Dr Keith Walker @SteelFolk@social.cleverlibre.org

@sciencebase I see ones like this one, but I don't know what it is nor if it is parasitic. Their white deely bopper antennae are somehow comical, always clean despite they seem to live in the soil.

@sciencebase This guy had some big green caterpillars that had been infected by a wasp, so its grubs ate through their skins. And
he made super 8 film of it to show us. It was horrible for a mixed class of 12 year olds.

@sciencebase He had a lot of those white ermines in what looked like a fish tank. He had breed them somehow. He had locusts in another one. We had him down as a nutter and his teaching was Victorian. I remember him blushing when Sharon Clark asked "Have the males got pricks, then, if the females have a fanny?".

@sciencebase It seems to be but I didn't realise that nearly all motherflies were like it. Did it at school, and he was talking about ermines, so we thought they were special in that regard.

@sciencebase Does Ditrysian mean what I said?

@sciencebase I understand that the females have one for shagging and another one for laying eggs, for which there is a word which is damn hard to google. Is that right?

@alx @academicchatter @phdstudents My one was really about looking for solutions and I was restless and anxious about whether any of them showed any promise towards solving the problem. Bit weird I suppose!

@freemo They look as if they are to keep the rain off the gun. If you had one here, it would be something to consider!

@freemo Not in the UK, but I see cops with ones which have a button-down flap over it in Europe. Is that not a type you can have?

@sciencebase It's pissing with rain here and they are all indoors.

@drewfer @freemo Yes, cartridge brass (aka 70/30 or alpha) is great for forming into tubes but isn't very strong.

@freemo @drewfer I can see that you'd feel silly if the barrel got wider after a few shots, the gases got past it and the bullet just plopped out onto the floor.

@freemo @drewfer Oh, the brass bit? I read that barrels on big ship guns suffered from fatigue to due to hoop stress and didn't last long so I though it might be about something similar.

@drewfer @freemo I'm interested to know what the metallurgy is about here. Do you have a link to something?