City of Insects -- Wageningen, Netherlands

Just a quick shout out to the city of Wageningen, Netherlands, which apparently transformed itself into the City of Insects this year. From the Wageningen Electronic Student Plaza (WESP):

"The Laboratory of Entomology of Wageningen University has won the Academic Year Prize in a competition between the Dutch universities. This Prize was awarded on the basis of the research quality and the plan to convey this to the general public. The Wageningen team’s plan that was honored with the Academic Year Prize 2005/2006 was to transform Wageningen into the City of Insects.

Life on earth is dominated by insects: 80% of all animal species walk on six legs and the biomass of ants alone equals the biomass of humans. Insects are essential components of ecosystems and knowledge of insects is exploited in hospitals (maggot therapy to heal wounds), in criminal investigations (to help solve murder cases), in crop protection (to combat insect pests), in pollination, in nutrition (insects are a delicacy to 80% of the world’s population), in robotics (small brains allow fantastic performance) etc. Moreover, insects feature in art (e.g. Van Gogh, Dali and many others), in movies, in novels etc.

During the festival Wageningen – City of Insects (www.cityofinsects.nl) there will be more than 50 activities, many of them in Dutch, some in English and others without any language."

Looks like a good time.