Word: almond
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Despite working with an insect collection of more than 28 million specimens, Barclay and his colleagues have been unable to identify the almond-shaped critter, about the size of a grain of rice, which has in the past year made itself at home in the sycamore trees on the 19th century museum's grounds in central London. "My field work has taken me all over the world--to Thailand, Bolivia, Peru. So I was surprised to be confronted by an unidentifiable species while having a sandwich in the museum's garden," Barclay says...
...Despite working with an insect collection of over 28 million specimens, Barclay and his colleagues at the Natural History Museum have been unable to identify the almond-shaped insect, about the size of a grain of rice, that has in the past year made itself at home in the sycamores trees on the 19th-century museum's grounds in central London...
...struggle to identify the critter displays not only the mystery of nature, but also the fickleness of the science of taxonomy. Identifying insect species can be extremely difficult; some scientists estimate we have managed to identify only 10% of the insect world so far. The rest, like Barclays' almond-shaped mystery bug, are perfectly happy to crawl along without any christening or approval from their relatively gargantuan cohabitants. But that won't stop scientists like Barclay from trying. For him, the question asked by his five-year old son last March is a calling he still feels compelled to answer...
...young green cotton has an inky black stripe running through its middle; as the field becomes more stressed from the lack of water, the black will spread. Safflowers, which should be a brilliant gold this time of year, are limp and brown. Farmers pace the dusty fields, eyeing their almond trees and grape vines, both heavy with unripe fruit, trying to decide which ones to allow to die. "It's like which kid to keep and which to get rid of," Coburn says...
...meantime, farmers are scrambling to find water anywhere they can. Some are cleaning the moss out of old wells, or drilling new ones. Others are bargaining with neighbors to give up on "road crops" such as tomatoes and sell their water to desperate owners of permanent crops like almond trees and grape vines. Most are bracing for the worst: "I'm sweating it," says almond farmer Blackburn. "I've never been down this road before, but we're going to take a hit financially. If this drought continues, we'll lose...