- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bohart Museum director Lynn Kimsey, a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, said the calendar--featuring students' unusual comments on their Entomology 100 term papers and illustrated by Bohart associate Kris Merritt--is now on sale for $12 in-house or $15 through the online gift shop. (Due to COVID-19 precautions, the Bohart Museum is currently closed to the public.) Funds will benefit the Bohart.
Kimsey teaches ENT100 and annually collects what she calls the "prized sentences."
The sentences selected for the calendar include:
- "Normally, locusts are introverted creatures; they do not socialize unless it is for reproduction."
- "Drones are male bees that contribute only in the perm production for the queen."
- "In addition to a food product, pollinators are also used to pollinated crops."
- "The swarmers are attracted to lights and tend to expose themselves in the evenings."
- "Bees being shipped across country stored in trucks or vans are shown to cause more stress."
- "The thrip is a pest is not always a serious pest."
- "The other mentality that must be overcome is a chemically dependent one."
- "Theosmeteria are typically waved around in an erotic fashion and then retracted back into the body."
- "If not for their communication skills, honey bees would have long been extinct, leading to numerous crop losses.
- "The infected fleas can harbor rats, ground squirrels, rabbits and occasionally, even house cats."
“One aspect of teaching this course is the writing requirement," explained Kimsey, a UC Davis faculty since 1989. "Students at UC Davis are required to take a number of units in general education, science and writing. My course fulfills two of those requirements, which means that I have to require—and grade—student term papers as part of their assignments. I can say definitely that student writing abilities have not improved over the years. So, to alleviate the pain of grading these works of art, I started collecting particularly silly or otherwise awesome sentences from their papers.”
Merritt, who holds a bachelor's degree in entomology from UC Davis, does freelance illustrations and enclosure designs. A resident of Sacramento, she is an entomologist, artist and beekeeper. (See her work on her Instagram account at @bombus_polaris)
"My earliest memory of putting pen to surface is of some amorphous blob meant to be a pirate ship drawn on the side of those old giant inflated balls with handles you'd bounce around on," Merritt said. "Ever since, there has been no surface or media safe from my touch. I pretty much got into anime and manga (Japanese animation and comics) beginning in the fifth grade, and then on through high school.
"That gave me a decent understanding of anatomy and portraying motion," she said, adding "I later expanded my subjects to the extremes of realism and cartoons/caricatures, eventually developing my own unique style."
"I started working at the Bohart Museum in 2016 while an entomology undergraduate and was soon recruited as the in-house artist. I was tasked to illustrate Lynn Kimsey's collection of sentences, as well as various outreach projects. My favorite mediums to work with include alcohol markers, ink, and colored pencils, though I also appreciate the various advantages of digital art programs."
The Bohart Museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge building on Crocker Lane. Home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens, it is the seventh largest university insect museum in North America. It also houses a live "petting zoo," comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects tarantulas. The online gift shop includes such insect-themed gifts as hoodies, t-shirts, books, posters and jewelry, as well as insect-collecting equipment. For more information, contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Well, now you can.
A UC Davis professor will pay you--if you're a top-notch UC Davis student--to write (the equivalent of) a "term paper."
UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey of the Department of Entomology and Nematology will pay selected students $1000 each to write a paper dealing with human hibernation and longevity--a two-fold project aimed at assisting him with his research and helping students learn how to research, write, illustrate, finalize and deliver the equivalent of a quality term paper.
"With a heavy fall quarter teaching load and other demands during this academic year, I am in need of help in researching the literature on the biology of hibernation and concepts associated with its integration into the human life course," Carey announced, adding that he is "in the early stages of writing a theoretical paper tentatively titled “Human Hibernation as a Future Life Course Option."
The deadline to apply is 5 p.m., Friday, Oct. 1. UC Davis students at all levels and all majors may apply. "It's a report equivalent to the quality term paper I expect in my class that would receive an A or an A+," Carey said.
Carey said he hopes to assemble an interdisciplinary team of 10 to 12 students able and willing to invest the time (60-70 hours) to write the equivalent of a 2,500-word term paper on one of 10--or possibly more--topics. Research and writing efforts will be spread over the 2021-22 academic year. He will compile and format their papers in “proceedings” and publish as both a print and digital book, using the Barnes and Noble Press self-publishing website. The students are also free to re-purpose their papers.
Carey is seeking papers similar to the quality of the three award-winning term papers that his Longevity and Human Development students submitted in the UC Davis Lang Writing Prize Competition. Two students won the top prize in their categories in both 2020 and 2021, and another scored third place in 2021.
Paper Topics (Tentative)
1. Ecology and population biology of dormancy
2. Physiology and ecology of mammalian hibernation
3. Human torpor: Historical, accidental and medical
4. Prospective role of human hibernation in deep space exploration
5. Historical rates of biomedical progress in disease mitigation and cures
6. Reconfiguring the human life course
7. The biology, psychology and behavior of long-term isolation and separation
8. Personal, family and societal consequences of “dropping out”
9. The biology, behavior and psychology of individuals re-entering society
10. The future of human longevity: Emerging concepts
Students interested in participating in the project can email Carey at jrcarey@ucdavis.edu with the subject line “Human Hibernation Project" and include in the body:
- your UC Davis major and year
- your first and second choices of paper topic by number or topic (e.g., dormancy; life course; etc);
- whether you would be interested in participating if another student was assigned your topic(s) of greatest interest (yes/no)
- a 100 to 150-word statement on why you are interested and would be a good choice to join the team; and
- a 1-page (only) CV. Writing experiences and skills are a plus, he said, but "I am mostly interested in highly motivated and self-directed students who are willing to dive deeply into the literature related to my broad topic and to synthesize the results. I will teach you how to write your paper competently and professionally."
Carey will interview the top candidates via Zoom and make final selections within a week. If selected, they will have
"plenty of time" to enroll in his one-credit ENT 99 or 199, he said.
Timetable
Fall Quarter (2021): Frame, research and finish a preliminary working draft including at least rough figures and tables and references (using Endnotes bibliographic software).
Winter Quarter (2022): Complete research, finalize structure and submit near-final draft, all figures, tables and references cited finished
Spring Quarter (2022): Finalize narrative, figures, tables and references. Submit final version.
Carey, a senior scholar at the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging at UC Berkeley, focuses his research on the biology and demography of aging and lifespan, particularly the use of insect models. A national-award winning teacher, he offers worldwide workshops on best practices in information design and presentation strategies. His most recent book is Biodemography: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods (2020, Princeton University Press), co-authored by Deborah A. Roach, professor and chair of the Department of Biology, University of Virginia.
