Jerry Cates, BugsInTheNews editor.
We’re here for you… BugsInTheNews, a project conducted by the Megatherium Society, is on the Internet for one simple reason, to serve as a trustworthy source of carefully researched, unbiased, and pertinent information in the fields of zoology, entomology, arachnology, and herpetology, along with links to important, peer-reviewed scientific papers on the subject at hand so you can conduct your own research far beyond the materials we provide. In 2012 we resume our studies in nematology and, for those entomopathogenic species of nematodes, their symbiotic bacteria as well. We are also launching, in 2012, a limited mentoring project designed to help high-school students interested in the biological and botanical sciences.
We strive to shed light on things that affect your peace of mind. With your help, we’ll continue to answer your questions on these subjects into the future. As in the past, the most important help we get are the photographs and textual descriptions you send us of spiders, snakes, animals, and bugs that cross your path and make you wonder.
The original Bugs In The News website was created in the 1990’s, as BugsInTheNews.com, to serve as a repository of information on bugs and animals found in Texas. Over the years, the focus of that website was broadened to include more and more organisms, including botanicals. Today its purview includes all living things in the animal kingdom. Its geography — originally limited to Texas — has expanded to all of North America, though much of that work has applications worldwide. Eventually it will include Central and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Botany, though one of the oldest of sciences, has lagged behind the animal sciences in many ways, and that is of great concern to us. Plants are as important as animals — most pharmaceuticals are, or were originally, derived from botanical sources — but because they seem less “threatening” we don’t pay them the attention they deserve. Much needs to be learned about our botanicals, so — to spur that learning onward — our sister website, Buds In The News.info was created. Though still in its infancy, it has enormous potential.
Both of these websites now use a new theme and format. Navigation is simplified by providing, on the left-hand side of each page, a listing of the categories of postings. Placing your cursor over these categories pops up a balloon describing the category. Clicking on a category automatically takes you to a listing of the posts under that category, so you can click on a title and view its post separately.
Effective 1 January 2011, these websites are entirely non-profit in structure, goals, and purpose. EntomoBiotics Inc. donates essential website hosting expenses and website maintenance technical support, but funds for expansion and improvement come from our viewers and interested benefactors.
The information provided here is constantly being updated. It is intended to cover each topic in considerable background detail, not just a surface skim, yet devoid of the fluff and speculation commonly found in journalistic science today. Some of these topics affect your life in serious, earth-shattering ways. We strive to provide truthful details, as devoid of sensationalism and bias as possible, in a form that enables you to become better educated and better prepared.
Most important of all, the background details in our articles are bolstered with contemporary accounts, supplied by viewers and contributors, regarding how these topics impact them and their world. Whenever possible, despite a limited budget, we conduct field trips and interview laypeople and authorities alike, to document and verify the information our viewers send in. And, through it all, you — the ultimate beneficiary — are given free and unlimited access to all the information we provide.
We cannot do this work without your help. We know that the most important contributors are those who are sending us photographs and textual descriptions that expand our knowledge. Many of our viewers, particularly those who benefit from the information they find here, have also helped us expand and improve these websites. Others have asked how they can become involved in even little ways. Soon we will provide a way for our general viewers to donate to this project.
Bugsinthenews began with nothing but a dream, and though we’ve scratched the surface, much more needs to be done. A single editor, working in his spare time, using antiquated computers and low-cost, outdated lab equipment, can accomplish a lot, but a vast universe of information remains to be analyzed, cataloged, and published on-line. The trick is to find a way to systematically chip away at that huge mountain of — we don’t call it a deficit, it’s really just energy waiting to be tapped — potential and turning it into something useful, all without losing sight of why we are here.
During 2010 alone over 3,000 reports and inquiries came in from viewers with urgent questions concerning spiders, snakes, stinging caterpillars, and other organisms. In 2011 that number increased by more than 50%. Nearly every inquiry was answered quickly, but far too few could be processed and posted on the website so others could benefit. The necessary time and other resources were simply not available. To reduce costs, we host our websites on shared servers, with hundreds of other websites that compete for bandwidth. As a result, our pages often load slowly. One goal for 2011 was to move everything to a dedicated server, so our pages will load quickly, without the delays our viewers are experiencing now: since we did not accomplish that goal, we’ve moved it forward, as a goal for 2012. That wasn’t the only goal we missed in 2011. For example, our hopes of purchasing additional lab equipment, particularly better dissecting microscopes and digital image recording devices, were put on hold. 2011 has been a difficult year for economies worldwide, so we’re not complaining.
Despite our present funding shortfall, we still say No to advertising: To keep our sites uncluttered and unbiased, and to avoid the temptation to sensationalize as a means of increasing viewership, we do not host ads for others as a means of raising revenue. We feel you shouldn’t have to trim away pop-up and drop-down ads, view advertisement as a condition of reading the content of our pages, or be confronted with embedded ad-links, wondering whether we sanction or support the linked site or its content.
We also refuse to accept government grants and subsidies: not just because of the strings attached, but also because we feel government shouldn’t be allocating taxes to shore up research projects that can and ought to be supported, fully, by the very public that those projects benefit. Government is no less biased than industry, but has its own agendas, often replete with unhealthy influences that smother honesty and candor.
Not everyone who takes advantage of the projects described on this or our sister websites can or should contribute to their furtherance, but many are both willing and able, and their contributions, freely and gladly provided, should be sufficient to keep worthy projects in the black. In fact, that is one of the best ways to gauge a project’s worth, and reliance on gifts from appreciative users is a sure way to guide us toward excellence and beyond. If we meet the muster, that is. If we don’t, we will fail. That is the way natural selection works. We applaud it for what it has accomplished thus far, and we acknowledge that we shall either be its beneficiary or its victim. Either way, we are happily resigned to our fate.
That leaves you, our public, whose questions we answer–or at least try to answer — to both judge us, and help us, as we seek to do a better job every day. We will probably remain up and running in some capacity no matter what happens, but where you see lack, imagine how we can improve. You can help us deal with the backlog of materials begging to be posted. You can help us expand in every reasonable dimension. You can help move our websites to faster servers, and enable us to acquire newer computers and better, more efficient lab equipment. You can help defray the cost of field trips to collect and photograph bugs, spiders, and snakes in the wild. You can enable us to attend scientific symposiums, maintain our memberships in appropriate scientific societies and associations, and obtain new books and reference matter for our library.
Thanks for everything! We couldn’t have done anything in the past without you. And, the past is, as they say, prologue. Let’s make 2012 the best year ever…
jc
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BugsInTheNews is a VIEWER-PARTICIPANT WEBSITE. Click on the link to see what that means. Questions? Corrections? Comments? BUG ME RIGHT NOW! Telephone Jerry directly at 512-331-1111. E-mail jerry.cates@bugsinthenews.info. Or register, log in, and post a comment in the space provided below each posting.