Ig Nobel Prize winner Marcus Byrne has a new book called Dance of the Dung Beetles. It can please and enlighten anyone—human or beetle or both (Beatle)—who ever has contact with with dance, dung, life, or the universe. The 2013 Ig Nobel Prize for biology and astronomy (a rare double-category win!) was awarded to Marie […]
Tag: beetle
Beetles mating with beer bottles, in a minute
A pithy (1-minute-long) telling, by TheBrainScoop, of the story of beetles that mate with beer bottles: The discovery of this biological fact was rewarded with an Ig Nobel Prize. The 2011 Ig Nobel Prize for biology was awarded to Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind […]
Overturned rhinoceros beetles – how do they get back on their feet? (study)
No matter how careful a beetle might be, there’s a fair chance that, sooner or later, it’ll find itself on its back. Raising the question, how does it right itself, i.e. get onto its feet again? For current beetle-righting research turn to volume 28, Issue 2, 2016, of the journal Ecological Psychology where researchers professor […]
A Swiss Bombardier-Beetle Defense Against Cash Machine Crooks
The bombardier beetle’s violent method self-defence can now be applied to defending bank cash machines, as explained in this study be researchers at ETH in Zurich, Switzerland: “Self-defending anti-vandalism surfaces based on mechanically triggered mixing of reactants in polymer foils,” Jonas G. Halter, Nicholas H. Cohrs, Nora Hild, Daniela Paunescu, Robert N. Grass and Wendelin […]
Eating leather
Two reports about eating leather (allegedly and really): 1. From 1891, in the report “Report on a beetle destroying boots & shoes in Sydney,” by Walter Wilson Froggatt, on page 4: 2. 1980, in the film “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe“:
The beetles on the bottle (sex and beer action video)
Here’s video of the natural-and-unnatural phenomenon that led to the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in biology. That prize was awarded to Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the UK and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle. The […]
The beetle that, also, invented the wheel
When the Australian patent office granted a patent in the year 2001 to Mr. John Keogh for inventing the wheel (an action for which they shared an Ig Nobel Prize), little acknowledgment was given to the several animals who regularly reinvent themselves a wheels. One of those animals is celebrated in a new study: “Wind-Powered […]