It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Weekend

摘要

As the sun sets on Virginia's Great Falls Park, Art Evans puts the finishing touches on a bug-catching contraption he's rigged near the edge of the woods. He repositions a tripod, fiddles with the flickering blue lantern light mounted on top and adjusts a white sheet hanging behind. Evans is building a black-light trap, an essential tool for his role in a weekend-long "bioblitz" of Potomac Gorge. The intensive scientific treasure hunt—involving 18 teams of scientists and nature lovers and covering 15 miles of the Potomac River valley just outside Washington, D.C.— doesn't begin until tomorrow, but Evans is getting a jump on the action. If the rain holds off, in a few hours his white sheet should be crawling with beetles of all shapes and sizes.