
Stuck at home, scientists discover new insect species - exanimo_sai
https://www.wired.com/story/stuck-at-home-scientists-discover-9-new-insect-species/
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war1025
I read the book "Never Home Alone" [1] last year. It's about all the tiny
critters that are around us all the time without us noticing them.

One of the things the author mentioned that stuck with me is never to assume
that something you find has been documented and studied before. There is a
whole lot of world out there, and only so many scientists.

I believe one of the anecdotes he shared during that part was some high school
kid that decided they were going to find a new species of insect. They went
literally out into their yard and managed to find a novel species of butterfly
or something like that.

A very interesting book if anyone was looking for a recommendation.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39088985-never-home-
alon...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39088985-never-home-alone)

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jdc
Seeing these discoveries happening so close to home makes me wonder how the
rate of speciation compares to the rate of discovery.

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JoeAltmaier
Fascinating how many opportunities there are in entomology, to make a
discovery.

I only wish we had a picture of the entomologist. She is the nominal subject
of the article, but we get only a picture of Dr. Brown her boss.

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vmception
What if mutations happens with much more frequency than people imagine, such
that it is almost analogous to spontaneous creation sometimes - or actually is
spontaneous creation. Like, natural selection and inherited mutations are just
one process, and there actually is a level of spontaneity occurring.

Science has a way to factor that in and update its assumptions, but not when
everyone dismisses the idea because so much energy has been put into a polar
opposite process.

