Image Of The Week – June 8, 2020

It also takes art to restore old paintings that look like scabs...

February 1, 2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates in the skies over North Texas. (Dallas News)

by  NI Yipeng

do u like wasps? i think they’re under appreciated. they deserve love

Where I live, they’re not particularly assertive–not like the yellow jackets of north america, who’ll nyoom in on your picnic and completely shirk all social decency and ignore any polite request to kindly leave.There are also over a hundred thousand different species, and are all uniquely wonderful. Some of their behaviors are also excellent fodder for horror genre monsters…Here are a few of my personal favorites!: Potter wasps are a common name for about 200 different genera of wasp. These guys make little clay pots to lay their eggs in. Entombed in these clay pots are also a paralyzed prey item (usually a grub of some kind) which is left in there as a snack for Jr. once they hatch. I find a lot of entertainment in watching these wasps flying around clutching wads of clay or transporting a grub that is sometimes just a little too heavy for them.

(credit) A wasp recently built three of these little pots in my mailbox and I’m eagerly waiting for the new adults to emerge (sorry, mailman…)The Spider wasp is the only manner of local wasp that had the audacity to sting me for minding my own business. The specimen that nailed me was a small one, and this sting was surprisingly persistent with just enough pain to be noticeable. That sting is not specifically designed to be effective on me, though. It is designed to immobilize spiders. Again, this is a common name that encompasses a wide breadth of species. The one which stung me was of the smaller sized species… but this common name (and spider-hunting behavior) also includes the infamous “tarantula hawk” that some americans might be familiar with.

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Cow Killer Wasps have been a personal favorite since childhood. I have never in my life seen a real living specimen, but they just look so soft and beautiful. I was also very enthralled by the notion that a sting could be so terribly painful that it ‘could kill a cow’. My enthusiasm for this stunning and unique looking species was only a little bit dampened upon reading that rumors of its cow-killing ability have been greatly exaggerated. 

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If all of these guys so far are just a little too much of a “horror genre” brand of “neat” for you, then the dwarf scelionid wasp might inspire you to re-evaluate the notion that all wasps are scary, mean little buggers. Because the dwarf scelionid is so god damn cute. Which–you’re totally free to disagree with me about it, but you’d still be wrong.

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This  encyrtid wasp is also a serious contender for top cuteness

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And I can’t talk about wasp aesthetic without mentioning cuckoo wasps

(credit)They’re good bugs and play an absolutely vital role within their respective ecosystems! :D

Spent the last week diving head first into Solar imaging

by Curt Morgan

rime_s.tumblr.com

Because white people only quote the “I Have A Dream” speech like Dr. King wasn’t pro-black.