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Scorpions: the victims of undue shade.
A handful of people on planet Earth have a PhD in scorpions and Dr. Lauren Esposito is one of them. Collaborators included undergraduate students from the University of Puerto Rico and Lewis & Clark College, graduate students from the University of Puerto Rico, PIs Ingi Agnarsson and Greta Binford, and additional collaborators from STENAPA and the American Museum of Natural History. She continued to study buthidae scorpions at the California Academy of Sciences. I am an evolutionary biologist working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Evolab at the University of California at Berkeley. I am an evolutionary biologist working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Evolab at the University of California at Berkeley.
As a kid, she had a fondness for exploring the yard, flipping over rocks and storing found insects in egg cartons, although it didn’t occur to her that she might eventually become a scorpion scientist. Dr. Lauren Esposito started her entomology collection at a young age. She spent her time in the Bahamas checking the tide pools every morning, collecting hermit crabs in buckets, and observing the marine life in an artificial reef beneath her grandparents’ dock: “I think I became a biologist there.”She continued to hone her skills during college, with a summer undergraduate internship in arachnology at the American Museum of Natural History and volunteer work at a field station in the Chihuahuan Desert.
At the time of this writing, Esposito has never been stung as a professional scientist.Esposito is happy to talk about why she’s drawn to studying scorpions, a decidedly unpopular creature. Also: how much does a gallon of venom cost? To view this site, enable JavaScript by changing your browser options and try again. Some species inject toxic venom when they bite or sting. If they encounter a predator, they’ll eject one combination, and if they encounter prey, a different one.” The venom’s effects? Pain, temporary paralysis, or death.Esposito is studying the evolution of scorpion venom alongside the evolution of scorpions. If you've ever wanted to impress a date with weird facts THIS IS THE EPISODE FOR YOU. “There’s a kind of evolutionary arms race happening between scorpions and mammals, particularly with predatory, nocturnal scorpion mice.” These mice have developed an immunity to the scorpions’ current arsenal of venom.
This makes her unique among venom experts, who are often toxicologists or biochemists studying its chemistry. UC Berkeley, 1101 VLSBAfter nearly 7 years of strategizing on how to get to Cuba, it seems I just might make it. Meet the curators and researchers, explore projects and expeditions, and search their collections. She spills the beans on how venom works, what's up with the blacklight glow effect, how dangerous they *really* are, what all the movies get wrong, the best names for scorpions, where she's traveled to look under rocks, where a scorpion's butt is, if scorpions dance or make out (SPOILER: YES), what good mothers they are, how big they used to be millions of years ago and how -- technically speaking -- they are not poisonous. The Centruroides genome has been sequenced and is beginning to be assembled at Baylor’s … I am long overdue for an update, but better late than never. Home; About; CV; Fieldwork; About. Lauren Esposito is an arachnologist, similar to an entomologist, whose research focuses on scorpions, and she is also an LGBTQ+ rights activist!
“I’d been trained as a museum scientist since I was 19 years old, and all I wanted to do is museum science. A handful of people on planet Earth have a PhD in scorpions and Dr. Lauren Esposito is one of them. Oh, and why she started the visibility campaign 500 Queer Scientists.