Big Picture Science - The Pest of Us
ENCORE: Picture a cockroach skittering across your
kitchen. Eeww! Now imagine it served as an entrée at your local restaurant.
There’s good reason these diminutive arthropods give us the willies – but they
may also be the key to protein-rich meals of the future. Get ready for cricket
casserole, as our relationship to bugs is about to change.
Also, share in one man’s panic attack when he is
swarmed by grasshoppers. And the evolutionary reason insects revolt us, but
also why the cicada’s buzz and the beetle’s click may have inspired humans to
make music.
Plus, the history of urban pests: why roaches
love to hide out between your floorboards. And Molly adopts a boxful of
mealworms.
Guests:
•
Jeffrey Lockwood –
Professor of natural sciences and humanities, University of Wyoming, author of
The Infested Mind: Why Humans Fear, Loathe, and Love
Insects
•
David Rothenberg –
Musician, author of
Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise
•
Dawn Day Biehler –
Assistant professor of geography and environmental studies, University of
Maryland, Baltimore county, author of
Pests in the City: Flies, Bedbugs, Cockroaches, and Rats
(Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)
•
Andrew Brentano, Jena
Brentano and Daniel Imrie-Situnayake – Co-founders,
Tiny
Farms, Berkeley, California
This encore podcast was first released on January 27, 2014.
Download episode at:
http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/The_Pest_of_Us
You
can listen to this and other episodes at
http://bigpicturescience.org/, and
be sure to check out
Blog Picture Science,
the companion blog to the radio show.