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Continuing the "Memories of Summer" series (thanks to Evan for posting the pictures) are pictures of some curious wasps found in a field-side log not far from our home. Although I'd never seen them before, I later learned they were giant ichneumons (Megarhyssa species'), parasitic wasps that specialize in exploiting other wasp larvae to lay their own eggs. The wasp you see in the pictures below is depositing eggs with its incredible 2-4" ovipositor inside the larva of a pigeon horntail or some similar wood-boring insect. The horntail mother had already done the job of drilling.

The log in these pictures contained several of these holes, all of which were visited by the ichneumons. The giant ichneumon, although as an adult it may never actually eat anything, is a predator of the most chilling kind. The miniscule egg it has deposited in the horntail larva will hatch inside the larva, feeding off its defenseless host until it finally kills it.

Cruel as this seems, it results in the life of the ichneumon. The giant ichneumon larva will grow and eventually metamorphose into an adult, spending its final days seeking a mate and (if female) laying eggs. The female will use her antennae to detect vibrations in wood that hosts horntail larvae, and when she finds one, she'll implant an egg and the cycle will be repeated.

Why did God create parasitic wasps? Was it to teach us something? Was it to illustrate the controlling effects of our sin? Another reason altogether? The Bible does teach that God provides for his creatures--even carnivores like lions (Job 38:39,40). We can trust he takes responsibility for wasps, whether or not their tactics have been influence by the Curse on nature. God, not man, has propagated and preserved the species.

After the ichneumon had finished depositing its egg, it stretched out its abdomen and inflated the tip of it like a balloon. I'm not yet sure what the purpose of this was; but I was fascinated.

photos copyright Daniel James Devine

If environmentalists really want to raise a generation of ecology-conscious citizens, they should encourage kids to spend time with their moms. A new study says that housewives are more likely to recycle and be "ecologically aware" than university students.

Maybe because housewives spend so much time and effort ensuring their homes run efficiently and responsibly, they're more willing to take the extra steps to conserve and avoid waste. Whatever the reason, environmentalism had better not overlook the average home if it wants to cut out excess.

Remember Al Gore's $30,000 utility bill? Hmm, maybe he just needs to take a good Home Ec. course. . .

National Geographic News has a rather extensive article about the Gospel of Judas translation controversy, stirred up by scholar April DeConick, who claims the National Geographic Society's translation of the Gnostic gospel is incorrect and fundamentally misleading. (See my previous post on DeConick here.) In a fair treatment of both sides, NG news gets opinion from several of the scholars who worked on the text, including Marvin Meyer, who helped translate the National Geographic version of the text.

Meyer, meanwhile, dismissed any suggestion that his team set out with any kind of agenda to rehabilitate the image of Judas in its translation of the gospel.

"Our only agenda was to interpret the text, make sense of it, and get it out as quickly as possible," he said.

"To produce a first translation and the first critical edition is a thankless task, because you know you're putting yourself out on a limb. And chances are pretty good that at least a part of that limb is going to come down as time passes," Meyer added.

"That's just the way scholarship works."

Also: Would you be willing to undergo liposuction to power this "ecoboat"? It chugged nine miles on human fat.  It's captain (who donated to the fuel tank) is hoping to make a new speed record circumnavigating the globe in March, but he'll likely be using something other than laid up Christmas cookies for that.

Speaking of giants, there's been a new expedition to the Foja Mountains (which GlobeLens reported on last year) that has turned up a new species of possum and giant rat. The Conservation International page, complete with video, is here.

Meanwhile, the bird flu might be spreading through Voodoo rituals. Don't worry, there's a perfectly scientific explanation here.

Just another example of why you shouldn't believe what you read in forwarded emails. For more doctored photos, and to see how this one was made, go here.

In spite of hoaxes like the one above, the Bible and other ancient texts do indicate that races of giants once lived on the earth, albeit not as large as what is falsely portrayed above. If you find that hard to believe, just take a look at these two fellows. 

 Ya'll give a welcome to Evan Devine, my brother who helped post this entry (Daniel is just doing the writing). He'll be the regular "picture guy" around here for awhile, posting both pictures I've taken and interesting science stuff from the net. Evan's first series of images will be "Memories of summer," which is a artsy way of saying these are the pictures I never got around to posting online until now. That is, I made Evan do it.

The photos in this post are from Pinhook Bog, a peat bog in northern Indiana that is part of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (a nat'l park bordering Lake Michigan.) A peat bog is a water basin with no outlet that has grown enough moss, plants and shrubbery to form a floor of peat stable enough to walk on or support small trees. The water is more acidic than a regular pond, so bogs host a variety of unique and often rare plants. The picture above is of blueberries, which grow prolifically in the bog (the previous owners of the land Pinhook Bog sits on sold them locally every summer, and one year made $1000 at 50 cents a pint.)

Below are pink ladyslippers.

 If I remember correctly, the flower above is from a pitcher plant, and the plant itself is below.

 Below is honeydew. Three types of carnivorous plants grow throughout the bog: Pitchers, honeydew, and bladderwort. My photos of the bladderwort didn't turn out well, since the plants grow underwater, but the species is fascinating: It uses a special trapping mechanism with a hair trigger to capture small underwater insects.

What else grows in Pinhook Bog? Tamarack trees, sphagnum moss, poison sumac, yellow-laced orchids, cattails, arrowroot, and many other species. One thing that doesn't grow in the depths of the bog (wonderfully): mosquitoes. The water is too acidic.

 all photos copyright Daniel james Devine.

We have followers in Switzerland, as this Swiss news source explains. Apparently they're having a controversy over school textbooks like just about everyone else. (Not to be confused with Sweden's ban on creationism)

Speaking of bans, there has been some effort recently by school teachers to stop kids from using Wikipedia as a source for their assignments. Isn't that cruel?

Last week news broke concerning a kerfuffle over the Texas Education Agency and the resignation of the state's director of science curriculum, Chris Comer. Comer says she was pressured to resign as a result of a memo she sent out announcing a presentation by Barbara Forrest, a prominent opponent of intelligent design theory. In released documents agency officials said,

"Ms. Comer's e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker's position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral."

I think we can expect Texas to come under fire soon from the anti-ID crowd over this one.

Also: The hexagonal stones of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland are being defended by creationists as the result of Noah's flood. AIG has an old article by geologist Tas Walker explaining a flood interpretation of the causeway.

The New York Times has an Op-Ed by April D. Deconick about the gnostic Gospel of Judas, publicized (and translated) by the National Geographic Society last year. Deconick has translated the gospel for herself and says the translaters employed by the Society got it all wrong: According to the text, Judas wasn't a hero, he was a demon.

Deconick criticizes the Society's decision to not allow outside scholars to review the translation before it was published with so much fanfare:

That said, I think the big problem is that National Geographic wanted an exclusive. So it required its scholars to sign nondisclosure statements, to not discuss the text with other experts before publication. The best scholarship is done when life-sized photos of each page of a new manuscript are published before a translation, allowing experts worldwide to share information as they independently work through the text.

Another difficulty is that when National Geographic published its transcription, the facsimiles of the original manuscript it made public were reduced by 56 percent, making them fairly useless for academic work. Without life-size copies, we are the blind leading the blind. The situation reminds me of the deadlock that held scholarship back on the Dead Sea Scrolls decades ago. When manuscripts are hoarded by a few, it results in errors and monopoly interpretations that are very hard to overturn even after they are proved wrong.

To avoid this, the Society of Biblical Literature passed a resolution in 1991 holding that, if the condition of the written manuscript requires that access be restricted, a facsimile reproduction should be the first order of business. It’s a shame that National Geographic, and its group of scholars, did not follow this sensible injunction.

Deconick is the author of The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says.