March 29,2012
DAVIS--A unique “Terrorism and War” spring course at the University of California, Davis, is partnering with the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, in a one-of-a-kind effort to provide students with a close look at world conflict through the eyes of U.S. defense strategists and policy makers.
“We’ll have big-picture lectures by the greatest minds in the field, and overview lectures on topics such as insurgency, genocide, cyberwar and diplomacy,” said course founder James R. Carey, professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and a member of the Science and Society Program faculty.
Topics will range from “World at War” and “How to Run the World” to “Religious Violence.”
Carey will teach the four-unit course with co-instructor John Arquilla, professor and chair of the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, the nation’s only school supported by the Department of Defense.
The "Terrorism and War" course, scheduled from April 3 through June 7 in the Social Sciences and Humanities Building, is also unique in that it is one of only 24 throughout the UC system selected to be part of the UC Online Instructional Pilot Project. Viewers will be able to access recorded lectures on demand on two websites: the UC Davis Department of Entomology and the Science and Society Program. Although offered only as a face-to-face course this coming quarter, an online version will be offered in the fall quarter and again in spring 2013.
The spring 2012 course is a general education, undergraduate course intended for freshmen and sophomores. It will be divided into three sections: terrorism, war, and statecraft, or the art of leading the country.
Several Department of Defense Analysis faculty will lecture: Arquilla will discuss “World Terrorism;” professor Leo Blanken, “World at War”; and professor Glenn Robinson, “After the Arab Spring.”
Among the other lecturers: Parag Khanna, senior fellow of the American Strategic Program, New American Foundation, New York City, “How to Run the World”; professor/director Mark Juergensmeyer, Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UC Santa Barbara, “Religious Violence”; distinguished professor Zeev Maoz, Department of Political Science, UC Davis, "Paradoxes of War"; graduate student Meghan Lynch, Department of Political Science, Yale University, “Mass Violence against Civilians in Africa”; and distinguished professor Murray Weidenbaum, Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Policy, Washington University, "Small Wars, Big Defense."
Carey launched the unparalleled “Terrorism and War” course in 2003 to “introduce students to critical thinking and important contemporary topics in science.” The entomologist initially focused on bioterrorism, but then expanded the content to include more overarching concepts concerned with national security.
Carey said that he and Arquilla believe that everyone should take this course. “National security strategy requires an informed public,” Carey said. “Although UC students will always be graduating into a world with many challenges, few are as fraught with peril, as complex and costly, and have such long-term geopolitical, economic and, indeed, personal consequences as those concerned with the broad concept of national security.”
Said co-instructor John Arquilla: "We are living in an era of perpetual conflict—most of it irregular, coming in complex new forms of terrorism and insurgency, but with looming shadows of larger-scale warfare as well.”
“Moreover, the problems posed by an era of complex new threats are compounded by deficiencies in and dysfunctions of the system of public discourse,” Arquilla declared. “This leads to Americans being routinely asked to endorse decisions to go to war, to incur staggering military expenditures, and to do so on the basis of incomplete or twisted information.”
Teaching concepts related to terrorism and warfare not entirely unfamiliar to Carey. After completing U.S. Army infantry, ranger, airborne, and jumpmaster schools during the Vietnam War, he spent a year as a patrolling instructor at the Army Mountain Ranger Camp in northern Georgia.
Expanding on the reasons for teaching the course, Carey said: “We believe that the university has an opportunity—if not an obligation—to educate the citizenry in the breadth, complexity and nuances of the emerging security environment, so that they are better able to cut through official groupthink, and instead be able to perform fully the civic duty of questioning authority closely and holding decision makers to account.”
Carey sees the online course as not only a way to “organize and frame the major issues involving national security” but as a way “to explore new ways to teach general education courses with the potential for large enrollments. If this online course attracts large numbers of students, this could have unprecedented potential for instructors interested in innovating new approaches to teaching.”
Carey envisions that the online course could also “serve as a model to evaluate teaching efficiencies involving economies of scale never before tried. These could then be used not only to develop other large-scale, online general education courses involving big-picture topics, such as global warming, energy policy and health care, but also for many of the UC gateway courses ranging from mathematics and biology to economics and language.”
The list speakers and topics for the Tuesday sessions are:
April 3:
“World Terrorism--Overview and Update”: John Arquilla; professor, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School
April 10:
“World at War--Overview and Update”: Leo Blanken, assistant professor, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School
April 17:
“The Best Defense”: Abraham Sofaer, George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Hoover Institute, Stanford University (tentative)
April 24:
“After the Arab Spring”: Glenn Robinson, associate professor, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School
May 1:
“Paradoxes of War”: Zeev Maoz, Distinguished Professor, Department of Political Science, UC Davis
May 8:
“Mass Violence Against Civilians in Africa”: Megan Lynch, pre-doctoral candidate, Department of Political Science, Yale University
May 15:
“Religious Violence”: Mark Juergensmeyer, director, Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UC Santa Barbara
May 22:
“Small Wars, Big Defense”: Murray Weidenbaum, Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor, Washington University
May 29:
“Bend of History”: John Arquilla, professor, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School
June 5:
“How to Run the World”: Parag Khanna, New America Foundation, Washington, DC
Last year’s invited speakers included national security consultant Gary Hart, former U.S. senator from Colorado and a two-time presidential nominee. Topics ranged from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to “Liberation of Auschwitz.”
Carey, awarded a doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley, joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty in 1980. He is internationally known for his research on insect biodemography, that is, the marriage of biology and demography, with special emphasis on aging and lifespan. A former vice chair of his department, he is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Gerontological Society of America, and the California Academy of Sciences. Carey chaired the systemwide UC Committee on Research Policy and served on the systemwide UC Academic Council.
Arquilla received a doctorate in international relations from Stanford in 1991. He worked several years for the RAND Corporation (Research ANd Development), a nonprofit global policy think tank formed to offer research and analysis to the U.S. Armed Forces, before joining the faculty of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1993. Arquilla has written many articles and books on the future of warfare and frequently offers expert opinion and commentary on PBS, NPR and C-SPAN. He was an advisor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield.
The Naval Postgraduate School is a graduate-level research university offering masters and doctoral programs in more than 60 diverse fields of study, all aimed at improving national security.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Dec. 23, 2011
/table>DAVIS--Susan Cobey’s spring classes at the University of California, Davis, on specialized honey bee classes to promote stock improvement are all filled, but more are being offered in Washington state.
Cobey, bee breeder-geneticist at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis and at Washington State University, draws students from all over the world to her workshops.
“We also will be offering these classes in the summer in Washington state, so those interested in registering can apply,” Cobey said.More information on the workshops she teaches, including “The Art of Queen Rearing,” “Instrumental Insemination and Bee Breeding” and “Advanced Workshop on Instrumental Insemination” is available on the UC Davis Department of Entomology website.
Susan Cobey joined UC Davis in May 2007. Her research focuses on identifying, selecting and enhancing honey bee stocks that show increasing levels of resistance to pests and diseases. Cobey developed the New World Carniolan stock, a dark, winter hardy race of honey bees, in the early 1980s by back-crossing stocks collected from throughout the United States and Canada to create a more pure strain. Stock imported from the German Carnica Association has recently been added to enhance this breeding program.
In collaborations with Steve Sheppard of WSU, they are importing honey bee germplasm to increase genetic diversity in the U.S. honey bee gene pool. In addition, stock from the Republic of Georgia has been imported to re-establish the subspecies Apis mellifera caucasica, another dark race of bee that is not currently recognizable in the U.S.
SPECIALIZED CLASSES TO PROMOTE STOCK IMPROVEMENT
Instructor: Susan Cobey
Location: Harry Laidlaw Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis.UC Davis classes are full for 2012. Please inquire to get on the wait list, or for information on the WSU Classes offered in June at Mt. Vernon and Pullman campuses
1. THE ART OF QUEEN REARING WORKSHOP
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
The workshop provides hands-on instruction in rearing high quality queens. Beekeepers will be involved in the various steps: setting up cell builders; grafting; handling queen cells; establishing mating nuclei. A queen right and a queen less system will be demonstrated.
Registration: $150. Optional Queen Tour: $50. Link to Art of Queen Rearing Workshop for applicationOptional Queen Tour, Wednesday, March 28, 2012.
Class participants will visit large scale commercial queen producers during their busy season. A diversity of techniques and systems will be observed. Tour: $50.2. INSTRUMENTAL INSEMINATION & BEE BREEDING WORKSHOP
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, April 17, 18 & 19, 2012.
The class is designed for commercial beekeepers involved in a breeding program and for researchers requiring the skill. Instruction is hands-on with individual attention, facilitated with the use of live video. Various types of insemination instruments are displayed and reviewed. Demonstration materials, virgin queens and drones are provided for the class. Practical beekeeping and queen rearing skills are required. Provision of your own instrument is required. Microscopes will be provided for use upon request.
Registration: $500. Link to Instrumental Insemination and Bee Breeding Workshop for application3. ADVANCED WORKSHOP ON INSTRUMENTAL INSEMINATION
Wednesday and Thursday, April 25 & 26, 2012
The class is focused on perfecting insemination techniques and solving related problems in the laboratory and in the field. Experience in Instrumental Insemination is required. Demonstration materials, virgin queens and drones are provided. Provision of your own insemination equipment is required. Microscopes will be provided for use upon request.
Registration: $425. Link to Advanced Workshop on Instrumental Insemination for applicationPhotos from the "Art of Queen Bee Rearing" class, March 23-24, 2011 ~ Class in Laidlaw Facility ~ Tour of Koehnen & Sons, Glenn ~ Tour of Strachan Apiaries, Yuba City
Washington State University
These classes (above) also will be offered in June through Washington State University.
Please inquire for more information. scobey@mac.comTHE ART OF QUEEN REARING WORKSHOP
Friday, June 8, 2012, Mt. Vernon, Wash.THE ART OF QUEEN REARING WORKSHOP
Friday, June 15, Pullman, Wash.INSTRUMENTAL INSEMINATION & BEE BREEDING WORKSHOP
June, 2012. ( Date to be announced)
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
March 27,2012
DAVIS--"The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plains,” according to the hit song in My Fair Lady.
Don’t tell that to Derek Downey, who has been trying to schedule the grand opening of the Davis Bee Sanctuary now for the past two weeks. It appears that rain is falling mainly on the Davis Bee Sanctuary.
A grand opening initially set March 21 and then changed to March 31 has now been re-scheduled for Sunday, April 1.
“It’s supposed to rain hard on Saturday, March 31, and be nice on Sunday, April 1,” said organizer Derek Downey, who heads the Davis Bee Collective and its newly landscaped site, the Davis Bee Sanctuary. He’s hoping it will “bee nice.”
The Davis Bee Collective, a community of small-scale beekeepers founded by a former UC Davis entomology graduate student Eli Sarnat, will host the grand opening of the sanctuary from 1 to 5 p.m., Sunday, April 1 on Orchard Park Drive, near The Domes student housing. The public is invited.
The open house will be an opportunity for area residents and prospective members to “come meet the beekeepers," Downey said. The event will include tours, honey tasting, a permaculture lesson covering hugelkultur (the drought-tolerant technique being used at the sanctuary), a free flower giveaway, seed exchange (bring seeds), and a presentation on native bees, which also will be sharing the sanctuary.
A special guest will be Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
As of March 29, six hives now occupy the Bee Sanctuary. "We have four empty hives and space for a total of 12," Downey said. The hives are decorated with such names as "Just Bee," "Bee Happy," "Birdhouse" and "the Whaler Superorganism."
"The bee sanctuary is also place for people to meditate, smell the flowers, watch the bees and hummingbirds in the trees, and learn about permaculture---we're using a drought-tolerant method of gardening called hugelkultur ("hoogle culture") which involves burying logs of different sizes under the soil," Downey said. "The wood breaks down and becomes a sponge able to hold on to a ton of water so that in summer months you don't need to irrigate very much, if at all!"
Sarnat established the Bee Collective in 2005. Downey, who received his bachelor's degree in engineering from UC Davis in 2009, joined the Bee Collective in 2005 and then founded a small beekeeping business, the Davis Bee Charmers in 2010 and the Davis Bee Sanctuary in 2011. As the founder of the Davis Bee Charmers, he catches swarms, relocates hives, and teaches beekeeping lessons to individuals and groups.
Downey invites interested persons to join the Bee Collective and Bee Sanctuary; information on how to join is on the Davis Wiki website at http://daviswiki.org/Davis_Bee_Collective. He moderates the Google group and adds new members. "If someone wants to just help out and learn about bees, they are always welcome to take part," he said. "We will have hives that are collectively managed so everyone can learn together. If someone wants to keep their own hive there, it is first-come, first served. We have space for 10 to 12 hives, max."
Members of the Bee Collective share resources, such as beekeeping equipment, books, and tools. Downey accepts donations for the Bee Collective and Bee Sanctuary (contact him at davisbeecharmers@gmail.com o r(310) 694-2405). He recently received dozens of donated perennials.
Bee Sanctuary work parties are held every Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. at the site. Downey anticipates filling the other empty hives in the sanctuary via swarms he collects in Davis, Dixon, Sacramento, Woodland, and Winters.
See related story and why Eli Sarnat founded the Bee Collective
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
March 27,2012
DAVIS--They know their insects.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology's Linnaean Team, comprised of four graduate students, won the championship at the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America competition, held Monday night, March 26, in Portland, Ore. The team now heads to the Linnaean finals at ESA's 60th annual meeting, set for Nov. 11-14 in Knoxville, Tenn. The prize: $500 to help defray the costs.
The UC Davis team is comprised of Matan Shelomi, Kelly Hamby, Kelly Liebman, and Jenny Carlson, and is advised Extension entomology specialist Larry Godfrey of the Department of Entomology faculty.
Six teams—UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, University of Idaho, and two teams for Washington State—competed in the lively six-round event, held from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. The Linnaean Games are college bowl-style games based on entomological facts and insect trivia. Team members respond to the moderator's questions by buzzing in with the answers.
In the first round, UC Davis was pitted against one of the WSU teams. “The questions were very difficult compared to the two rounds that preceded us,” Shelomi said. “We tied 30/30, but we won the tiebreaker question. It was a picture question showing a map of Ball's Pyramid, Lord Howe Island, New Zealand, taken from a recent National Public Radio (NPR) article on an insect recently rediscovered there after having been thought to be extinct.”
The answer: Lord Howe Island Phasmid, Dryococelus australis, also known as a land lobster.
Shelomi, the team’s phasmid expert, said he "was very happy to see that picture and knew the answer before they asked the question. After that, we played the University of Idaho and won, then we had a showdown with UC Berkeley for the top two positions.” Both will represent the Pacific Branch in Knoxville.
It was a long night, the UC Davis team agreed. The UC Davis team played three out of the total of six games.
Hamby served as the agricultural entomology and integrated pest management (IPM) expert on the team; Liebman and Carlson, medical entomology; and Shelomi, insect physiology.
All four are studying for their doctorates. Hamby’s major professor is IPM specialist Frank Zalom; Liebman’s major professor, medical entomologist Tom Scott (she receives funds from a grant awarded to medical entomologist Greg Lanzaro, School of Veterinary Medicine); Shelomi’s major professor, Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology; and Jenny Carlson’s major professors are medical entomologists Anthony “Anton” Cornel and Gregory Lanzaro.
Some other questions asked:
Name four of the six orders of arthropods represented in the circus troupe from the movie "A Bug's Life." (Answers: Lepidoptera, Mantodea, Coleoptera, Phasmatodea, Isopoda, Aranaea.)
What are the two diseases caused by trypanosomes and vectored by insects, and where do they occur? (Answers: Chagas in South America, African Sleeping Sickness in sub-Saharan Africa.)
This is the second consecutive year that a UC Davis team has won the Pacific Branch competition. The 2011 team competing at the regionals was comprised of Shelomi; Meredith Cenzer, a graduate student in the Louie Yang lab; Emily Symes, graduate student in the Frank Zalom lab; and James Harwood, graduate student in the James Carey lab. At the national finals, Shelomi and Cenzer were joined by team members Andrew Merwin of the Michael Parrella lab, and Mohammad-Amir Aghaee of the Godfrey lab. UC Davis made it to the semifinals by defeating Iowa State. In the championship game, the University of Nebraska defeated North Carolina State University.
Each individual branch of the ESA may send its winning team and runner-up to compete in the nationals. Gold medals are awarded to the winning team, and silver medals to the runner-up team. In addition, each team receives a plaque for its department.
The Pacific Branch of the ESA includes the following states and provinces:
United States: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.
U.S. Territories: American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Johnston Atoll, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Midway Islands, Wake Island.
Canada: Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Yukon.
Mexico: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
March 27, 2012
DAVIS--Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, is featured in today's edition of National Geographic for the giant "warrior wasp" she discovered in Indonesia.
The news article, titled "Bizarre 'King of Wasps' Found in Indonesia, talks about the warrior wasp she discovered on the Mekongga Mountains in southeastern Sulawesi.
Kimsey plans to name it Garuda, after the national symbol of Indonesia.
The male measures about two-and-a-half-inches long, Kimsey said. “Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male’s front legs. I don’t know how it can walk. The females are smaller but still larger than other members of their subfamily, Larrinae.”
The large jaws probably play a role in defense and reproduction, she said. "In another species in the genus the males hang out in the nest entrance. This serves to protect the nest from parasites and nest robbing, and for this he exacts payment from the female by mating with her every time she returns to the nest. So it's a way of guaranteeing paternity. Additionally, the jaws are big enough to wrap around the female;s thorax and hold her during mating."
See initial story that appeared on the UC Davis Department of Entomology website on Aug. 19, 2011.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894