Word of the day: Egregious
egregious: Exceptional, conspicuous, outstanding, most usually in a negative fashion. Outrageously bad. Example: this headline from Science Daily: Fruit Fly Sperm Makes Females Do Housework After Sex Seriously. How freakin’ embedded in your culture do you have to be to project your heteronormist, traditional gender role

Shiny Taxonomic Key is SHINY!
There is now an online key to the 86 species of Chrysididae in North America! It is, of course, quite useful, but the best parts are all the detailed photos of these lovely Hymenopterans. Thanks go to Nigel Jones for his lovely photo which you must view at full size, and to the Patux

This is my recipe, in which I am well pleased
Brined a turkey for the first time this year–turned out quite yummy! I was much more excited with my green beans, though. I accidentally bought some extra rosemary sprigs, and needed a way to use them up. I give you: Rosemary Green Beans.* green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces one stick of butter lots of chopped fresh rosemary leaves 1/2 lemon, fresh Nuke the stick of butter to melt it.  Dump in chopped rosemary.  Cook beans in salted water until they are tender, but still crispy.  Drain the beans, and toss them with the butter/rosemary mix.  Before serving, squeeze the lemon over

Update on the Donors Choose Challenge!
The Donors Choose Challenge is now over, and the project to get more nature bloggers involved was a success!! The total amount given for the Nature Blogs Group was $5,170.  That put our group at #11–not quite in the top 10, but still pretty darn good!  That also is quite a bit more than I managed by myself last year ($270).  YAY! And THANK YOU! Overall, the

2010 Native Bee Calendar!
Just in time for the holidays–Xerces has a new native bee calendar! “The Xerces Society and the Great Sunflower Project are happy to offer the 2010 Native Bee Calendar, which was created by Celeste Ets-Hokin. With magnificent close-up photos by Rollin Coville, this calendar takes you on a tour of twelve commonly encountered types of native bees. Each month features a full-page pin-