Tagged: FAIL

Cochineal Taxonomy Fails

Alas, Starbucks has backpedaled and decided to remove cochineal from all its food and drink products. This is a shame, since as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, cochineal is an insect-derived dye that provides an important source of cash for a lot of rural Central and South American people. There is also evidence the culture and sale of cochineal leads to more independence and higher female literacy in Mexico.

The news coverage of this story is also a shame, because once again the myth that the cochineal insect is a beetle is on the rounds.

Not. A. Beetle.

Not even closely related to a beetle.  In fact, the closest common ancestor shared by a scale insect and a beetle would be around 372 Million Years Ago.

Obviously, as an entomologist, I can be expected to get upset about things like taxonomic mistakes. But for the average news reader, does it really matter that cochineal isn’t accurately identified?  I think it does, and that’s because the error is one that we would not tolerate, or would mock, if it happened with a vertebrate animal.

Let’s say Wikipedia replaced Einstein’s photo with that of a chimpanzee.   We would immediately recognize this mistake, since chimps are not the same as humans. We last shared a common ancestor 6.4 million years ago.

Alex Wild uses this comparison as the baseline for his calculation of the excellent Taxonomy Fail Index:

A = the actual taxon of the pictured organism
B = the taxon as misidentified
T = the number of million years since A and B shared a common ancestor
H = the number of million years since humans and our closest relatives, the chimps, shared a common ancestor.

Taxonomy Fail Index (TFI) = T/H

In other words, the Taxonomy Fail Index scales the amount of error in absolute time against the error of misidentifying a human with a chimp.

Einstein and a cat

So, in my example of Einstein and a chimp, the Taxonomy Fail Index = 1.

Let’s look at another example: say Einstein’s photo is confused with one of a cat. That error has a Taxonomy Fail Index of 15; over 94 million years separate the common ancestors of humans and kitties.

Using this scale, how big is the error of mistaking a cochineal scale insect for a beetle? That’s a Taxonomy Fail Index of 58.

A mistake in classification that large would mean that a photo of a human would have to be replaced with a….FROG.

That is a rather large mistake.

LOL frog

Confusing a highly social placental mammal with a large brain for an amphibian.  An egg laying animal that breeds in water, grows through a tadpole stage, and breathes through its skin.

THAT is why I get really aggravated with the taxonomic mistake of calling a scale insect a beetle.  It is a huge error.   It’s not just that I’m being an anal-retentive entomologist that insists that my obscure disciplinary taxonomic language be recognized by all.  (Ok, maybe a little of that. But not only that.)

This sort of taxonomic carelessness is why some really amazing mistakes are made, and leads to news organizations pretty much tossing random photos of any old beetle on their stories.

It also leads to misinformation about cochineal itself–this story, for example, mentions “smashed up wings and finely ground tiny legs.”  There won’t be any wings or legs in the dye, primarily because the insects are crushed and the pigment extracted. No parts are left behind.  The other main reason is that the dye-producing female insects don’t have wings.  They hardly have any legs, either.

Scale insects don’t undergo complete metamorphosis as a beetle would, so they don’t have larvae and pupae.  In fact, scales have their own special freaky system of growth and reproduction in which the females loose their legs and turn into a sort of tiny insect Jabba the Hutt, and even tinier males fertilize them and die.

News stories like the one I quoted above referring to wings and legs are just feeding the OMGINSECTSINMAIFOODZ freakout over cochineal.  It’s not accurate, and it’s sloppy journalism.

Careless sourcing of images on news stories results in lots of Taxonomy Fails; in some cases, it can be a public health issue.  This news article about bed bugs actually had a photo of a flea right above the caption “many people cannot identify bed bugs.”  Gosh, you think the fact that incorrect photos are all over the web might have something to do with that?

And now I’m going to stomp off in an entomological huff. Exit stage right.

More information about cochineal and edible insects:

How-to Taxonomic FAIL

not a wasp nestI can’t remember who pointed this out to me, but it made me laugh. I present:  The photo of a “wasp nest” that is actually a mantis ootheca.

Ootheca is a fancy way of saying “egg case.” Both roaches and mantids create egg cases, which is one of the reasons they are sometimes grouped together.

Check out this fascinating video of a mantis creating an egg case.  (Interestingly, mantid egg cases are used in Chinese traditional medicine to treat urinary system problems. I have no idea how that connection came about.)

A mantis ootheca is not in any way like a wasp nest. The maximum size is about 1 inch in length (2.5cm).  Yellowjacket and hornet nests can get very big–this one was about 6ft by 5 foot.

That’s hardly average–the nests I tend to get on my house seem to be about a foot or so before I clue in they are there–but big enough that using this photo deserves a bit of mockery.

No, Bounce Fabric Softener will NOT protect you from bugs

I usually like Lifehacker, but in this case, FAIL.  Here’s a story they ran 2 weeks ago:

Bounce Fabric Softener Keeps Mosquitoes and Gnats Away

Some people have sworn by the power of Bounce dryer sheets—and specifically Bounce, too—to keep mosquitoes away from them, and gnats out of their garden. Now scientists have proven the power of fluffy white sheets as an insect repellent.

Lifehacker wasn’t the only media group that picked up on this story; and pretty much all of them made the same mistake.

When you look at the actual research paper, what you see is that some of what was reported was correct.  There actually WAS a paper that examined the repellency of Bounce dryer sheets to insects.ResearchBlogging.org

Raymond A. Cloyd, et al. (2010). Bounce® Fabric Softener Dryer Sheets Repel Fungus Gnat, Bradysia sp. nr. coprophila (Diptera: Sciaridae), Adults.
HortScience, 45, 1830-1833

However.
There is a very large difference between a fungus gnat and a mosquito.  That’s rather like reporting that the care and feeding of cats and humans are interchangeable. Since, you know, we’re all mammals, right?

Let’s start with what a fungus gnat is, and when you’d be likely to encounter them.
Basically, fungus gnats don’t bite. They just annoy.  They’re likely to be the tiny things flitting around the soil of your potted plants.  They can be a commercial pest in greenhouses, but generally they are just a nuisance. They breed in moist soil and nibble on roots.

I think everyone knows what mosquitoes are–a biting fly that can carry major human diseases. They breed in water and adult females require a blood meal from a host to reproduce.

Not. The. Same.

This is an important difference, and it is a difference that has human health implications. If you go out in an area where there are disease-carrying mosquitoes with just a pocket full of dryer sheets as your protection, you are taking a risk with your health.

Media make mistakes covering science news all the time–but in this case, it’s a taxonomic mistake that could literally cost someone their life.  (Ok, I’m overstating it a bit. But, in THEORY, I’m right.)

Now that I’ve impressed upon you what’s at stake, let’s look at the actual experiment, shall we?

The authors tested the repellency of the dryer sheets in a very controlled situation, and were successful at reducing the number of fungus gnats in test chambers containing a dryer sheet.  At the end of their paper there is this caveat:

However, there are still important issues that need to be resolved, including the residual effects (based on age of dryer sheets) and effective distance of repellency, response in a no-choice situation (if dryer sheets are placed into each petri dish), impact on fungus gnat larval populations, and ultimately plant damage.

Now, every scientific paper ends this way. Here’s what we did, and here’s how it’s uncovered a whole host of new questions for us to answer! Continued employment, yay!

What I, as a gardener, would draw from this experiment is that it certainly couldn’t hurt to put a Bounce fabric sheet near my potted plants, if I happened to have a fabric sheet laying around.

But I would not, in a bajilion years, jump to the conclusion that it would protect me from all biting insects.

Sigh.

—

Long link to the paper, since the Researchblogging code keeps messing up blog code :(

Raymond A. Cloyd, et al. (2010). Bounce® Fabric Softener Dryer Sheets Repel Fungus Gnat, Bradysia sp. nr. coprophila (Diptera: Sciaridae), Adults. HortScience, 45, 1830-1833

Shellac: also not a beetle

I got Bill Bryson’s new book “At Home” from my library, and have been happily reading about the history of houses.
Except.

When I got to the chapter “The Drawing Room”, I discovered a rather depressing mistake:

“Shellac is a hard resinous secretion from the Indian lac beetle.  Lac beetles emerge in swarms in parts of India at certain times of the year, and their secretions make varnish that is odorless, nontoxic, brilliantly shiny, and highly resistant to scratches and fading.”

Those of you who have been privy to my previous ranting about cochineal will know the refrain to this song:
IT’S NOT A BEETLE.

Shellac is made from Laccifer lacca, the lac scale.  Scale insects look quite different from typical insects. Tiny, with no visible legs or antennae, they kind of look like plant pimples. Like many of their relatives (mealybugs, for example), Lac scales secrete a waxy covering for both protection and waterproofing.  That’s what’s harvested to make shellac; it is not a happy process for the insects.

I tried to figure out how Bryson got the wrong end of this taxonomic stick, but wasn’t able to sort it out.

The reference listed in Bryson’s book does correctly identify the insect as a scale; although it also talks about larvae.  A lot of internet stories use the name Coccus lacca, or suggest that it’s an insect that has a pupa and full metabolism.

Scale insects don’t undergo complete metamorphosis, so they don’t have larvae and pupae.  In fact, scales have their own special freaky system of growth and reproduction in which the females loose their legs and turn into a sort of tiny insect Jabba the Hutt, and even tinier males fertilize them and die.

Clearly, there is a need for a short epistle on Shellac, it’s insecty creators, and its many uses!  (including your food!)

Look for it soon!

[image from Project Gutenberg]

Bed Bug Semantics

There is an interesting discussion going on in the media about bed bugs. Or, Bedbugs.  The issue is, is it one word or two?

Traditionally (i.e, the last 100 years or so), entomologists are taught that stonefly and deer fly are written differently on purpose; A stonefly is not a true fly (Diptera), so is written as one word.  Deer fly IS a true fly, so is written as two words.  Basically, it’s a way to signify insects with common names that are taxonomically incorrect.  A bed bug IS a true bug (Hemiptera), so it is written as two words, not one.

Unless….you are using the AP Style Guide.
In a recent tweet, they declared that bedbug is one word.

A word pundit opines:

The rule about inserting spaces in insect common names seems to be a modern creation, an informal way of using the spelling of these names as an aide memoire to distinguish Diptera or Hemiptera species from other little beasties. It’s highly unlikely ever to affect the usual spelling of bedbug, since the tendency in modern English is to amalgamate multi-word terms into single words, not split them apart. The spelling has long since become standard for everybody except professional entomologists.

So, does it really matter? Is it important to anyone besides entomologists to make this distinction?

I dithered over this for quite a while, since I’m the sort of person that completely looses my shit when I see “potato’s for sale” at the supermarket.  I confess; I’m a grammar nerd.

For the average Joe Public, this distinction is probably not hugely important, although it is a nice way to remember your taxonomy. But for professional journalists–the kinds of people that would be following the AP style guide–yes, I  think it does matter. Why in the world would you deliberately ignore an established convention of a major biological discipline? That’s just….weird.

The AP Stylebook is WRONG.  Bug Girl has spoken.

Caught in the Bug Net: 10.23.10

I wanted to make sure you saw this one from The Onion:

“GRAND IMPERIAL THRONE ROOM, CASTLE ROACH—His Royal Highness, King Leopold Blattodea IV, undisputed lord and ruler of the cockroaches, expressed dismay and concern Monday that the recent rise in bedbug populations could threaten his sovereignty over the realm of human squalor.
Gathered in His Majesty’s begrimed throne room behind the bathroom sink, a solemn coterie of royal advisers and nobleroaches received the king’s proclamation in tense silence, awaiting his word on precisely how the cockroach kingdom would respond to the bedbug scourge.”

Fake Science explains Bees. Sort of.

Alex rants about overblown honeybee doom and gloom statements.

The filmmaker of Born into Brothels has a new project she wants to fund about mantids!  The verbiage is a bit twee and new-agey, but the photography is spectacular.

Giant billboard Monarch Taxonomy FAIL is spotted by several blogs. *head desk*

Doug went on a trip (again) and came back with spectacular photos (again)–I especially like the teal grasshopper.

A truly amazing collection of insect sculptures–I think I’ve linked to this before, but well worth re-linking!

Ed finds a very nice bit of Rachel Carson history.

And last, but not least, David discusses a recent journal editorial that clearly does not get what ‘teh blogging’ is all about.

Learn from my Fail

So, just thought I would stick my head back in and mention that my divorce was final today.  I learned several important things during this process.

1. Do NOT choose your lawyer based on how UN-slimy they seem. Big mistake.
I should have chosen the lawyer who seemed likely to castrate puppies with his bare teeth and sell used clunkers to little old ladies in his spare time. Not the guy that was nice.
In addition to not being very effective, my lawyer FORGOT to tell me that the final court date was today. So I got a phone call about 2 hours before I was supposed to show up in front of the judge.  And saw the final settlement for the first time at the courthouse.

2. If one is conflict averse, and one’s spouse is conflict averse, not talking about things does not really avoid conflict in the long term.
This seems blatantly obvious after the fact, but thought I would point it out to any other clueless schmucks like me.

3.  If I had been smarter in the beginning, and asked more questions, things might have worked out better.
Or not, really–a lot of crap went wrong that was completely out of my control. I didn’t know menopause would make me nutso.  Or that my dream job would be a nightmare with a sociopath employee that went on to terrorize us with animal parts and break-ins.
But a couple of really frank conversations about how we both managed money and what assets we had BEFORE we moved in together might have made a lot of problems more manageable later on.

4. There are no do-overs or an “undo” button IRL.
This about sums it up:

File Under: Are you fucking kidding me??

What the…what?
Apparently, a pest control company in the UK has decided to drum up business by COMPLETELY MAKING SHIT UP.

This image shows some of the numbers of insects estimated to be on public transportation, as reported in a newspaper that picked up on a (now expunged of fake numbers) press release by the company Rentokil.

Ben Goldacre was on the case:

“After a bit of prodding, its PR company, Brands2Life, explained: no buses or trains were studied.
How did people get the wrong end of the stick? I have no way of knowing, as Brands2Life and Rentokil both declined to show me what they had sent to journalists but, in any case, contrary to what was said earlier, these numbers did not come from measurements and counts – they are based on a “theoretical model.”

As Ben goes on to explain, the assumptions that were made to generate those numbers included an unlimited food supply, completely unchecked reproduction, and survival of roach offspring at 100%.  Which, as anyone who knows anything about biology, is complete and utter shite.  Public transportation is regularly cleaned and fumigated. And they are not filled with an infinite food supply, nor do stampeding commuters never create mortality for little creatures that are trampled.   Any introductory biology class covers exponential growth, and how it is the potential for living populations–but very rarely the reality!

The whole fiasco was a shameful attempt by either the company, the company’s PR agency, or both, to drum up entomophobia. And, by extension, business.

Yes, roaches and bed bugs are a reality. But no, there are not 50 bedbugs on the average bus in London!!!  Cripes.
There is an acronym I learned in the dot.com world when I worked there: PIDOMA.  It stands for “Pull It Directly Out of My Ass.”  This is where these numbers came from.

Since Rentokil have a history of changing things after the fact, I took screen-shots of their current blog post and the news story; you can find them at Flickr.  They get a zombie roach, since clearly something has eaten their brains.  I hope that the National Pest Management Association will issue a statement strongly condemning this company and it’s PR mess.

(Also: BEN! DUDE! Why did you not invite me to the UK to help out with this?)

Breaking FAIL news: Scientific American

This is tremendously disappointing.
Not only did Scientific American pick up on the alarmist press release about cochineal from the Center For Science in the Public Interest, it actually added extra taxonomic errors and entomophobia, for good measure!

So, here’s the story so far:

1. CSPI writes an alarmist press release about cochineal, which suggests not only are there insects in your food, but dangerous insects!  They call for a ban, and as a bonus make a rather huge taxonomic error with a scarab beetle photo.

2. A New York Times writer picks up on the press release, and uses it in her NYT wellness blog.  And repeats the taxonomic mistakes and general tone of OMGBUGZ.  She does at least correct the taxonomic error when it’s pointed out, and removes the beetle photo.

3. Scientific American prints the CSPI news release (with offending photo) almost verbatim, and even ADDS several alarmist comments about OMGBUGZ-IN-URFOODS. As a garnish, they called cochineal “beetle juice” and the scale insects “cochineal beetles.”

4. A whole bunch of other media outlets screw it up with even new and different photos.

(I actually stopped looking after those two, because I was just too depressed. God help us if they find out that shellac is sometimes used on apples to make them shiny, or how figs really get pollinated.)

I’ve written before about VNRs–video news releases. An awful lot of what you see on television is PR produced far outside a news studio, and used to feed the 24/7 news cycle.  PRwatch produced a report on VNRs in 2006, and some of their criticisms of that practice sound rather familiar:

  • “TV stations disguise VNRs as their own reporting.
  • TV stations don’t supplement VNR footage or verify VNR claims.”

Now, I occasionally screw up here at the Bug Blog–sometimes I don’t fact-check a story thoroughly before I run with it.  However, I’m not Scientific American or the New York Times, and I don’t have a professional news staff!

I’m just a B-list (really, more like G-list) blogger that interrupts her cheerful obsession with insects with occasional cranky ranting.  Exhibit A: this post.

But, people.
If you are part of the media apparatchik, for God’s sake, check your facts! Make a call!
Just because some organization has “science” in the title, that doesn’t mean they are experts.

Clearly, I need to start issuing press releases so that I can have my opinions published uncritically everywhere.