Silent Wings

Tags

art, bees, disease, environment, insects, nature, sculpture, toxicology

I am in the middle of making a new sculpture informed and inspired by research into declining bee populations. The work has been gestating for many months as I battled with the challenge of how to materialise the concept. My working title for the sculpture is Silent Wings.

Research

Research threads and articles relating to bees that you may find interesting.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23308-bees-to-have-their-day-in-court-over-insecticide-use.html#.UslzBWRdX0A

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/01/study-links-insecticide-invertebrate-die-off

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1202

http://www.chbr.org/Research/ProjectGenesis.aspx

http://qz.com/107970/scientists-discover-whats-killing-the-bees-and-its-worse-than-you-thought/

http://inhabitat.com/scientists-develop-flying-robobees-to-pollinate-flowers-as-bee-populations-decline/

http://exploringtheinvisible.com/2013/07/27/bee-jewelled-found-dead-bees-and-copper-sulphate/

Other blogs posts about this issue:

Honey Trap 28 January 2013

Save the Buzzzz 4 May 2013

19 June 2013 and 19 August 2013

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Beached

Tags

death, disease, environment, fish, found, nature, photography, toxicology

 

Imprint

Of Society

Found

Beached

Last breath.

Photographs taken June 2013 on Morecambe Bay, Cumbria

 

Save the Buzzzz

Tags

art, bees, biology, collage, consumption, digital photomontage, disease, food, nature, photography, science, toxicology

Alternative Perspectives: Hive

Digital photomontage created from a photograph of flotex carpet magnified 100 times using a scanning electron microscope at uclan, images of real bees and actual gas masks.

The work above was created this winter in response to the research I have been doing over the last few years investigating the decline in bee population and its possible causes.  The alarming news that bee decline has reached 30% in the western world has made the issue become mainstream news.  The value of this insect to us is difficult to estimate, in 2005 the figure £130 billion was made, as it is vital for pollinating our crops. 90% of the world’s food focuses on a hundred crop species and over 70 of these rely on bees to pollinate them.

 

Scientists have shown that the grave reduction in bee numbers is due to air pollution, intensive farming, over-cropping, loss of flowering plants, decline in beekeepers, a lethal pinhead-sized parasite that has been wiping out colonies in the last 30 years (Varroa destructor) and most importantly the increased use of pesticides and herbicides.

 

The insecticide neonicotinoid has negative affects on the bee colonies – it has been shown to scramble their navigation systems so they get lost. Sold since 1994 the insecticide forms a coat on the seeds which is then absorbed into the growing plant where some is ingested by the bees. The latest thinking is to ban these chemicals but some scientists and bee keepers are still unconvinced that the replacements will fair better with the insect.

I can not be alone in thinking that the problems endless artificial fertilisers cause should make us re-evaluate our farming methods and return to safer and more sustainable production.  We can all aim to value food more, eat less, expect less, share more and generally take better care of the creatures who buzzzzz past us.

 

 

 

Walking on the Ceiling

Tags

biology, disease, drawing and photography research, food, health, microscope, nature, photography, science

This is about an unattractive part of the puzzle that touches all our lives.

Classification: Kingdom Animalia; Phylum Arthropoda; Class Insecta; Order Diptera; Family Muscidae; Genus Musca; Species domestica.

All round the world there are flies pupating from maggots, hatched from eggs laid in decaying organic matter, spreading disease and generally flying around busily and annoying animals and people. Each common housefly has the potential to commit these undesirable acts for 10-21 days.  The Musca domestica cannot eat solids so when it appears to be engrossed in your food it is actually liquefying it with its saliva before ingesting. Tiny hairs on the end of the leg segment actually work like human taste buds and enable the fly to first taste the food it lands on.

The fly can carry a variety of serious diseases including: typhoid, cholera, dysentery and anthrax. It transmits them by transporting the infected organisms onto food either through contaminated food on their leg hairs or by regurgitation.

Flies have delicate wings that beat an amazing 200-300 times a second enabling them to move at speeds averaging 4 miles an hour. The wings provide enough power for impressive manoeuvres such as instant take-off, zigzags, tight spirals and even flying backwards.  But it is the pulvilli, the moist suction pads on its feet that allow the fly to do its greatest feat – walk on the ceiling.

All images are of flies taken with the scanning electron microscope at University of Central Lancashire, Preston.

The top two images show the whole fly in a new perspective.

Image immediately above shows the hairs on the fly’s leg magnified at 200 times.

Image below, at 150 times magnification, shows the beauty of the compound eye.

Very Heavy Metal

Tags

consumption, death, disease, health, hidden impacts, philosophy, science, toxicology

What is the greatest crime?

It is easy to point the finger. We can all list aspects of life that might achieve the accolade, but on reading new research that the mapping of lead distribution shows correlation with crime is startling.  How can this be true – is it April Fools Day?

The sources and research are sound:

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/01/07/the-grime-behind-the-crime/

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

My posting on 21 November 2012 ‘Heavy Metal’, was not news – we have used lead and known of its toxicity since we started using it thousands of years ago. The causation for raising additional concern now is that the scientific research shows that the presence and absence of lead in petrol maps the levels of violent crime. Evidence that its extraction from petrol leads to a fall in crime is incredible – almost unbelievable. The study shows that countries where lead is still an additive in their fuel, (the product is known as tetratethyl lead), such as; Afghanistan, Algeria, Burma, Iraq, North Korea, Sierra Leone and Yemen are those most struggling with chaotic behaviour.

Knowledge of this cause and effect of this substance, and the deliberate action to prioritise profit over everything, the company selling the lead petrol are said to have bribed officials to be allowed to continue selling their toxic wares, is a real crime against humanity.

Ash trees under serious threat

Tags

disease, education, research, science

The news that UK ash trees are under threat from a deadly fungus spread from Denmark is alarming. The fungus has decimated the Danish ash by 90%.

30% of our woodland is ash so the effects would be catastrophic – first identified in Norfolk the fungus is now under close scrutiny. Watch out for signs – die back on branches, black leaves, dark brown markings on the trunk.