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The wonderful Field Museum in Chicago featured this video about Steve Leavitt and his lichen research, which hit my soft spot for these organisms.

There are a lot of reasons to admire Theodore Roosevelt, America's 26th president. Chiefly among them to me is his passion for conservation. This video from The American Museum of Natural History explores the roots of his passion, which grew from his interests in natural history during his youth.

If you haven't yet heard of the massively popular video Gangnam Style , click that link to check it out. Personally, I'm more of a Call Me Maybe guy, but to each his own. But what if you add Bill Nye the Science Guy to Gangnam Style? Well, I end up liking the video a whole lot more. This is where social media meets science, and it is glorious.

After attending a harvestman workshop this past summer, I've become quite interested in the Opiliones. They're a much more diverse group than I previously thought. One of the things I've been searching for since then has been a massive gathering of them, which this lucky person found. , Neat? Or terrifying? Definitely neat. Come on, harvestmen don't even have venom glands!

For parasitoidism being as gruesome as it is, the following video is surprisingly cute. I'll attribute that to the soundtrack. It also doesn't hurt that these wasps are parasitizing the eggs of an invasive stink bug, Halyomorpha halys , the brown marmorated stink bug.

It's time for a musical Science Video Friday, courtesy of a fan of house centipedes, Scutigera coleoptrata . I was very pleased after I found this video--not only is it about our many-legged friends, but it's very good and catchy. I sometimes find myself singing it from time to time. And some of the photos he features are pretty cute.

NASA continues to be the most inspiring arm of government we have in the United States. At the beginning of the week, millions of us followed along on the web as the newest Mars Rover, Curiosity, landed on Mars to begin its study of chemistry and geology on the Martian surface. A full-fledged mobile science laboratory, it landed on Mars safely after the "7 minutes of terror" experienced by mission control in Pasadena, California. The Internet erupted in joy when Curiosity transmitted back its first image of  Mars, seven minutes after landing. For a video of the descent, NASA has kindly provided one, embedded below. And as usual, XKCD has succinctly summarized just what exactly NASA accomplished. For more info on the landing: Yahoo News Washington Post

Parasitoidism was one of the first really neat events I learned about early on in my Entomology studies that got me hooked on insects. It's the process by which an insect (such as a wasp or a fly) lays an egg on or in another organism. That egg then hatches, the larvae feast on the innards of the poor host, and then burst out of its body, killing it. The end result can be gruesome, but today's Science Video Friday showcases the (relatively) peaceful start of the process: when the parasitoid lays its egg in the victim.

E.O. Wilson is one of my heroes, so he makes it into Science Video Friday once again! Here he takes us on a tour of his office and talks a bit about ants (of course) and his inspiration.

I recently ordered a new camera (a Canon Powershot SX150 IS) after my old camera (a Canon Powershot A560) went kaput, and it arrived a couple of days ago. Since then, I've been testing it out and getting used to it. I've gotten a few good shots, but I still have a long way to go before I'm comfortable with it. I have to say though, it's a huge step up from my old camera, which isn't surprising considering I had been using the A560 for about six years. I decided to test out the video function last night and was impressed with the results. It shoots in HD, so I can actually get some quality video out of it. The subject I turned to was a firefly in the genus Photuris that seemed to be on its way out the door. I grabbed my hand lens and recorded a short video of it flashing, which you can watch below. It was interesting to watch up close, which I had never done before. Fireflies produce light via a biochemical reaction utilizing luciferin, luciferase, ATP, oxygen, and m...

Stag beetles are some of the most charismatic beetles out there. Even people who don't like insects are drawn to them if they ever find them, and how couldn't they be? Stag beetles are small beetles with lots of gumption that don't back down when approached, and the following video shows off how these spunky beetles use their formidable mandibles.

If there's one television show that has done the most to popularize science in the last decade, it's MythBusters . The show has been on the Discovery Channel since 2003 and is successful not only for the interesting myths that are tested on the show, but also because of how fun it is to watch the hosts testing the myths. It also doesn't hurt that the testing usually involves blowing something up. The MythBusters' pursuit of scientific literacy and critical thinking doesn't stop after the television episodes are done filming: they go out and speak to the public at a variety of events. Luckily for us, there is often video for all of us to enjoy. In November 2011, Adam Savage gave a TED talk about how simple ideas spark scientific discoveries and uses some examples to drive the point home. Did you know that a man named Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth.....in 200 BC? Watch the video below to learn how he did it, and how close he was to the actual v...

One of my personal heroes is E.O. Wilson , for a variety of reasons. He has done some amazing work for concepts of biodiversity, and entomologists revere him for both his research about ants and his ability to communicate with the general public. In fact, he has won two Pulitzer prizes for his books (among many other awards), so he's kind of a big deal. Charlie Rose recently did an interview with him on April 3rd about his book The Social Conquest of Earth , and it's fascinating. To watch the video, just follow this link . Enjoy!

Science Video Friday comes to you today as a double feature! One of the neatest topics within entomology is bioluminescence, the process by which insects can create their own light. The first insect you probably think of when you hear that is the firefly. Those of us in the eastern US are fortunate enough to live in areas where fireflies also live: west of the Rockies, you don't really find them. Fireflies can flash in a variety of colors, including orange, yellow, and even blue ! The color of their flash is one way they recognize their own species in the dark, so if you see fireflies in your yard at night and there are two different colors flashing, you have at least two separate species. Now it's time to learn a bit more about fireflies, with the wonderful series "Meet the Lampyridae." Enjoy!

Fungi are pretty important. In fact, without fungi, forests as we know them probably wouldn't exist. Why? Because fungi form mutualistic relationships with plant roots that help the plant grow. There are a couple different ways that fungi can do this, but it has the same result: aiding plant growth and stabilizing the health of the plant. Unfortunately, many people don't know about fungal-plant relationships and how important they are to the ecosystem, and fungi are shunned. Some mushrooms are considered pretty, but for the most part, fungi don't receive the recognition they deserve. Paul Stamets is working to correct this, and judging from this clip, he's doing an amazing job.

You may have read in a textbook that moths and butterflies feed on nectar from flowers, or don't even feed at all. When reading about science, however, it's important to remember that things aren't simple. It's difficult to neatly fit everything into one classification, and this holds true with the Lepidoptera as well. In this instance, it means that we should say most moths and butterflies feed on nectar. Some feed on fruit, for example. One moth in particular does something much different. It's related to a species that feeds on fruit, but gets its food from another source. No, it doesn't feed on vegetables, but instead...blood. Wait, what? National Geographic has you covered for this week's Science Video Friday!

This week's Science Video Friday features some interesting art. It's a visualization of the orchid Cattleya warneri , shown in a way you haven't seen before. To learn more, check out the article on Tree Hugger .

In lieu of a full blog post, it's time for another Science Video Friday! This week's video is a spectacular 10 minute documentary on Britain's glowworms, from Christopher Gent. Enjoy!

I just received my copy of Field Guide to Northeastern Longhorned Beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) by Douglas Yanega today and it is beautiful. It has a classy cover and is filled with useful pictures and identifying information about longhorned beetles. I've already used it to identify a few of the beetles I found this summer, which led me on some Youtube searches. For as neat as our longhorned beetles are in Ohio, this one from Japan is pretty wicked... Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find a reason to fly to Japan for some beetle research.

If you're looking for someone who's passionate about science, you don't have to look any further than Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York. This week's Science Video Friday features him articulating why the government funding science is important, even in tough times.