Science at Bar SZ Ranch

Aug 05, 2018 • 9:11 AM UTC

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Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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I had the privilege of staying two days at a ranch, with our host family at Bar SZ Ranch in San Benito County in California (https://www.barszranch.com). It’s an incredible place to just get lost in the woods, surrounded by farm animals and live a farm life for a few days. What I was delighted to find was the Bar SZ Ranch family kids had quiet an appetite for science, and with my own guests and the host family and Sam visiting all the way from Australia – we had a circle of nearly 10 young explorers. And we had a blast..
Here is the first mystery – we found Reese deep red bugs almost anywhere we walked in the region. We were in Central Valley, almost 45 min away from any town – and close to Pinnacles National Park (latest national park).

Walking by and stumbling upon a deep red bug with some curious minds – was exactly the kind of adventure we wanted to get started. We spent a lot of time admiring these colonies – and exploring the structure of interactions. It’s clear they had a strange “African tribe” like markings at the back – as if they are ready to battle for the tribe.
After a little bit of searching – we realized this might be “fire bug” – or “ Pyrrhocoris apterus ” an invasive species in California.
Here I am trying to translate “fire bug” in Spanish. Not working.

As the night fell upon us; we decided to do a little foldscope session; we built our microscopes in the barn and began exploring the various anatomies of this strange bug.

This is the beginning of a small collaboration with Bar SZ – a truly unique Ranch open for any families to embrace the life style of a working farm. I left a few foldscope and rained the kids; so I am hoping they will share discoveries since they probably see all kind of microscopic wonders every day. With so many horses, donkeys, chickens, pigs, ducks, cows and cats running around on the farm – I can’t even begin to imagine the microscopic wonders that awaits us.
Cheers
Manu
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