Search Results for: Laura Kraft

The Sweet, Sweet Taste of Ripening

Anyone who knows me knows my love for blueberries.  Besides being a nutrient-packed super fruit, blueberries are also a major agricultural commodity for Georgia. Our state recently beat out Michigan to become number 1 in blueberry production in the nation. Because of this, I decided to take a part time job helping an ongoing study

Fatal Attraction: Why mosquitoes find us so attractive

Have you ever walked past a restaurant around lunchtime and found the smell alone was good enough to stop you in your tracks and have you speeding in to buy something to eat? For me, it's the smell of southern barbecue. At first it's the smoke billowing out of the kitchen that tickles your nose

The Life and Lies of Kudzu

Southerners see it everywhere: green tentacles snaking up the road signs, vines suffocating vast green meadows of trees. The infestation has become a trademark of the south: kudzu. Many Americans grow up hearing that kudzu was imported for erosion control, but the true story is more complex. For the celebration of the hundredth year since the

Time to Rustle Up Some Grub!

So you heard about the health and sustainability benefits of eating insects and want to try entomophagy, huh? I had thought about doing this for years, so I embarked on an adventure to raise mealworms and make recipes from six different continents: Mealworm Tacos, Mealworm Lettuce Wraps, Mealworm-Meat Pie, and Cricket Flour Crepes.  Not included

Slimy, Yet Satisfying: Eating Insects for the Modern World

In the Disney classic, The Lion King, Simba finds out that Timon and Pumba eat nothing by way of mammalian meat. When he asks what they do eat, they produce a bounty of wriggling beetles and grubs arranged on a leaf. Is this gross, or is it smart-eating? Entomophagy, or eating insects, has cropped up

ASO Authors

The Athens Science Observer writing staff is composed of a dedicated group of volunteers from Athens, Georgia and abroad. Most of us are doctorate, masters, and undergraduate students at the University of Georgia and though we have backgrounds in a variety of scientific fields we all share a vision to promote the understanding and appreciation

Night of the Living Bugs

Pretend for a moment you are a cockroach. Now, I don't want to go all Kafka on you, but bear with me. You are a beautiful species of cockroach in a tropical region of Africa, just living your daily life, out scrounging for some food when, all of the sudden, a bright turquoise wasp stings

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