Free Republic

The butterflies will fly no more — or not in public view, anyway. The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, has announced that it's closing its doors "for the immediate future" after ongoing harassment directed at employees and the center itself. The center, a nonprofit nature reserve nestled near the U.S.-Mexico border, unwittingly became the subject of conservative conspiracy theories and political conflict in recent years, having been locked in a years-long legal battle with the Trump administration and We Build the Wall regarding a planned border wall. The harassment grew so great that it led the board of directors...

Martha Jones: It's like in those films: if you step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race. The Doctor: Then don't step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you? Science fiction writers can't seem to agree on the rules of time travel. Sometimes, as in Doctor Who (above), characters can travel in time and affect small events without appearing to alter the grand course of history. In other stories, such as Back To The Future, even the tiniest of the time travellers' actions in the past produce major ripples that unpredictably change...

Welcome to the weekend.... The Guide To What's Really Going On Here And Now Got a book in front of me. "The Art Of The Comeback" Donald J. Trump Lets give you the Top Ten Comeback Tips from Trump... Perhaps this will help us all to better understand the situation on the ground with President Trump right now who I sense is in political campaign mode working to keep up his popularity and viability for the days ahead...whatever those days may hold.... Coronavirus Tyranny In Republican Led Idaho "I, along with Aaron and Jill, were also arrested for "trespassing" at...

Homero Gomez Gonzalez, 55, had been missing since January 13, police told CNN Espanol. He was found in Ocampo, Michoacán state, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said during a Thursday press conference. Lopez Obrador called Gomez’s death “lamentable and painful” and vowed to continue to fight criminal groups believed to be behind his disappearance and death. An official autopsy will be released at a later date, but a state official said Gomez’s body showed signs of asphyxiation. Mexico’s State Commission for Human Rights said they believe Gomez, known as the “Defender of the Monarch Butterfly,” might have come into...

Black butterfly wings inspire solar cell design 11-20-2019 by Jonathan Sarfati The ‘common rose’ butterfly of India (Pachliopta aristolochiae) has big wings with large black patches. The black absorbs the sun’s rays that help warm the butterfly in cool weather. Researchers analyzed the wings under an electron microscope, and discovered that the scales which cover them have their surface cratered by a ‘disordered’ array of tiny holes.2

(CNN) A federal judge on Friday dealt a win to the Trump administration when he dismissed a lawsuit by a group of butterfly conservationists for wall construction that the group said was expected to run through its property. The nonprofit association argued that construction must be stopped to prevent the "seizure and destruction" of its property and "adverse environmental impacts" to threatened and endangered species and critical habitats. The suit is related to previously funded wall construction. Judge Richard Leon said the constitutional arguments made by the North American Butterfly Association didn't hold up. The association's flagship facility is a...

President Trump is pushing for more money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The debate could come to a head as Congress nears a deadline to fund parts of the government. Some sections of the border already have a wall. And in many areas, building more wall means cutting through private property. In South Texas, NPR's Cristina Cala and Sam Gringlas visited a place where that conflict is already playing out. SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: We're just looking at dozens and dozens of these red and black butterflies. CHRISTINA CALA, BYLINE: Like a cloud of butterflies - just one...

Spatchcocking a turkey is a beautiful way to cook the Thanksgiving Day centerpiece. While you won't end up with a traditional round turkey served on a platter, the method of spatchcocking will give you an evenly brown roasted turkey that will be the envy of all of your dinner guests. What is spatchcocking? Much like butterflying, spatchcocking involves cutting the turkey - basically removing the backbone - so it lays flat.

What do you get when you cross a goat with a sheep? The answer, of course, is a geep – and there’s one in Arizona who’s melting hearts across the internet. Butterfly, whose mother was a sheep and whose father was a pygmy goat, was born last Sunday at My Petting Zoo in Scottsdale – much to the surprise of the owner. Priscilla Motola said she and her three children went to feed the animals on Sunday evening when her son found what he believed was a newborn goat, even thought all the female goats expecting had already given birth....

The main cause of the monarch butterfly's decline is the loss of milkweed — its food — in its U.S. breeding grounds, a new study has found. That all but confirms that the spread of genetically modified crops is indirectly killing the monarch.

Fukushima 'caused mutant butterflies' in Japan Genetic mutations have been found in three generations of butterflies from near Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, scientists said on Tuesday, raising fears radiation could affect other species. 10:11AM BST 14 Aug 2012 Around 12 per cent of pale grass blue butterflies that were exposed to nuclear fallout as larvae immediately after the tsunami-sparked disaster had abnormalities, including smaller wings and damaged eyes, researchers said. The insects were mated in a laboratory well outside the fallout zone and 18 per cent of their offspring displayed similar problems, said Joji Otaki, associate professor at Ryukyu...

The future is here and this is not a butterfly on your wall, as Israeli drones are getting tiny. Their latest project – a butterfly-shaped drone weighing just 20 grams - the smallest in its range so far – can gather intelligence inside buildings. ­The new miniscule surveillance device can take color pictures and is capable of a vertical take-off and hover flight, just like a helicopter, reports the daily Israel Hayom. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) says this may come in handy in ground clashes, when a soldier would merely take it out of a pocket and send behind the...

I only had a few minutes to get out today, made a short ride through the county arboretum.

A butterfly species equipped with tiny ears on its wings can distinguish between high and low pitch sounds, possibly as a way to listen in on nearby birds, new research suggests. Scientists thought butterflies were deaf until 1912 when the first butterfly ears were identified. Only in the past decade or so have researchers examined the anatomy and physiology of butterfly ears, which they are finding to be quite diverse and present in several butterfly species. The latest discovery was made with the blue morpho butterfly (Morpho peleides), which dazzles with its bright-blue wing coloration when it flits about in...

Monarch butterflies have fascinated biologists for a long time. A 3,000-mile road trip in even the most comfortable car would prove daunting to many humans, but these beautiful insects can migrate that same distance every year from Canada to a specific grove of fir trees in Mexico each fall. The next generation of monarchs can then travel back to Canada in the spring. Scientists are investigating the tools that these tiny flying creatures use to achieve this feat. One leading monarch researcher has discovered an important reason why the butterflies’ antennae are vital for successful navigation...

The Butterfly Nebula from Upgraded Hubble Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team Explanation: The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects, and NGC 6302 is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the central star of this particular planetary nebula is exceptionally hot though -- shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. Above is a dramatically detailed close-up of the dying star's nebula recorded by the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. Cutting across...

Butterfly brilliance Dual diffraction gratings produce two colour signals by Jonathan SarfatiPublished: 1 January 2009(GMT+10) Photo Wikipedia Blue morpho Photonic structures in butterflies Some butterflies, such as the blue morpho (Morpho menelaus) of South America and the male mountain blue don (Papilio ulysses) of northern Australia are known for their brilliant iridescent blues. But their spectacular colours are not caused by pigments but by their scales forming a diffraction grating.1 These are evenly-spaced ridges or grooves that break up white light into all its component colours, but at a given angle, destructive interference cancels out all out except for the...

Flitting with disaster BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Oct. 14, 2001.) A very important issue that we all need to be concerned about is global warming, and we will get to that shortly, but first we need to discuss what happened the other night in my kitchen. It began when I was in the bedroom, flossing my teeth (I keep my teeth in the bedroom). Suddenly my wife burst in and said: ''There's a bat in the kitchen!'' A snappy comeback line would have been: ''No, thanks! I already ate!'' But snappy comebacks are...

Saw this butterfly on my Lilacs took some nice pictures. Here are a couple, the Hi-Rez pictures are much more detailed.

Habitat Destruction May Wipe Out Monarch Butterfly MigrationA monarch butterfly gathering nectar from a swamp milkweed flower. (Credit: iStockphoto/Willie Manalo) ScienceDaily (Apr. 5, 2008) — Intense deforestation in Mexico could ruin one of North America’s most celebrated natural wonders — the mysterious 3,000-mile migration of the monarch butterfly. According to a University of Kansas researcher, the astonishing migration may collapse rapidly without urgent action to end devastation of the butterfly’s vital sources of food and shelter. “To lose something like this migration is to diminish all of us,” said Chip Taylor, KU professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “It’s so...