According to entomologist Justin Schmidt, he has been stung over 1,000 times by various insects species. Rather than saying “ow” and reconsidering his line of work, Schmidt began to do something different with these painful experiences: He documented them, and created what is now known as the Schmidt sting pain index.

Cloning: A method by which an organism is produced that is identical in DNA to a single ancestor or donor. It is a concept that may seem more at home in science fiction than the real world, but cloning has become increasingly prominent over the past twenty years. In 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first animal cloned from the adult cells of another animal. The process has advanced greatly since then, and cloned animals have begun to emerge as an economic and social force.

Bird conservation is a subject that has a long history in the United States, and this year we have reached an important milestone: The hundred year anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Because of this law, you may want to stop adding to your feather collection. It might be illegal!

While honey bees are charismatic, helpful, and interesting, they take a back seat in our new exhibit at the Bruce Museum, Wild Bees: Photographs by Paula Sharp and Ross Eatman. This exhibit explores the small scale world that native bees inhabit and showcases their beauty and diversity in form and lifestyle. These wild bee species are facing many challenges as the world changes around them, but there are steps we can take to make things a little better for our buzzing allies.