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As temperatures drop and students brace for the return of triple-layered sweaters and snow boots, one aspect of summer lingers on campus. Despite the change in season, ladybird beetles are still abundant at McMaster. A quick Twitter search of “ladybug” reveals the annoyance and frustration of many as the beetles have suddenly reappeared in windowsills and corners across southern Ontario.

Marvin Gunderman is annoyed for another reason. McMaster’s in-house entomologist has been captivated by beetles, bugs and other invertebrates since he was a child and corrects the layman’s name “ladybug,” preferring the more correct “ladybird beetle.” “They are true beetles. They have wing-covers that meet in a straight line down the back,” he explained.

Ladybirds are summer insects, seeing out their entire lives from nymph to adult. “They're a bit unusual, because in the insect world, the nymphs and the larvae are the eating stage. The adults basically just mate and disperse,” Gunderman said. Ladybirds rely on their fat stores to help them survive the cold Canadian winter, and to ensure those fat stores are full, both the larvae and adult ladybirds are powerful hunters, an oddity in the insect world. They both feed on aphids and soft-bodied insects.

Interestingly, the species of ladybird invading lecture halls right now is not domestic. The Asian ladybird beetle has been established in Canada for around 20 years according to Gunderman. The species was originally brought to the western hemisphere to protect tobacco and soybean plants from aphids that feed on crops.  However their population grew too difficult to control. “They're prolific breeders. They're very aggressive and they've pushed our native species to the sidelines. They're still around, but in lower numbers,” Gunderman said. Asian ladybirds are typically bigger, with larger mandibles that can actually bite a person, unlike their more local relatives.

Gunderman also had an explanation for their appearance. “The swarms that you're seeing late right now is just a pre-hibernation thing,” he said. That said, due to the cooler temperatures prior to last week, the ladybirds were likely already in hibernation. Gunderman explained that when conditions are favourable, the beetles will come out of hibernation to enjoy the warm weather.

However, this premature revival is detrimental to the ladybirds. Gunderman said, “They need to stay chilled over winter because they only have so many fat reserves. If they're active too often, that means they use the body fat and they have less to ride out the winter. If they don't have it, they'll just die.” This explains the inevitable doom of ladybirds who manage to stay inside a house in the winter. Unless the house's plants have aphids, the ladybird will use its fat stores and die of starvation. Gunderman advised the kindest way to treat ladybirds found in the house is to bring them outside.

While it is unusual for ladybirds to be so prevalent so late in the year, their presence is not a sign of the apocalypse. “It's a very common occurrence, this swarming behaviour. Even prior to the Asian ladybird, we'd still have our native species do the same thing. But with more of the Asian ladybirds, we're just seeing it in more noticeable numbers.”

Gunderman predicts that if Ontario experiences a warmer winter, fewer ladybirds will hibernate properly, leading to a reduction in next year's numbers. “Right now we just have a beautiful warm spell in the weather, so insects are going to be active.”

Photo Credit: Jon White/Photo Editor

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McMaster offers a wide range of healthcare services to promote both physical and mental health. However, most students are unaware of some alternatives to traditional medicine.

Dr. Rita Patel has been McMaster’s Naturopathic Doctor for nearly a decade. She provides consultation and care for students who wish to treat their conditions without taking, or exclusively taking, medication.

While naturopathy is not covered by OHIP, the MSU’s medical coverage now extends to natural medicine. “We thought [it] would be a good way for everyone to know that you have these services because I don’t think a lot of students recognize that they have that coverage,” Patel said. According to her, most students entitled to coverage are unaware of their eligibility.

Students make appointments with Dr. Patel for a variety of reasons. “There’s the type that is actually interested in naturopathic medicine, they’ve researched it and looked into it and are interested in getting treated naturally for their concern,” she explained. Other students want to enhance their traditional doctor’s approach to healthcare, while some are unsatisfied by their existing care.

Naturopathy is based on seven main pillars, all of which are meant to improve a person’s overall health and balance. “A lot of students have anxiety, depression, trouble concentrating, insomnia, hypersomnia, headaches, inability to deal with tension or stress, [gastro-intestinal] concerns like diarrhea or irritable bowel syndrome, constipation or an intestinal bowel disease,” Patel explained.

The key difference between naturopathy and traditional medicine is in the approach to treating a condition. Naturopathy focuses on ongoing care and variation in treatment. While a natural pill can “solve” a problem for a short time, Patel explained that the treatments she prescribes “go deeper” and help students living with conditions such as depression and anxiety for a longer period of time. “Naturopathic medicine will help to do that really well,” she said.

Naturopathy is highly personalized, and patients may receive different types of treatment depending on their symptoms. Patel gave the example of students with ADHD. She explained, “Not everyone with ADHD is exactly the same so a lot of it is trying to figure out how this person’s body is coping with this, and then treating accordingly.” Patel added, “For some people, it’s just about making dietary changes, which will help in improving their attention span . . . For other people, it might be a little bit more intense and they might need actual supplements or herbs or further treatment that can help balance the activity in their brains.”

“It’s a different way of looking at your health.”

*This article was written with files from Shalom Joseph.

Photo Credit: Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine

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By: Rachel Katz

Creative writers in the McMaster and Hamilton community will now have an opportunity to develop their skills through one-on-one sessions and writing workshops with McMaster’s Writer in Residence. This year, Hal Niedzviecki will take on the role to assist aspiring writers for a variety of creative projects, both large and small.

To become McMaster’s 2014-2015 Writer in Residence, Niedzviecki went through a lengthy application process.

“I had to… talk about what [I] want to do, and who [I am], and why [I] would fit in. I was honoured to be selected.”

As the Writer in Residence, Niedzviecki will spend the next eight months at McMaster to hone in on his craft.

“It’s a great boost of confidence,” he said. “An opportunity like this, where you get to divide your time between writing, thinking about writing, and talking to other people about writing really helps you focus.”

Niedzviecki is also available to meet one-on-one with members of the McMaster community to give input on their creative writing.

“I see my job on campus as being able to foster creativity and those things that have no place in the classroom."

He is also available to discuss photography, painting, or any creative medium that falls outside the area of standard essay writing.

To get people into the creative spirit, Niedzviecki will be hosting four sessions over the lunch hour, the first of which is Oct. 20. Each session will be about learning how to think about the world in a creative way, with the first focusing on how to tap into one’s creative side.

“I don’t think there’s one type of person who’s a writer, I think we all have the capacity to… find some way to articulate creatively what we see out in the world,” he said. By leading creative writing exercises, he hopes to help both experienced writers and novices to improve their skills.

In Nedzievski’s eyes, the three most important skills for a writer to have are virtually the same as those required for “good” writing.

“I’ve read stuff that’s not well written, but it’s really gripping and fascinating and powerful because it really is a powerful articulation of what the person is trying to say…. The only real step to writing is to be true to what you want to say and pursue that until you’ve said what you want to say.”

Niedzviecki believes there is no point at which one becomes a seasoned writer.

“There’s no moment when I said, ‘now I’ve got this,’” he said. “It’s not about winning an award or selling a lot of books or receiving acclamation from society. For me it’s the battle with the word, it’s a personal wrestling match you never win.”

When asked to give a piece of advice to writers hoping to improve their skills, Niedzviecki said, “Don’t worry about what other people are thinking about your work or you. Don’t worry about the judgments swirling around you or anyone who [questions] you. Just write. Just try to find that place inside you where it all comes out on the page.”

Despite having only begun his residency, there is no doubt that Hal Niedzviecki has already brought a high degree of enthusiasm and a great deal of wisdom to McMaster. Between leading workshops and meeting privately with the university community, he will help to bring creative thinking and writing to McMaster.

McMaster staff and students can now print anything from a Pokemon figurine to a petroleum molecule. Thanks to an endowment from the Student Life Enhancement Fund, the Lyons New Media Centre now owns a 3D printer.

According to Rhonda Moore, manager of the LNMC, this is not the first 3D printer on the McMaster campus; however it is the first one available for any student or staff member to use.

“Since it was funded through the SLEF,” Moore says, “it is free…until we use up all of the filament, which we are unlikely to run out of for a few years.”

It is unclear what the cost of a print job will be once this period of free use ends.

There are two options for printing files. Staff and students can create their own virtual “pattern” using Blender, a type of 3D software available in the media centre, or they can download a premade file from an online catalog. Moore says any files downloaded from an online collection such as Thingiverse are not considered to have violated any copyright laws since the files were publicly shared online for others to use.

Moore also shared the two main issues the media centre has encountered since the 3D printer opened. Some submitted files have been too big for the printer and staff have had to use 3D software to scale them down.

“We’ve also noticed that people aren’t aware of how long it takes to do a print job,” Moore said. “So something that looks fairly small can still take in excess of several hours to print.”

According to the LNMC website, print jobs over six hours will require special evaluation to determine whether they can be printed.

A complete walkthrough of the printing process is available on the McMaster library website, along with information about the filament colour, which will change on a monthly basis.

“So far people have been sending fun little experiments,” Moore said. Fortunately the Lyons staff have not had to contend with people wanting to print objects deemed inappropriate.

“We do have limitations… basically anything that is a weapon, looks like a weapon, or is part of a weapon we will not print.” Moore and the LNMC staff are firm about this policy.

Moore says that every file submitted to the media centre is reviewed by staff, and the printer itself is constantly monitored.

“If there’s something that we think is inappropriate, we email the person and tell them that,” she said.

The buzz around the new 3D printer isn’t going to die down any time soon, and while the project is still in a trial-and-error phase, nothing beats a free Darth Vader pen holder.

On Sept. 26, Thom Yorke – frontman for Radiohead – released his new album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes. Unlike with his previous work, Yorke opted to release the record using BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing service.

“If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work,” Yorke said in an interview with NME. The album costs $6.

While the idea of “bypassing the self-elected gatekeepers” of the music industry seems noble, Yorke appears to be attempting to catch up to the bandwagon of unconventional music releases that have become increasingly common over the last decade.

In 1999, Blur’s Damon Albarn began to work with visual artist Jamie Hewlett. They created Gorillaz, a fictional band that produced real music. The duo created a world for the “band” and with the help of an ever-changing group of collaborators, released four full-length albums that crossed multiple genres, from pop, to trip hop, to dub. The band has also appeared at festivals and gone on tour, sometimes with holographic projections of the fictional members, and other times with the “real world” collaborators. Over their 15-year career, Gorillaz has challenged our perceptions of both genre and how music is made.

Similarly, in 2012, Beck came out with Song Reader, an album only available as sheet music. Beck’s goal with Song Reader was to encourage people to create their own versions of his songs. The corners of every sheet of music are covered in bonus notes and fragments of other melodies, paying homage to sheet music from the days before radio, when the majority of pop music had to be accessible to amateur musicians. With Song Reader, Beck produced an artifact that is both a throwback to times gone by and a door to the future of music.

Now throw Modern Boxes into the mix. Creating a pay gate to download the album from a service most people use to obtain files for free is counterintuitive, making Yorke look out of touch. Moreover, he cannot claim to have pioneered the BitTorrent release, as Hundred Waters and Willis Earl Beal have both gone this route.

Music has been available online for years now, in both paid for and pirated venues, and while his intentions may have been revolutionary, Thom Yorke’s album is not. Yes, there should be a better way to encourage people to pay for music digitally, but his method is not the answer.