For directions to the Plant and Environmental Sciences building, see map. See you there!

Of the many things I'm thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for the millions of insects that populate our planet. Scientists have described more than a million species, but there may be 10 million more undescribed.

I am thankful for honey bees. There is no more comforting sound on a warm summer day than the buzz of bees as they pollinate the plants and return to their colonies with nectar and pollen. I am thankful for their role in providing the fruits and vegetables that we eat.

But that's just me.

I am thankful for bumble bees, especially the endangered ones that struggle to overcome the tragic changes to their environment. Bumble bees are social insects but what developers and others are doing to them is definitely anti-social.

But that's just me.

I am thankful for butterflies, nature's flying art that flutter in our garden and touch gently down on blossoms for a lingering sip of nectar. Their beauty overwhelms me.

But that's just me.

I am thankful for the pre-historic looking dragonflies that glide gracefully over our ponds and streams to snag mosquitoes and other undeirable insects. 

But that's just me.

I am thankful for the insects that clothe us: the bees for pollinating cotton plants, and the silkworms for spinning cocoons.

But that's just me.

I am thankful for the beneficial insects, like honey bees, ladybugs, lacewings, assassin bugs, damsel bugs, soldier beetles, big-eyed bugs, syrphids, and parasitic mini-wasps.

But that's just me.

I am thankful for bee gardens, gardeners, entomologists and insect photographers. Frankly, I would rather spend an afternoon photographing insects in my backyard than sitting on a crowded beach in Hawaii with a little umbrella decorating a drink that I don't drink.

But that's just me.

I am thankful I don't engage in recreational shopping, collect pretentious possessions, or focus on five-star restaurants, especially when starving, ravaged and troubled souls sit forlornly outside. I firmly believe that Brown Thursday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday should not be an integral part of our lives, and that “greed” should be replaced by “giving."

But that's just me.

I'm happy with what I have. To me, it's important to “want” what you have, than to “have” what you want.

But that's just me.

Today I'm especially thankful for two Gulf Fritillary butterflies that just emerged from their chrysalids. 

The double emergence may seem like a “minor” thing to be thankful for today but it's the “minor" things that I treasure. And why "happy" should always precede the name of this holiday. 

"THANKS...

GIVING." 

Some folks mistake the spotted cucumber beetle for a ladybug or lady beetle.

However, unlike the beneficial ladybug, which devours aphids and other soft-bodied insects, the spotted cucumber beetle is a major agricultural pest. The adults, yellowish-green with black spots, feed on the leaves of cucumbers, melons, cotton, beans and ornamentals and can spread viruses. The larvae stunt the roots of corn and other plants. 

Its name is a mouthful: Diabrotica undecimpunctata (which has probably appeared on national spelling bees). True to its name, Diabrotica can be rather diabolical in your vegetable garden or flower bed.

Insect photographers often like to focus on its color and character.

But look closely and you'll also see its path of destruction. 

Rachel Graham (Photo from the Frank Zalom lab website)

Rachel Graham, a master's student in entomology at the University of California, Davis who loves photographing insects, recently submitted an image of a blue dasher, Pachydiplax longipennis, for the Entomological Society of America's 2014 World of Insects calendar.

Dashing news! It won a well-deserved spot in the calendar.  It's the June "bug." The worldwide competition drew more than 400 photos from 84 photographers. Each attendee at ESA's 61st annual meeting, held Nov. 10-13 in Austin, Texas, received a calendar.  (More calendars are available.)

Graham studies with integrated pest management (IPM) specialist Frank Zalom, newly inducted president of the nearly 7000-member ESA. (Zalom is only the second-ever ESA president from UC Davis.)

Graham captured the image at the  Archbold Biological Station in Venus, Fla., in August 2010 when she was participating in a BugShot photography workshop organized by noted insect photographer/entomologist Alex Wild of Illinois. Wild, who received his doctorate in entomology from ant specialist Phil Ward, UC Davis professor of entomology, writes the popular Myrmecos blog and the Compound Eye blog for Scientific American.

Graham recalled that she photographed the blue dasher "on the very first day of the workshop" with her Canon 60D and a 100mm macro lens, shooting at an ISO of 200, f-stop of 6.3 and a shutter speed of 1/40. No flash. No tripod. 

The dragonfly species is widespread throughout North America. It's common, but Rachel Graham's photo isn't!

This isn't Rachel Graham's first major photography honor, either. One of her images made the Cornell Ornithology Celebrate Urban Birds 2011 calendar. And earlier this year, she won the People’s Choice Award at the 6th annual UC Davis Graduate Student Symposium in Ecology.  Her winning photo depicted a jumping spider eating a hover fly. 

Graham, an IPM specialist who plans a career in science education and outreach, recalled that she "began photographing insects for a class assignment at UC San Diego in 2010, and have not been able to stop."

Let's hope she never does!