NPR's Science Friday!

Felicity demonstrates a new system for marking bees with magnetic thorax tags.

Dr. Felicity Muth, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab, is due to be on Science Friday today! (March 3, 11-1 PST). Felicity will be discussing new research on bee intelligence, alongside host Ira Flatow and UK researcher Dr. Lars Chittka.

Listen to the 17 minute segment, and read a few more details available at: http://sciencefriday.com/segments/the-secret-smart-life-of-bees/

If you found your way here after listening to the show, here are links to Felicity's:

• Scientific journal articles
• Interview with Smithsonian
• Personal website
• Bumblebee World Cup video! (just for fun-- the original bees playing soccer!)

British bumble bees bobble balls; we comment.

Anne Leonard interviewed in Science

Felicity Muth interviewed on Smithsonian website

Be a Bee: NYT's interactive piece features lab research!

Choose your own bee-venture!

Felicity and I were excited to be interviewed for this piece, which reports on a few recent findings that have expanded our understanding of the bee's sensory world. Among all the other great aspects of this article, nice to get links to the Muth et. al. and Russell et al. papers in Animal Behaviour!

Fall happenings

It's been a busy fall (and it's not over yet!). Two recent developments of note:

1) The arrival of the new RFID system! It got stuck for 6 weeks in US Customs while they tried to classify it and sort out the paperwork from our German supplier/shipper. We all wish we had taken German in high school.

2) Our pollen taste paper got a nice write-up in the "Outside JEB" section of the Journal of Experimental Biology.

New York Times

Our new paper in Animal Behaviour is getting some coverage in the Science Times! Click through for beautiful video and article that highlights this work done by Avery Russell!

PBS Video "Deep Look"

Josh Cassidy's awesome footage

We're super excited about this short video and article put out by Deep Look, a science series produced by childhood-dominating Bay Area PBS station KQED! Filmmaker Josh Cassidy visited our lab for 2 days in April, and got some great footage of our bees on persian violet (Exacum affine). Jake makes a cameo in the footage, and his research is featured in the article by Lisa Potter. It was a great experience start to finish!

Deep Look is a great series that combines beautiful footage with truly in-depth science, and I highly recommend subscribing on YouTube!

A Better Nectar

Brian Forrest, courtesy of University Art Museum, California State University Long Beach

"A Better Nectar" art exhibit by Jessica Rath is also now open at the Cal State Long Breach Art Museum. Our lab has had a lot of fun consulting with Jessica on this amazing project, and we can't wait to check it out when we head down for a panel discussion on March 26th. A major theme is the disconnect between different sensory worlds, and how we attempt to study communication between bees and flowers. We can't wait to "shrink down" and explore the nest! Here's a press release and a nice write up of the work.

March Update: We had a fabulous time traveling down to the show, and participating in a panel discussion. The exhibit is getting some even broader press, via LA Weekly.

A campus reporter, Helen Zhao, also produced a great short about the show.

Nectar chemicals suppress bee parasites

Our paper on how secondary compounds in floral nectar affect bumble bee parasites (self-medication project) is now out in Proceedings B: Biological Sciences! It's getting some neat press as well. Leif wrote a nice piece about "floral pharmacies" here, and it was featured as a Nature "Research Highlight" as well.

Lab highlighted on UNR main site

"Buzzing with excitement" indeed! :)

Nectar robbing and nectar guides

How might flowers use patterns to defend themselves against nectar thieves? Paper on nectar guide patterns and nectar robbing now out!  Also, I was interviewed for PLOS's "Author Spotlight".

Multimodal floral signals and pollinator uncertainty

Journal of Experimental Biology paper a "must read"  on Faculty of 1000 website

Nectar guides

Functional Ecology paper selected as video highlight and featured in Science News

A video describing recent research by Leonard and Papaj on whether nectar guides influence the foraging preferences of bumblebees Read the article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2435.2011.01885.x/abstract Read the Functional Ecology journal: http://www.functionalecology.org/view/0/index.html Duncan J Irschick Executive Editor