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Watch the short video to get a feel for how a soft tick moves.

Found on Leo the cat, Autumn, 2016, Leinster, Ireland. Lodged in skin below the left ear. Removed by pinching it out with fingers.

An engorged common tick - Ireland. Identification: mouth parts, eight legs, adult soft-bodied.
(the centre mouth part is called the hypostome; the bit that goes into the skin and anchors the tick to its host)

(the first attempt to hold the cat down so that we could remove the tick with tweezers was pretty stressful - mainly for the cat who didn't like being kept still while tweezers approached his cheek).

Taxonomy: Worldwide there are over 850 different types of tick. Ticks belong to family Ixodidae, the group of subspecies of suborder Metastigmata, order Anactinotrichidea (= Parasitoformes), Ixodida (= Metastigmata) Acarina of subclass Acari, class Ararchnide, phylum Arthropoda (Encyclopaedia Britannica; CVBD, 2016).

Lifecycle: The tick attaches to its host and has a blood meal after which it detaches. Adult ticks mate on their host. Engorged females drop to the ground from the host, find a site to nest and lay eggs in a batch before dying. Hatched tick larvae start life with six legs (hexapod form). The larvae climb to the tops of nearby grass/plants and wait to hitch onto hosts that pass by, usually mammals. Like the adult form larvae gorge on the host's blood before dropping to the ground and moulting to transform into eight legged nymphs (octapod form). Nymphs repeat a number of cycles of host attachment, blood meal, detaching and moulting before reaching adulthood.

"Soft ticks differ from hard ticks by feeding intermittently, laying several batches of eggs, passing through several nymphal stages, and carrying on their developmental cycles in the home or nest of the host rather than in fields." (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Tick-borne diseases: Ticks damage their hosts by transmitting diseases. Tick-borne diseases include Lyme disease (borreliosis), Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, ehrlichiosis, reapsing fever, Colorado tick fever, babesiosis, spirochetal relapsing fever, rickettsial infections. Tick-borne diseases in Australia include "spotted fever group rickettsiae (Queensland tick typhus and Flinders Island spotted fever) and Q fever." (Lowbridge et al, 2011)

Hard ticks differ from soft ticks in that they secrete neurotoxins into the blood of the host.

"Tick paralysis, caused by a toxin found in the saliva of I. holocyclus, is a frequent cause of paralysis and death in animals and although rare today, had been fatal in humans before the development of an antivenene." (Lowbridge et al, 2011)

The hard tick Ixodes ricinus (see fact sheet at ECDC) has been identified as a vector (transmission agent) for the spiral shaped (spirochete) bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi (see Ireland HSE page).

Mindstorms NXT Gen (not EVO) environment doesn't load on Mac OS X 10 and above.

(solution via Barbara Bratzel's Mindstorms page | link)

Newer versions of Mac OS block Flash, so we hide (by renaming) the folders with the Flash content so they don't load.

Locating available NXT Firmware updates?
V1.31.rfw from github | link
Use the "Update NXT Firmware" dialog. Select "Available Firmware Files: " and locate the folder where you stored the "LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Firmware V1.31.rfw" file.
It should now appear in the list of available firmware files to download to your nxt.

Another older problem
Lego Mindstorms NXT brick won't flash after trying to reset. This problem caught me out for a while, finally sorted out with the help of these two posts.

The culprit

Working at last

The guilty section of my oem12.inf...

[Strings]

DriverPackageDisplayName="Arduino USB Driver"

ManufacturerName="Arduino Srl (www.arduino.org)"

ServiceName="USB RS-232 Emulation Driver"

due.bossa.name="Bossa Program Port"

due.programming_port.name="Arduino Due Programming Port"

due.sketch.name="Arduino Due"

esplora.bootloader.name="Arduino Esplora bootloader"

esplora.sketch.name="Arduino Esplora"

leonardo.bootloader.name="Arduino Leonardo bootloader"

leonardo.sketch.name="Arduino Leonardo"

leonardoeth.bootloader.name="Arduino Leonardo ETH bootloader"

leonardoeth.sketch.name="Arduino Leonardo ETH"

lilypadUSB.bootloader.name="Arduino LilyPad USB bootloader"

lilypadUSB.sketch.name="Arduino LilyPad USB"

mega2560.name="Arduino Mega 2560"

mega2560rev3.name="Arduino Mega 2560"

megaADK.name="Arduino Mega ADK"

megaADKrev3.name="Arduino Mega ADK"

micro.bootloader.name="Arduino Micro bootloader"

micro.sketch.name="Arduino Micro"

unoR3.name="Arduino Uno"

usbserial.name="Arduino USB Serial Light Adapter"

robotControl.bootloader.name="Arduino Robot Control bootloader"

robotControl.sketch.name="Arduino Robot"

robotMotor.bootloader.name="Arduino Robot Motor bootloader"

robotMotor.sketch.name="Arduino Robot"

yun.bootloader.name="Arduino Yun bootloader"

yun.sketch.name="Arduino Yun"

yunmini.bootloader.name="Arduino Yun Mini bootloader"

yunmini.sketch.name="Arduino Yun Mini"

zero_pro.edbg.name="Atmel Corp. EDBG USB Port"

zero_pro.usbport.name="Arduino Zero PRO Native Port"

zero_pro_boot.usbport.name="Arduino Zero PRO (Bootloader Mode) Native Port"

microADK.bootloader.name="Arduino Micro ADK bootloader"

microADK.sketch.name="Arduino Micro ADK"

[DefaultInstall]

CopyINF=arduino-org.inf

[Version]

Class=Ports

ClassGuid={4D36E978-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Signature="$Windows NT$"

Provider=%ManufacturerName%

DriverPackageDisplayName=%DriverPackageDisplayName%

CatalogFile=arduino-org.cat

DriverVer=03/19/2015,1.1.1.0

[Manufacturer]

%ManufacturerName%=DeviceList, NTamd64, NTia64

[DestinationDirs]

FakeModemCopyFileSection=12

DefaultDestDir=12

[DeviceList]

%due.bossa.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_03EB&PID_6124

%due.programming_port.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_003D

%due.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_003E&MI_00

%esplora.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_003C

%esplora.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_803C&MI_00

%leonardo.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0036

%leonardo.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_8036&MI_00

%leonardoeth.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0040

%leonardoeth.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_8040&MI_00

%lilypadUSB.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_1B4F&PID_9207

%lilypadUSB.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_1B4F&PID_9208&MI_00

%mega2560rev3.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0042

%mega2560.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0010

%megaADK.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_002F

%megaADKrev3.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0044

%micro.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0037

%micro.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_8037&MI_00

%unoR3.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0043

%usbserial.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_003B

%robotControl.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0038

%robotControl.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_8038&MI_00

%robotMotor.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0039

%robotMotor.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_8039&MI_00

%yun.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0041

%yun.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_8041&MI_00

%yunmini.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_0050

%yunmini.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_8050&MI_00

%zero_pro.edbg.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_03EB&PID_2111&MI_01

%zero_pro.usbport.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_804D

%zero_pro_boot.usbport.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_004D

%microADK.bootloader.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_003A

%microADK.sketch.name%=DriverInstall, USB\VID_2A03&PID_803A&MI_00

[DeviceList.NTamd64]