rjb
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Post by rjb on Sept 13, 2020 15:34:36 GMT -8
I thought I posted an answer about an hour after you posted this. I guess I fumbled it and I've been away. That is a flat bark beetle, family Silvanidae. Many are pests of stored grain, so it may be living in your kitchen. It looks like Cathartosilvanus imbellis. Bugguide has a pic of one from MA: bugguide.net/node/view/759524Rick
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rjb
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Post by rjb on Aug 30, 2020 13:59:59 GMT -8
Since you are in North America, you might try Bugguide. I don't know about mites, but they have some experts that contribute ID's for lots of the bugs. You have to register (no charge), but there are never any problems with that site. Here is the location of mites. bugguide.net/node/view/91197Rick
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Post by rjb on Aug 23, 2020 18:32:21 GMT -8
Neither is a bedbug. The first looks like a harmless Spider Beetle, see for example: bugguide.net/node/view/600243/bgpageThe video I can't positively identify, but runs like a beetle and clearly the shape is wrong for bedbug.
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Post by rjb on Aug 22, 2020 19:18:51 GMT -8
That is a Cerambycid. Often called the cactus longhorns. Genus Moneilema. See for example: bugguide.net/node/view/805500They don't have any images from Nevada.
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Post by rjb on May 2, 2020 10:16:03 GMT -8
In March my wife and I had just returned from a month in Australia and we drove out to Mojave National Preserve in southern CA to do a little volunteer work, installing barbed wire fence to keep out cattle.
I had planned to put out baited pitfalls (I know this isn’t the kind of baited traps Leroy is talking about) while we were camping there, but the weather looked too cold, so before leaving home I planted six pitfalls in our yard in Albuquerque. In the end we did some fine work, but the National Parks were trying to close down for the virus, so they pushed us out a day early.
Back at home I sorted the catch. I got 384 beetles, in 11 families, and 20 different species. I do lots of UV lighting in our yard but have rarely tried any pitfalls, so that big a haul was quite a surprise. The bait was just some fermenting mixed fruit and molasses. Since I mainly focus on tiny beetles, this was fun to sort through and I am trying a repeat now.
Rick
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rjb
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Post by rjb on Jan 5, 2020 5:44:48 GMT -8
Jan, This forum topic has moved into the absurd stage, rather pointless. You started a good topic and it revealed a number of truths and misconceptions by our contributors. For me, it has all been said. There are always the lurkers who read this stuff, and may be influenced by reading both sides of the issue and using their brains. The contributors like me and you and exoticimports and leptraps and gaspipe and Paul K and Adam are unlikely to change our minds about the subject, but by telling our side, maybe it changes one lurker’s thinking for the better.
I usually am only stimulated to contribute when anyone posts some bad science. Like gaspipe and others, I am pretty much done with this thread. I applaud your persistence but having experienced decades of this argument, I’m done. Soon my wife and I are off to Australia and we will experience this heat and fire wave. Rick
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rjb
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Post by rjb on Jan 5, 2020 5:16:13 GMT -8
There are many insect, what is the favourite insect that you already catch? For me catch Lycaena bleusei was very special I mostly care about beetles, and for me very special means new to human knowledge. So my favorites are the beetles I have caught that were undescribed. Most of them have been here in New Mexico. - I found a Staphylinidae, Leptotyphlinae, undescribed genus and species- it is flightless, 1mm long and 0.1 mm wide. Also apparently parthenogenic, >50 adults at several sites all female. - I found several new Cryptophagidae: two new Cryptophagus. One of these when described was named after me, I am so proud. Also found an undescribed genus and two undescribed species in that genus. -An undescribed Chrysomelidae, Eumolpinae, new genus and species, just described in the last month. Rick
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rjb
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Post by rjb on Dec 27, 2019 18:41:59 GMT -8
The whole business of Greta Thunberg has been very entertaining. The old white males in our country had a fit when a 16 year old girl with asperger’s got so much publicity telling the truth about Global Warming. As much as they tried to put her down, it just reflects on themselves. The fact that a young lady with a mild mental condition has understood the science that all these wise old guys can’t yet understand is really a big embarrassment for the lot of them including our President Trump. Of course Trump is smart enough to understand the science, but he is so caught up in the politics of his cult following, he just says stuff that makes them cheer. Who knows whether Trump really understands the science or not.
The amazing thing is little Greta may have had more political impact than Exxon’s 100 million dollars. We should follow the money and find out who paid Greta to speak out. But no, probably no one paid her. Why didn’t Exxon pay her to shut up? Because money isn’t everything.
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rjb
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Post by rjb on Dec 27, 2019 6:20:09 GMT -8
Exoticimports, I worked for a government defense lab most of my career, so I know lots about government waste and fraud. We had an intense level of auditting to be sure there was no waste or fraud. Our travel expenses were closely audited. One analysis showed that for the whole lab the cost of this auditting almost equalled the gigantic cost of the travel itself. Of couse the workers knew what minor tricks they could play to pad the voucher while passing the audit, fraud was never eliminated.
This is abig country, with a giant budget and multiple levels of government. Pretty easy to point to giant fraud examples that are revealed, and imagine how much remains hidden. Studies ranking countries for corruption don’t make the US worst, we are way better than average. Life is pretty good here. We have an enormous effort going to watch for fraud, and our free press plays a very big role. I wouldn’t trade our system of government for any other I’ve seen.
My disagreement with “Follow the Money” is just that it so often gets the wrong answer. Everyone is not motivated by money and greed. There is also honor, religious beliefs, even mental instability that causes people to do lots of stuff not in their own financial interest. You get billionaires like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates giving away lots of money and even calling for increased taxing of the wealthy.
The fossil fuels giants, exxon, BP etc could have plowed their money into getting the “Truth” about climate change . They did some of this and didn’t like the answer so they plowed their money into a campaign to confuse the public and delay the inevitable when fossil fuel extraction becomes less profitable. You fell for it. The shareholders benefited at least in the short term. Rick
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rjb
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Post by rjb on Dec 27, 2019 5:33:25 GMT -8
Leroy, Your hypothesis about photos works for me. I have always avoided having my picture taken, not because of my high level of security clearance, my criminal background, or because each photo steals a little piece of my soul (as some native americans believe.) It is simply that I’m not really all that good-looking like some of you and I don’t want to offend anyone. Rick
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rjb
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Post by rjb on Dec 26, 2019 5:39:47 GMT -8
Exoticimports, I have to agree with Jan that you do some funny postings.
A while back I mentioned that you have said “Follow the money” and you came back denying that you said that. Now you say it again. Now you can deny it again? Unless you are nit-picking on the word “say” as opposed to “write in a post”.
You can blast all the things that governments do wrong, but government is just a part of society. You could blast all the things that “human legs” are bad for, kicking people, stomping helpless people etc etc. However legs are part of humans and do a lot of good things for us.
Governments are part of human society and they do a long long list of good things that hold society together and make it work. Governments also commit atrocities and waste money and make mega-mistakes. So what. You can hate and distrust governments and emphasize the negative, or you might find a better government than our own and switch to that one.
Rick
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rjb
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Post by rjb on Dec 22, 2019 12:50:08 GMT -8
Well said Leroy. Good luck on your repopulating effort. You will be very busy!
I don't think we all agree that there is a serious problem, but I doubt we will ever all agree on anything. It is not the human way. I have been a scientist for most of my life and I naturally see the whole thing from the science perspective.
The US is constitutionally not allowed to favor any religions, but actually if you ask the people, most will say they are Christians, although many different kinds of Christians. A lot of polling suggests that maybe 40% of the Christians in the US might be “Biblical Literalists”. That is, for them the Bible is literally true. A fellow scientist and friend where I worked explained that for him if any tiny thing in the bible is wrong, then where do you stop in doubting everything. For him it is all literally true.
For this large population, scientists have blown it big time from the beginning. Science says the earth is 4 billion years old, the universe is more than 13 billion. All the biological world was produced through evolution. All of this totally contradicts Genesis and is therefore wrong. So for them (a lot of the US), what science claims about anything is doubtful. Physics, Geology and Biology have gotten most of the important stuff wrong. Why should they believe claims about Global Climate Change? I can’t argue with that, if that is their worldview. It makes sense for them to dismiss science. If God appears and declares that He is starting to cook the earth because He is mad about us burning up all His fossilized creatures, then they might change their mind.
A lot of other Christians think the bible is essentially right about everything but it needs intelligent interpretation. God did it all, but the description in genesis has to be read more broadly as poetic and indicative of reality rather than literally. For many of them, old-earth, old universe, and evolution are OK as long as you realize God did it all. They do not have to assume that science gets most stuff wrong. This group may be more receptive toward what science says about global warming or they might think science has blown it on this one.
I don’t see any future US consensus coming out of the current mess. Hard-core scientists like me trust the science, so I think I can see the future and it is looking a little grim but not hopeless. I trust scientists and engineers to fix things before it gets too bad. I am basically an optimist always.
Rick
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rjb
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Post by rjb on Dec 20, 2019 5:34:20 GMT -8
Anna, My wife and I will spend a month in Australia starting next month. We hope the fires are under control by then. Here in New Mexico we have had drought and high temperatures and major forest fires in the last decade as well. These are not generally attributed to climate change, they are a long term climate characteristic aggravated by our poor forest management practices.
The squabbling over climate change has been continuing for decades and will not end soon. This kind of discussion just goes over the same stale ideas for the entertainment of readers. For me it is a break from staring in my microscope for hours looking at tiny beetles. Rick
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Post by rjb on Dec 20, 2019 5:25:07 GMT -8
Gaspipe: “Whoever you are ; and I guess at your affiliations ; those who disagree with you are condemned. Other opinions are not to be seen as credible. Fact is it is impossible to predict if radical rapid , changes you advocate will have any impact . Because I am not panicking I must be in denial. Please keep your posts shorter I fell alsleep half way through.”
Rick: If I say that I disagree with you on the subject of modeling climate behavior, that is hardly “condemning” you. Who I am doesn’t matter, but I have hardly been secretive. If you look at past threads going back many years here, I have told practically everything about myself and- who cares? I got a degree in chemistry many years ago, had a full career doing chemistry research for a national lab and retired years ago.
My main interest has always been beetles. I have a modest collection of 79,000 pinned specimens- and many hundreds of thousand preserved in fluids or dried. Added about 1500 specimens last year. I have a beetle named after me and about 5 publications on beetles. Am currently working on tiny staphylinidae that have given me trouble with identification.
I like diverse opinions, agreement is boring. I never want or expect you to change any of your thinking based on something I write. I post these long boring statements to explain what science says on this topic. You do not have to read any of it, of course!
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Post by rjb on Dec 19, 2019 6:51:30 GMT -8
Gaspipe, “Funny weather a week ahead can’t be predicted but climate predictions are undeniable . I may be in the Stone Age but at least my head isn’t stuck in the sand .”
Gaspipe you are correct- it is amazing, funny and unexpected if you are a shallow thinker. However it is reality that lots of short term phenomena are almost impossible to predict but lots of long term phenomena are much easier. This is something scientists and mathematicians see very clearly. This is why predictions of the 1800’s about the climate implications of fossil fuel burning have been verified. A simple calculation back then pointed to the consequence of adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
Exoticimports: “Not to argue against the key element your point. However, note that experts have repeatedly failed to predict the stock market, which is 100% a manmade phenomena. And after 40 years, they’ve not only failed, but exacerbated, crime and poverty in leftist controlled urban area. Another 100% manmade phenomena.”
Rick: I have watched the stock market for most of my life, even done some modeling and tried various schemes for technical trading (on paper to prove these do not work). My wife and I have gone from not much money, student loans etc, to gobs of money by investing mostly in stocks (and saving every penny we earned of course). I agree totally that short term is hard to predict, long term much better.
My field was the so-called hard sciences. Modeling works. Your computer works because the microelectronic business works miracles using models of what will happen if they make some change. For a lot of the real world modeling is highly effective.
Weather is very hard to model. Most human phenomena are also close to impossible to model successfully. A sister-in-law is a transportation engineer who once was a manager for the New Jersey Transit Authority. She knew it is really hard to predict traffic even in a system you have studied for decades. You can’t say how many accidents your buses will have today, but you can make a good guess of how much money you will need next year for repairs.
The stock market is totally dependent on the feelings and emotions of the investors. Rumors rule. Longer trends are easier to see. The early 2000’s housing bubble (or the dot-com hysteria) was discussed daily in the WSJ. All the experts could see a disaster would happen some day. Predicting when- that was the hard part.
What I was saying about global warming is that the science is understood. Solutions are known but cost money and I gave an example of one approach. Because we are talking humans here, I do not try to guess or predict if and when and what approach will happen.
Bigger phenomena like a super volcano, a nuclear war, a comet impact or a super plague virus, all make the future a question mark. The betting money would say we will muddle along and then scramble to fix things when it is almost too late and we panic. Some people are panicking now while others are in denial. Rick
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