Session 8: Getting Intimate with Insects

A radical change of topic brought us to ideas about insects, though without entirely leaving behind the previous topic of sex. Andrew Nikiforuk began the session with the claim that small things can turn your world upside down, and all three speakers brought that fact home with their amazing revelations about the world of insects. Nikiforuk told the story of 30 billion trees lost to the Bark Beetle infestation. Normally these bugs die off in cold snaps, but climate change has altered that dramatically. But the major story that comes out of this involves bad resource management and the human responses that showed a lack of understanding of the processes of nature.

Marlene Zuk studies insect sex, and promised us that after hearing about it we would find sex among humans to be somewhat pedestrian. Insects, she claimed, break all the rules. Zuk outlined and corrected several common errors that humans make about insects, and argued that misunderstanding insects causes us to miss out on all the possibilities that insect life might otherwise suggest for human life. Because there is so much more that is natural in the world of insects than what humans consider normal, they allow us to see how life might be otherwise.

Jiri Hulcr worried that the previous two speakers may have creeped the audience out, where he thinks we need more of these tiny organisms. Hulcr suggested that we are facing an immense biodiversity crisis, one where we sadly can’t even remember what life forms used to live around us, and the solution is to get to know these organisms more intimately. One innovative way to accomplish this goal involves what Hulcr calls ‘citizen scientists’, where ordinary people get to learn about the natural world while scientists get help collecting data and funding – a true symbiotic relationship. Moses pressed Hulcr on his  research into what lives in our navels, however, and we learned that there are over 100 species of bacteria in our bellybuttons, and that another way Hulcr and his colleagues might fund their projects is to sell off naming rights to newly discovered species, whether inside our bellybuttons or out.

To end this exciting day, the audience was treated to not one but two amazing musical performances. Carlos del Junco played some fine blues harp, followed by jazz pianist Michael Kaeshammer bringing down the house with his varied musical talents, using his fingers, hands and feet. Standing ovation!