I realize that I have been posting a lot about life and literally nothing about science. For those of you reading the blog title literally, you may be feeling a little bamboozled. For some, that might actually be preferable. So for those of you who have recently been suffering from insomnia and are looking for some new bedtime material I offer this post.

Since I was a kid, I liked bugs. Not like big gross hairy ones or anything. And certainly not spiders! (I will forever blame my sister who made me watch Arachnophobia when I was seven. I was so traumatized! Did you know that movie was a comedy?! Cause I didn’t until Netflix informed me last year. And seven-year old me did NOT find it funny AT ALL). But roly-poly, lady bugs, and ants were fascinating to me.

Growing up in Southern California, a girl gets used to some heat (and some smog- it was the 80s after all). And yes, temperatures regularly over 100F are hot! But (and I can say this now because I have been in the South for 8 years) it was a “dry heat”. I would sit on the burning hot pavement and try to understand how ants marched across it in such perfect lines. I would interfere with introduce “road blocks” (usually a twig, a drop of water- which would then evaporate in like 3 seconds).

I did OK in my STEM classes in high school but I never really tried that hard. I LOVED Algebra but then hated Trigonometry so assumed Calculus would be the death of me. I LOVED Biology but then hated Chemistry so I figured Math and Science were probably not for me.

When I entered college… well how I entered college is a story for another day. But when I entered college, I was an Environmental Studies major. It was fun. We learned interesting things. I had a Statistics requirement which I really enjoyed (more so than my History courses at the time). Then I had a Biology requirement which was awesome. It was this magical class that combined logic and reason to explain how the world worked! (see what I did there? with magic and logic?). When we did our forensic entomology lab (where yes- we looked at bugs on a rotting corpse… well squirrel corpse) I was hooked! I decided I would power through those pesky chemistry and math requirements (but somehow managed to still never take Calculus).

In Comparative Physiology, we learned about seasonal acclimation. How a temperature that is lethal to an organism during one part of the year, can be perfectly safe during another part of the year. I found this fascinating. Then when I got to graduate school and really dove into Thermal Biology, it was amazing. It combine my love for watching insects perform tasks on hot pavement with my love for understanding how the world worked! It was glorious!

Since then, I have been working on projects that relate how organisms deal with high temperature or even… (dun dun dunnnnnnnn) changing temperatures (Yes- I understand climate change is a terrible terrible thing but it lets me ask interesting questions.)

My time in Denmark will be spent learning more about how temperature acclimation varies across space and contributes to species ranges. Not to overstate here, but it is kind of my dream project. So I have come a long way. In my early 30s, I am going to sit in a LABORATORY (not just on the pavement) and observe what high temperatures do to insects.