Press for Burghardt: Snakes that recognize whether they are venomous
Professor Gordon Burghardt has a new article out in Journal of Comparative Psychology with Akira Mori called, “Do tiger keelback snakes (Rhabdophis tigrinus) recognize how toxic they are?” (DOI: 10.1037/com0000075)
The findings of the article have been picked up by places like New Scientist. Tiger keelback snakes do not make their own venom; they store and use toxins from the food they eat. Individuals that have been fed a diet of toxic toads display more aggressive behavior when threatened, unlike their non-toxic brethren, who typically slither away. This raises the question of how the snakes know whether they are toxic or not.
Magic Mushroom Effects on Insects
There is an August 23, 2017 article in New Scientist about hallucinogenic mushrooms and their insect-repellent properties. The article mentions work done at Ohio State, and the Matheny Lab helped with the research, particularly former grad student Hailee Korotkin (MS 2017).
There’s a similar article in The Atlantic.
Burghardt in the News
Professor Gordon Burghardt appears in the June 23 Knoxville News-Sentinel, in an article by Philip Kronk called, “Fear of snakes may date to evolution in Africa.”
Burghardt also appears on The Evolution Institute website, in a conversation with Kevin Laland, author of “Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind.” They discuss adaptive trends and parallel evolution generated by niche construction. Associate Professor Joe Bailey’s research gets mentioned, too!
Discover Magazine Interviews Burghardt, Pruitt- UPDATE
The June 2017 issue of Discover Magazine has an article on play behavior in non-mammalian animals. Called “The Play’s the Thing,” it features interviews with Professor Gordon Burghardt and alumnus Jonathan Pruit (PhD 2010, Riechert Lab, now on the faculty at UC-Santa Barbara). The article references a paper published in 2012 that was written by Burghardt, Pruitt, and Riechert.
The article is now available online. Tennessee Today also has a story about the article
Sheldon Featured in Entomology Today
Kimberly Sheldon was recently featured in Entomology Today for her work on climate and thermal limits in beetles. This is a cool example of outreach to a broader population (many entomologists are not focusing on evolution and ecology).
The feature was based a study Sheldon published in 2014:
Burghardt in Observer Cover Story
Prof. Gordon Burghardt’s research is highlighted in the cover story of the November 2016 issue of the Association for Psychological Science’s journal, Observer. The title of his subsection is “Can Turtles Play?” Read the article here.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/2016/nov-16/science-on-the-wild-side.html
Simberloff in Wired and Slate
Prof. Dan Simberloff appeared in articles in both Wired and Slate in August.
Wired featured Simberloff in a story about human control over species population size. Tennessee Today also posted a synopsis of Simberloff’s contributions to the article.
Slate featured Simberloff in a debate about whether biocontrol is a better alternative to pesticides. Tennessee Today summarized Simberloff’s contributions to the article.
Scientific American Blog Highlights UT Research
The popular Scientific American Blog has posted an article about bat research done by grad student Jessica Welch (McCracken and Simberloff labs) and NIMBioS postdoc Jeremy Beaulieu.
Tennessee Today also did an article covering the blog post.
Blanket of Spiderwebs
Susan Riechert was quoted in a Washington Post article this week, to reassure residents about the harmless aggregation of thousands of small spiders and the resulting half-mile-long spider web that appeared in North Memphis, TN.