Oracle Parallel Processing

Colophon

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The illustration on the cover of Oracle Parallel Processing is a wasp and a wasp nest. The paper wasp (Polistes fuscatus aurifer and Polistes apachus) is the most common of the social wasps. As their name implies, paper wasps make their nests out of paper, or rather, chewed wood and plant particles combined with saliva to make a paper-like paste. Wasp nests are usually the size of a person’s outstretched palm and are shaped like an umbrella. They hang under building eaves, roofs, and tree branches and are constructed with multiple tiers of vertical cells. A single nest houses anywhere from 15-200 wasps.

Paper wasps are social insects, indicated both by their caste system (made up of one or more queens, a few drones, and many workers) and by their food sharing. Drinking only liquids (either flower nectar or other insects’ blood), adult wasps share their food with the young by regurgitating it. The young then produce a saliva that is 50 times more nutritious than the original nectar. Adults complete the cycle by receiving that saliva from the young.

Female wasps are capable of inflicting a painful sting on humans, causing swelling and redness for a few hours. However, 3% of people may go into anaphylaxis from a sting. This life-threatening ...