The Schmidt Sting Pain Index - What Sting Hurts the Most?

Today when I was reading mX, I came across an interesting article about an entomologist from the University of Arizona. This man is Justin Schmidt. His area of expertise is Hymenoptera, the family of insects which includes wasps, bees and ants, so it's no surprised he's been stung over 100 times.

Throughout his career, he conducted personal research and "unintentionally" came up with the The Schmidt Sting Pain Index, a system developed to compare the relative intensity of Hymenoptera stings. This "research" involved provoking the insects to the point of rage, when they would attack/defend themselves. Each sting is on a rank between 1 to 4. Here is a sample from Wikipedia which includes their rank number and a description of the sting by Schmidt:

1.0 Sweat bee: 

Source: public-domain-photos.com

"Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm."

#16 Sheriff Shrimp

Pistol shrimps may look like beautiful small helpless crustaceans, but they have a deadly weapon.

Source: piratefx.hubpages.com

 All Pistol shrimp have one oversized claw and with one snap of this oversized claw and a loud "pop", a supersonic bubble can be shot at the shrimp's enemy or prey. This bubble, can reach temperatures approaching that of the sun, about 4700 degrees Celsius. In the video below, the amazing skills of the pistol shrimp are displayed.

Kuma-x Photography Feature

So our next photographer lives in the a lovely small country in the middle of Europe - the Czech Republic. Her name is Kuma and she's into all types of photography but, I'm going to be featuring some of her landscapes. Enjoy :)

How did you get into photography? 

Why are you interested in taking photos?

Kuma: I always loved to travel and I wanted to keep my travel memories in some visual form so photography was a clear choice for me. The most I love landscapes and travel photography and also everything nature related.

And the most important thing in photography? LIGHT! That's my philosophy!

Just Before Sunrise: Prague City

In the News - April 2012

 Good News
Well I have some interesting stories for you today. :)
A few new and thought to be extinct species have been discovered. And some rare baby animals have come out to play.

The Bururi Long-fingered frog has been rediscovered in Africa after 62 years. Read more about their discovery here.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com