John, Isabella, Rose (my sister) and I are going camping in the Arizona desert in the near future. John has spent a bunch of time in Arizona in the pa
st and has been educating me on some of the quirks (i.e. scary things) of the area. One lovely reality of Arizona is scorpions. They aren't aggressive but will sometimes crawl into your sleeping bags and then bite you when you crawl in (simply because they are getting squished). John told me that were were basically 2 types of scorpions - one that has a pretty minor bite (like a bee sting) and one that has a more serious bite where venonm is injected. Apparenly bites from the second kind of scorpion are pretty painful and will make you swell up, but won't kill you. I asked if the venonm is a neurotoxin and he said "probably" at which point I said "Hmm... even if it doesn't kill me, I wonder what such a neurotoxin would do to our unborn child." John got a concerned look, and furiously started searching the web 
on his iPhone. After reading a number of articles about scorpion and snake bites (there are rattlesnakes in the AZ desert too), he discovered that 1. venonm is very bad for pregnant ladies and 2. scorpions glow brightly under blacklight. So john decided we should get a little blacklight wand, and was lucky enough to stumble on something better - a blacklight headlamp! Interestingly, the first item listed under the Product Features for this headlamp is "Scorpion detection"!!! So we have one on the way and will be sweeping the campsite for glowing scorpions every night before bed. The pic to the right shows how brightly scorpions glow when under UV (black) light. You can buy your own here - Blacklight Headlamp.
st and has been educating me on some of the quirks (i.e. scary things) of the area. One lovely reality of Arizona is scorpions. They aren't aggressive but will sometimes crawl into your sleeping bags and then bite you when you crawl in (simply because they are getting squished). John told me that were were basically 2 types of scorpions - one that has a pretty minor bite (like a bee sting) and one that has a more serious bite where venonm is injected. Apparenly bites from the second kind of scorpion are pretty painful and will make you swell up, but won't kill you. I asked if the venonm is a neurotoxin and he said "probably" at which point I said "Hmm... even if it doesn't kill me, I wonder what such a neurotoxin would do to our unborn child." John got a concerned look, and furiously started searching the web 
on his iPhone. After reading a number of articles about scorpion and snake bites (there are rattlesnakes in the AZ desert too), he discovered that 1. venonm is very bad for pregnant ladies and 2. scorpions glow brightly under blacklight. So john decided we should get a little blacklight wand, and was lucky enough to stumble on something better - a blacklight headlamp! Interestingly, the first item listed under the Product Features for this headlamp is "Scorpion detection"!!! So we have one on the way and will be sweeping the campsite for glowing scorpions every night before bed. The pic to the right shows how brightly scorpions glow when under UV (black) light. You can buy your own here - Blacklight Headlamp.
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