53-year-old nature-lover and former park ranger Mark Moffett has reason to be pleased with himself. His remarkable find, on a remote New Zealand island after two full days of tracking, of a giant insect which he photographed eating a carrot out of his hand, was quite astounding.

The  biggest insect, in terms of weight, on earth the Giant Weta tips the scales at three times the weight of an average mouse, 70grams or more, but the one found in a tree by Mark has now been officially declared to be the largest ever found to date.

This massive, cricket-like creature, wing span of seven inches, turned up on the New Zealand island of Little Barrier, just one of 70 other Weta varieties found throughout the country, the largest found on Little Barrier Island of course, and found to be in the main less social and more passive than other varieties

They feed on plants, other small insects and fruit, a typical example of so-called island gigantism, a biological phenomenon meaning they grow bigger than mainland contemporaries due to isolation and lack of predatory species, mainland populations wiped out by by rats accidentally introduced by Europeans.

Having found, fed and photographed this huge creature, Mark naturally returned her to where she had been found, firstly not wanting the Weta to be any more at risk than necessary, being such an endangered species. Being a nature lover, he was happy simply to have got the encounter on record, but how many people would have been terrified of such a giant creepy-crawly? 

Language is what separates man from beasts. This is explained by Bertrand Russell: “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.”

To understand humanity, we must know the functions or uses of language, the language that makes us human. Among the various functions of language are the referential, conative, emotive, and poetic functions. 

The referential function establishes the relationship between language and the world (as in science and history). Here, one has to verify whether the statements are  true or false , a distinction between fact and fancy.

The conative function aims to find out the effect/s of the language upon the reader or listener (as in political conviction or persuasion). Conation means endeavor to affect someone with the power of language.

The emotive function establishes the relationship between language and the speaker (as in autobiography, diary, confession). The statements have to be verified to find out if the speaker or writer is sincere or not.

The poetic function is interested in the artistic  nature of the language (beauty of expression and truth). How does language work as verbal art? The chief orientation of  the poetic function of language is “toward the message” , and so one has to focus on the message for its own sake. Poetic function thus makes verbal art meaningful without reducing it to a referential representation of the real world. 

There is no justification for attempts to confine such poetic conventions as meter, alliteration, or rhyme to the sound level alone. Sound and meaning should prevail. The poetic function should form as foreground to the material nature of words rather as windows into the world. 

The Great Recession of 2008-2011 has a lot of people upset over what they perceive to be the “1 Percent” giving the shaft to the “99 percent,” as recent protests have alluded. 

But, research suggests that the wheeling and dealing on Wall Street and other financial centers, as well as the behavior of business titans and moneyed interests have a lot in common with a lowly insect – the cicada.

Research Finds Bugs – or Buggy Behavior

In most cases of discussing some strange scientific research one might say, why are they wasting time and money on such nonsense.  But, given the nature of the times we live in, this piece of research may have a favorable ring to it.

Research by scientists at the University of Evanston, Illinois suggests that stock traders resemble cicadas in their behavior.  According to the researchers, “traders tend to coordinate their behavior in the same way that cicadas synchronize their chirping.”

They claim that traders that “race to be the first to discover the right time to trade is the critical problem” they try to solve.  This, say the scientists, is the same as cicadas that seek the perfect time for mating and seeking out the “mating sweet spot.”

It’s All About Mating

So, now we have the answers as to why the financial system seems designed to push everything and everyone aside, to make individual reward more important than providing for the good of the many.  It’s all about mating.  Now why couldn’t we figure that out before?  We were probably too busy hunting for a mate.

University research continues to provide us with great insights into the human mind and condition, doesn’t it?

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The animal world has always been a rich source of metaphor and symbolism. In mythology and folklore animals are archetypal images, which arose from the characteristics our ancestors attributed to them. The fox is seen as sly, the dog protective and guiding, and a bird a free spirit. These images persist today and are reflected in phrases such as ‘wise as an owl’, or ‘cunning as a fox.

The characteristics we attribute to animals in dreams often depends on the way a culture perceives them. Dreaming of a bat might seem like a sinister omen to a person from the West, but to someone from Asia where bats are considered a symbol of good fortune and happiness, this dream would have an altogether different meaning.

Domestic Animals

These are our friends offering unconditional love and dreams about them usually centre on the home and family, your innermost desires, needs and anxieties. To dream of taking care of pets symbolizes nurturing an aspect of yourself. Injured pets in dreams may point to some aspect of yourself that feels wounded, and neglecting pets may mean you feel that you are not living up to your responsibilities.

Wild Animals

The instinctual and intuitive parts of your nature are usually expressed in dreams that feature wild animals; primal instincts, such as a lioness’s ferocity when protecting her young. These animals in our dreams also sometimes reveal talents or traits that we attribute to ourselves or would like to develop, for example the grace of a dolphin or the speed of a cheetah.

Working and Farmyard Animals

Animals that perform some type of function usually appear in our dreams when there is a need to recognise our own abilities and strengths. We often dream about horses which symbolises stamina, and a camel may imply the need to conserve energy for a long journey ahead. A bull can be a strong and formidable opponent, and a herd of healthy cattle can indicate prosperity, as in real life.

Insects

Insects also carry certain meanings to their presence in our dreams. Ants often symbolise social conformity, indicating that you may feel your life is too structured. Bees symbolise hard work while wasps indicate angry thoughts and feelings. The spider can indicate financial gain if pictured weaving a web. Butterflies herald change and transformation.

© Copyright J M Lennox. All Rights Reserved.

Females of the species Lycaenidae, known as driver license, thushiding their wings striking colors to go unnoticed to the males of the species, researchers concluded Kurume Institute ofTechnology, Fukuoka (Japan). This is because queestos insectsmate only once, so close to them serves as a mechanism wingsprevent possible sexual harassment.

However, the butterflies ”virgins” do not follow the same behavior,but kept their wings open to attract the opposite sex conspecificsand mate.

I liked Nature Study because it seemed more real than some of the other subjects we did at school. We were encouraged to observe real things and collect them from our own backyards, things such as insects and worms and spiders. We looked at pictures in books and learned to make notes about the creatures we were studying. Of course, most of us copied word for word from the page. One teacher used to write extensive notes on the blackboard, which we were expected to copy in our best handwriting.

Sometimes we were taken for observational walks in the school playground, searching for the tiny elusive insects we were learning about. These were not always successful, but made for a pleasant break from the confines of the classroom. We’d scratch in the bark, turn over stones and pull back clumps of grass. Then there were squeals of delight when someone found something.

I’d go home from school after such lessons, obsessed with the wee creatures we’d been searching for. Searching for them in my own backyard occupied my time until I was called for dinner.

In autumn we collected fallen leaves, studying their shape and structure. Collecting worms and making earthworm farms was also a popular topic. In the summer we visited local ponds and streams, armed with nets and jars, trying to catch specimens to take back to school to observe and learn about. Tadpole season was always popular. We’d catch them and put them in the tank at school, watching the changes and recording them in our Nature Study books.

Probably the highlight of Nature Study lessons was the occasional arrival of a cased exhibit from the National Library. Usually old stuffed New Zealand native birds, these were displayed inside a wooden cage with a glass front. Sometimes the display case had a movable front and the teacher would take the exhibit out so we could see it more closely. Then we’d be back to our books, carefully drawing the bird on the blank page and writing about it on the opposite lines.

When I was about nine or ten, a teacher took us to a nearby stand of native bush, where we were able to quietly watch and listen to native birds we’d not seen before as they flitted from branch to branch and flew silently overhead. Their size and color seemed so magnificent compared to the everyday small birds we usually saw in our backyards. Then it was back to school to record what we’d seen and use our colored pencils to make beautiful illustrations.

Studying nature didn’t become a lifelong interest for me, but I still treasure the memories of the way we were able to get to watch and study these tiny creatures that are such an important part of our world. We were truly lucky to have such hands-on experiences as part of our education in a New Zealand 1950s classroom.

Sometimes you have to just step back, take a deep breath, and look at the world around you with eyes properly open, seeking out the treasures of the world around you, that make living so worthwhile. It may well be the case that to some girls, diamonds are her best friends, but my favorite gems have a completely different origin.

On warm Summer mornings I love to get out into my back garden as the sun comes up, and get treated to the most spectacular sights on earth, as the rays of the waking sun highlight, in glorious rainbow colors, the bejeweled strands of a dew-laden spiders web, looking for all the world like the most artfully crafted diamond necklace ever made.

 This is a sight that feels me with reverential wonder, for the incredible beauty that nature so effortlessly provides, equally evident in the hovering splendor of a Humming Bird, or the majestic power of waterfalls as impressive as Niagra. One need not go to far-off lands to witness nature at her finest, though, for the simple act of putting food out in the garden for wild birds can lead to a spectacular congregation of gorgeous little feathered beauties, Bluetit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch and more.

Then there are the butterflies, so delicate and yet so artistic, kaleidoscopes of colour fluttering gaily between the vast array of blooming flowers that smell so good and lift your spirits as you gaze upon them. These are among the wondrous things that make life good, but they are far from the whole story, for what is life without a companion to share the joy?

Life is good because my wife and I are first and foremost the very best of friends, able to talk to each other in complete comfort for hours on end, about anything that comes into our heads. Secondly, we are lovers in the most intimate and soul-touching way one could imagine, still able to send shivers down one another’s spines with but a simple touch. This sexual chemistry, instantly there within seconds of our meeting 20 years ago, is as strong today as it was then.

The other reason life is good is because we have reasonable health, in spite of my arthritis. I absolutely love what I do each day, spending some time tending to my wonderful garden, and some time doing what I love best, writing things for others to enjoy. Are there disappointments in life? Of course there are, but when put things in perspective, balancing the positive against the negative, the Yin against the Yang, then there can be only one conclusion, life IS good.

Long ago men spent most of their time looking for food. They ate anything they could find. Some lived mostly of plants. They ate fruits, steams, and leaves of some plants and the roots of others. When food was scarce, they ate the bark of trees. If they were lucky, they would find a bird’s nest with eggs. People who lived near the water ate fish or anything that washed ashore, even rotten whales. Some people also ate insects and small animals like lizards, that were easy to kill.

Later, men learned to make weapons. With weapons, they could kill larger animals to eat. These early people had big appetites. If they killed an animal, they would drink the blood, eat the meat, and chew the bones. When they finished the meal, there was nothing left.

At first men wandered from place to place to find their food. But when they began to grow plants, they stayed in one place and ate what they could grow. They tamed animals, trained them to work, and killed them for meat. Life was a little better then, but there was still not much variety in their meals. Day after day people ate the same foods.

Gradually men began to travel greater distances. The explorers who sailed unknown seas found new lands. In these lands they found new foods and spices and took them back home.

The Portuguese who sailed around the stormy Cape of Good Hope to reach China took back “Chinese apples”, the fruit we call oranges today. Later, Portuguese colonist carried orange seeds to Brazil. From Brazil oranges were carried to California, the first place to grow oranges in the United States. Peaches and melons also came from China. So did a new drink, tea.

In America the explorers found new foods, too. Here the Spanish explorers tasted hot chocolate for the first time. They had no name for this new drink, so they borrowed the Mexican word “chocolate”. They found both white and sweet potatoes. They also found corn (sometimes called maize), peanuts, and tomatoes. Columbus himself found pineapple in the West Indies and took it back with him to Europe. There it had to be grown in hothouses because the climate is so cold.

As populations increase, men are looking for ways to make the land produce more food. And they are always looking for sources of new foods both on the land and in the sea. Seaweed is a very nourishing food. Today, seaweed farms are being implemented specially by Japanese investors.

Usually people welcome spring, they metaphorically run outside and metaphorically scream for joy, throwing fresh fruit into the air.

Or so they say.

Spring is welcomed by most people, as it brings things like fresh flowers, blooming gardens, fresh air and spring cleaning. But I, for one, dislike spring. And here are my top three reasons of why i despise this season.

1. Along with blooming gardens, comes hayfever.

If you are not respitorily impared, congratulations to you, but for a majority of us older, younger or just respitorily impared, Spring brings waves of murderous pollen at us, giving us the dreaded runny noses and irritated eyes. 

While a select few of us may revel in the gooey-sniffly-ness of hayfever, those people are most likely sitting in small dark rooms, staring at screens and cataloging the color of their sputum.

Hay-fever, as my son says, is a conspiricy invented by pharmaceutical (introduced in the form of an airborn virus) to sell us near-placebo medicines to make money. Of course he also believes that the government implants mind control chips in you during blood tests, and that they listen to your conversations through cell-phones.

While hayfever may seem like a minor nuisance to some, it is a catastrophe for me. When i get hay-fever, i must make time out of my busy schedule (Writing, Eating, Going to work for 2 hours, Coming home, Sleeping, So very busy) to go to the chemist and get some of those tiny white pills in the colorful boxes, just to stop my nose from running like a tap.

Some people say to me “Oh sawyer, how is that an inconvenience, it only takes five minutes to go down to the chemist and get some hay-fever tablets”, i then promptly turn around and offer them a cookie made of shredded glass, but to answer their rhetorical question (because i roll like that), it does not take five minutes.

You enter the chemist, intent on walking straight to the desk at the back to get some medicine, but as you walk down the isle you get distracted by something pretty and even more colorful than the box that the medicine comes in (Oooh, a handheld massager, my wife would love that), and after you waste ten minutes staring at said colorful distractions, you must wait in the line (most likely of other people in the same position as you) to get to the desk.

And after you get to the desk, the old man behind it spends twenty five minutes, slowly sorting through the medicines trying to find you some hay-fever tablets, which you must then spend another ten minutes in line, at the register with the same people you just queued with to get the medicine.

2. With the blooming of flowers, comes many, many insects.

Now, while I don’t want to seem overly girly (although I do scream and jump on chairs when i see any spiders), with the blooming of so many gardens, comes an incredible influx of insects.

I mean sure, insects help us in many ways, but for the more simple of a word, they are icky. That, and i believe that 99% of insects are born with a kamikaze gene, which makes them fly into an uncontrollable rage and divebomb anyone who walks remotely close to their nest/harvesting location.

I’m sure many of us have experienced that innate horror, when walking down the street, past a fresh, blooming garden, and then you hear the dreadful low hum of a thousand buzzing bees. You turn towards the garden and freeze in horror, just waiting for them to swarm over you and turn you into a reletive porcupine of stingers.

And then it hits you, a small thump in the side of the head as a poor, most likely high on pollen insect, thwaps into the side of your head. You scream like so many little schoolgirls, and dash down the street like someone just tried to stab you.

Of course later on when you recount the story to many a coworker or family member, you include several times the bees, and a brave, daring attempt to outmaneuver them whilst they divebombed you and tried to sting you to death.

3. With the warmer, steady weather, comes many people out and about.

Now, many of you would say that it’s great to go out and get some fresh air, but during spring, there is an uncomfortable amount of people walking around.

Usually people aren’t a bother, but when you put so many people in one spot, it usually forces them into uncomfortable and pointless conversation about mediocre things like how nice the sun is, how cool the breeze is or how well these pants fit their winter-body.

While i’m not entirely anti-social, I do find it annoying that i am forced into such situations when it is entirely unnessecary. If i’m standing in line at a coffee store before work, I would just immediantly like my coffee, so i can head to work and start my boring, droll day. But with spring comes many people excercising and out and about, heading to coffee stores for their refreshments.

In line, i am standing, and usually there is three to four people in front of me, waiting with the same boring excuse as i have. Whilst i don’t mind making conversation with them (”How was your morning?”, “Oh thats nice, hows the kids?”), when you bring on spring, you bring on the influx of people migrating to coffee stores for their smoothies or shakes, etc. 

Cramming so many people into a shop is like cramming a bunch of animals into a small perspex box. It just doesn’t work that well. For a while people will be comfortable, but with the proximity of people close to one another, it causes much more unneeded casual conversation, and usually people run out of topics, leading to awkward silences and abrupt stops.

All I can say is, I revel the day they bring in personal televisions to end all this nonsensical chatter about one’s children and how one’s socks do not fit.

2. Stephen Hawking: born  300 years after Galileo died on the dot. Connection?

3. In York, it is legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow with the exception of Sundays. I better find by bow.

4. A piece of dry paper can be folded no more than seven times.

5. A Boeing 747s wingspan is actually longer than the size of the Wright brother’s first flight.

6. A B-25 bomber accidentally collided into one of the floors of the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945.

7. In ancient Rome, when a man testified in the court of law he would swear on his balls. (no joke)

8. On average, 12 newborn babies will be handed off to the wrong parents every day.

9. The brother of John Wilkes Booth saved the life of Abraham Lincoln’s son.

10. The very first bomb the Allied forces dropped on Berlin in World War 2 killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo. Tragic.