For your science geeks out there (and I'm one of them) I started a new section on the Kids area of Starwars.com called Real Life Star Wars that goes more in depth on the real-life science behind Star Wars creatures, vehicles, locations and more. I also wanted to show how biology, space technology, robotics, and other fields of science are influenced by the saga.

For the latest article in the series I interviewied the Head of the Department of Entomology at the Natural History Museum of London, Dr. Quentin D. Wheeler who honored the Dark Lord of the Sith by naming his discovered beetle Agathidium vaderi after Darth Vader himself.

"I was doing field work in the southern Appalachian Mountains in the 1980s when the initial impact of the original trilogy was felt," Wheeler explains. "The shape and texture of the head reminded me of Darth Vader's helmet and the connection seemed obvious. The head of Agathidium vaderi is very broad, smooth and shiny and the eyes are reduced to mere slits on the front of the head, so small and narrow they are not even visible from above. It was this unusual form of the head that suggested a comparison with Vader's helmet."

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Dark Beetle of the Sith