The Miraculous Mangosteen*
*With apologies to Bela BartokSix years ago, the New York Times ran a story on an exotic fruit called the mangosteen. The author waxed r

Journey to the Cameron Highlands
The hosting institution for the ICBES conference in Malaysia was Tropical Entomological House. They maintain a beautiful butterfly display in Penang and supply live butterflies to other butterfly displays around the world, including ours. Earlier in the week , we had visited both their public display and their breeding facility. It looked lovely, even in the rain. Our hosts were, nonetheless, a bit disappointed that they had not able to show their facility at it's best due to the weather. They wanted us to return. As someone who runs a similar exhibit, I fully understood the motivation. Saturday morning was beautifully sunny, so we delayed our departure for

World Travel Update
visited 22 countires (9.77%)I suppose that since ;ve visited new countries, I should update my travel map. I may be cheating with China. I've only been to Hong Kong, and I never left the airport. Create your own visited map of The World

Georgetown, Malaysia
Georgetown Street SceneThe ICBES conferences typically involve a mixture of meetings and touring the local area. On the second day of the Malaysian conference, we visited Georgetown, a moderately big city on the island of Penang. Georgetown is named for King Georg

Dispatch From the Spice Islands
I’ve been in Penang for a little less than 36 hours. I’m here for ICBES, the International Congress of Butterfly Exhibitors and Suppliers.It has been an exciting visit so far. Above is the view from my hotel room. Most of yesterday until mid-afternoon was taken up with various meetings related