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So, people are more afraid of insects
than they are of dying.

2
00:00:06,809 --> 00:00:08,587
(Laughter)

3
00:00:08,611 --> 00:00:13,119
At least, according to a 1973
"Book of Lists" survey

4
00:00:13,143 --> 00:00:20,143
which preceded all those online best,
worst, funniest lists that you see today.

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Only heights and public speaking

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00:00:23,829 --> 00:00:27,365
exceeded the six-legged
as sources of fear.

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And I suspect if you had put
spiders in there,

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the combinations of insects and spiders
would have just topped the chart.

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Now, I am not one of those people.

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I really love insects.

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I think they're interesting and beautiful,

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and sometimes even cute.

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(Laughter)

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And I'm not alone.

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For centuries, some
of the greatest minds in science,

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from Charles Darwin to E.O. Wilson,

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have drawn inspiration from studying
some of the smallest minds on Earth.

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Well, why is that?

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What is that keeps us
coming back to insects?

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Some of it, of course, is just the sheer
magnitude of almost everything about them.

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They're more numerous
than any other kind of animal.

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We don't even know how many species
of insects there are,

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because new ones
are being discovered all the time.

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There are at least a million,
maybe as many as 10 million.

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This means that you could have
an insect-of-the-month calendar

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and not have to reuse a species
for over 80,000 years.

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(Laughter)

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Take that, pandas and kittens!

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(Laughter)

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More seriously, insects are essential.

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We need them.

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It's been estimated
that 1 out of every 3 bites of food

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is made possible by a pollinator.

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Scientist use insects to make fundamental
discoveries

35
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about everything from the structure
of our nervous systems

36
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to how our genes and DNA work.

37
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But what I love most about insects

38
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is what they can tell us
about our own behavior.

39
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Insects seem like they do
everything that people do.

40
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They meet, they mate,
they fight, they break up.

41
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And they do so with what looks
like love or animosity.

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But what drives their behaviors is really
different than what drives our own,

43
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and that difference
can be really illuminating.

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There's nowhere where that's more true

45
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than when it comes to one
of our most consuming interests -- sex.

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Now, I will maintain.
and I think I can defend,

47
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what may seem like a surprising statement.

48
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I think sex in insects is more
interesting than sex in people.

49
00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:46,107
(Laughter)

50
00:02:46,131 --> 00:02:49,270
And the wild variety that we see

51
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makes us challenge
some of our own assumptions

52
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about what it means to be male and female.

53
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Of course, to start with,

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a lot of insects don't need
to have sex at all to reproduce.

55
00:03:00,319 --> 00:03:04,749
Female aphids can make little, tiny clones
of themselves without ever mating.

56
00:03:05,441 --> 00:03:06,914
Virgin birth, right there.

57
00:03:06,938 --> 00:03:08,226
On your rose bushes.

58
00:03:08,250 --> 00:03:11,446
(Laughter)

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When they do have sex,

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even their sperm is more
interesting than human sperm.

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There are some kinds of fruit flies

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whose sperm is longer
than the male's own body.

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And that's important because the males
use their sperm to compete.

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Now, male insects do compete with weapons,
like the horns on these beetles.

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But they also compete
after mating with their sperm.

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Dragonflies and damselflies have penises
that look kind of like Swiss Army knives

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with all of the attachments pulled out.

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(Laughter)

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They use these formidable devices
like scoops,

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to remove the sperm from previous males
that the female has mated with.

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(Laughter)

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So, what can we learn from this?

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(Laughter)

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All right, it is not a lesson in the sense
of us imitating them

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or of them setting
an example for us to follow.

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Which, given this,
is probably just as well.

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And also, did I mention sexual cannibalism
is rampant among insects?

78
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So, no, that's not the point.

79
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But what I think insects do,

80
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is break a lot of the rules
that we humans have about the sex roles.

81
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So, people have this idea that nature
dictates kind of a 1950s sitcom version

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of what males and females are like.

83
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So that males are always
supposed to be dominant and aggressive,

84
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and females are passive and coy.

85
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But that's just not the case.

86
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So for example, take katydids,

87
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which are relatives of crickets
and grasshoppers.

88
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The males are very picky
about who they mate with,

89
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because they not only transfer
sperm during mating,

90
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they also give the female
something called a nuptial gift.

91
00:05:02,798 --> 00:05:06,475
You can see two katydids
mating in these photos.

92
00:05:06,499 --> 00:05:08,819
In both panels,
the male's the one on the right,

93
00:05:08,843 --> 00:05:12,423
and that sword-like appendage
is the female's egg-laying organ.

94
00:05:13,126 --> 00:05:15,653
The white blob is the sperm,

95
00:05:15,677 --> 00:05:19,063
the green blob is the nuptial gift,

96
00:05:19,087 --> 00:05:22,453
and the male manufactures
this from his own body

97
00:05:22,477 --> 00:05:24,655
and it's extremely costly to produce.

98
00:05:24,679 --> 00:05:27,387
It can weigh up to a third
of his body mass.

99
00:05:27,985 --> 00:05:30,519
I will now pause for a moment
and let you think about

100
00:05:30,543 --> 00:05:34,706
what it would be like if human men,
every time they had sex,

101
00:05:34,730 --> 00:05:40,777
had to produce something
that weighed 50, 60, 70 pounds.

102
00:05:40,801 --> 00:05:44,408
(Laughter)

103
00:05:44,432 --> 00:05:47,671
Okay, they would not be able
to do that very often.

104
00:05:47,695 --> 00:05:49,192
(Laughter)

105
00:05:49,216 --> 00:05:51,617
And indeed, neither can the katydids.

106
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And so what that means

107
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is the katydid males are very choosy

108
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about who they offer
these nuptial gifts to.

109
00:06:01,215 --> 00:06:03,141
Now, the gift is very nutritious,

110
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and the female eats it
during and after mating.

111
00:06:05,883 --> 00:06:08,240
So, the bigger it is,
the better off the male is,

112
00:06:08,264 --> 00:06:10,440
because that means more time for his sperm

113
00:06:10,464 --> 00:06:12,912
to drain into her body
and fertilize her eggs.

114
00:06:13,521 --> 00:06:17,871
But it also means that the males
are very passive about mating,

115
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whereas the females
are extremely aggressive and competitive,

116
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in an attempt to get as many of these
nutritious nuptial gifts as they can.

117
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So, it's not exactly
a stereotypical set of rules.

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Even more generally though,

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00:06:32,709 --> 00:06:37,773
males are actually not all that important
in the lives of a lot of insects.

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In the social insects --
the bees and wasps and ants --

121
00:06:42,250 --> 00:06:44,845
the individuals that you see every day --

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00:06:44,869 --> 00:06:47,314
the ants going back and forth
to your sugar bowl,

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00:06:47,338 --> 00:06:50,347
the honey bees that are flitting
from flower to flower --

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all of those are always female.

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People have had a hard time getting
their head around that idea for millennia.

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The ancient Greeks knew that there was
a class of bees, the drones,

127
00:07:03,022 --> 00:07:05,073
that are larger than the workers,

128
00:07:05,097 --> 00:07:07,667
although they disapproved
of the drones' laziness

129
00:07:07,691 --> 00:07:10,746
because they could see that
the drones just hang around the hive

130
00:07:10,770 --> 00:07:12,295
until the mating flight --

131
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they're the males.

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They hang around until the mating flight,

133
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but they don't participate
in gathering nectar or pollen.

134
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The Greeks couldn't figure out
the drones' sex,

135
00:07:20,676 --> 00:07:25,243
and part of the confusion was that they
were aware of the stinging ability of bees

136
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but they found it difficult to believe

137
00:07:28,148 --> 00:07:31,395
that any animals that bore such a weapon
could possibly be a female.

138
00:07:31,705 --> 00:07:34,715
Aristotle tried to get involved as well.

139
00:07:34,739 --> 00:07:39,327
He suggested, "OK, if the stinging
individuals are going to be the males ..."

140
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Then he got confused,
because that would have meant

141
00:07:41,841 --> 00:07:44,570
the males were also taking care
of the young in a colony,

142
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and he seemed to think
that would be completely impossible.

143
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He then concluded that maybe
bees had the organs of both sexes

144
00:07:52,099 --> 00:07:53,250
in the same individual,

145
00:07:53,274 --> 00:07:55,843
which is not that far-fetched,
some animals do that,

146
00:07:55,867 --> 00:07:58,120
but he never really
did get it figured out.

147
00:07:58,744 --> 00:08:02,530
And you know, even today,
my students, for instance,

148
00:08:02,554 --> 00:08:07,245
call every animal they see,
including insects, a male.

149
00:08:07,585 --> 00:08:11,121
And when I tell them
that the ferocious army-ant soldiers

150
00:08:11,145 --> 00:08:14,078
with their giant jaws,
used to defend the colony,

151
00:08:14,102 --> 00:08:17,204
are all always female,

152
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they seem to not quite believe me.

153
00:08:19,586 --> 00:08:20,731
(Laughter)

154
00:08:20,755 --> 00:08:25,955
And certainly all of the movies --
Antz, Bee Movie --

155
00:08:25,979 --> 00:08:31,834
portray the main character
in the social insects as being male.

156
00:08:32,869 --> 00:08:34,673
Well, what difference does this make?

157
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These are movies. They're fiction.

158
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They have talking animals in them.

159
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What difference does it make
if they talk like Jerry Seinfeld?

160
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I think it does matter,

161
00:08:43,896 --> 00:08:46,760
and it's a problem that actually
is part of a much deeper one

162
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that has implications
for medicine and health

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00:08:50,937 --> 00:08:53,571
and a lot of other aspects of our lives.

164
00:08:53,595 --> 00:08:57,088
You all know that scientists
use what we call model systems,

165
00:08:57,112 --> 00:09:00,473
which are creatures --
white rats or fruit flies --

166
00:09:00,497 --> 00:09:05,051
that are kind of stand-ins
for all other animals, including people.

167
00:09:05,075 --> 00:09:08,019
And the idea is
that what's true for a person

168
00:09:08,043 --> 00:09:10,454
will also be true for the white rat.

169
00:09:10,478 --> 00:09:13,458
And by and large,
that turns out to be the case.

170
00:09:13,482 --> 00:09:17,243
But you can take the idea
of a model system too far.

171
00:09:17,924 --> 00:09:20,193
And what I think we've done,

172
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is use males, in any species,
as though they are the model system.

173
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The norm.

174
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The way things are supposed to be.

175
00:09:29,510 --> 00:09:32,559
And females as a kind of variant --

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something special that you only study
after you get the basics down.

177
00:09:37,802 --> 00:09:40,485
And so, back to the insects.

178
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I think what that means

179
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is that people just couldn't see
what was in front of them.

180
00:09:44,724 --> 00:09:51,160
Because they assumed that the world's
stage was largely occupied by male players

181
00:09:51,184 --> 00:09:55,036
and females would only have
minor, walk-on roles.

182
00:09:55,626 --> 00:10:01,065
But when we do that, we really miss out
on a lot of what nature is like.

183
00:10:01,588 --> 00:10:08,587
And we can also miss out on the way
natural, living things, including people,

184
00:10:08,611 --> 00:10:10,001
can vary.

185
00:10:10,025 --> 00:10:15,100
And I think that's why we've used males
as models in a lot of medical research,

186
00:10:15,124 --> 00:10:17,189
something that we know now to be a problem

187
00:10:17,213 --> 00:10:21,610
if we want the results to apply
to both men and women.

188
00:10:22,760 --> 00:10:25,287
Well, the last thing
I really love about insects

189
00:10:25,311 --> 00:10:28,572
is something that a lot of people
find unnerving about them.

190
00:10:28,596 --> 00:10:30,363
They have little, tiny brains

191
00:10:30,387 --> 00:10:33,780
with very little cognitive ability,
the way we normally think of it.

192
00:10:34,398 --> 00:10:39,074
They have complicated behavior,
but they lack complicated brains.

193
00:10:39,860 --> 00:10:45,037
And so, we can't just think of them
as though they're little people

194
00:10:45,061 --> 00:10:48,606
because they don't do things
the way that we do.

195
00:10:48,630 --> 00:10:52,730
I really love that it's difficult
to anthropomorphize insects,

196
00:10:52,754 --> 00:10:56,277
to look at them and just think of them
like they're little people

197
00:10:56,301 --> 00:10:58,439
in exoskeletons, with six legs.

198
00:10:58,927 --> 00:11:00,188
(Laughter)

199
00:11:00,212 --> 00:11:03,757
Instead, you really have to accept them
on their own terms,

200
00:11:03,781 --> 00:11:08,914
because insects make us question
what's normal and what's natural.

201
00:11:09,527 --> 00:11:14,160
Now, you know, people write fiction
and talk about parallel universes.

202
00:11:14,184 --> 00:11:17,482
They speculate about the supernatural,

203
00:11:17,506 --> 00:11:20,939
maybe the spirits of the departed
walking among us.

204
00:11:22,537 --> 00:11:25,733
The allure of another world

205
00:11:25,757 --> 00:11:31,911
is something that people say is part of
why they want to dabble in the paranormal.

206
00:11:32,376 --> 00:11:34,665
But as far as I'm concerned,

207
00:11:34,689 --> 00:11:36,858
who needs to be able to see dead people,

208
00:11:36,882 --> 00:11:38,560
when you can see live insects?

209
00:11:39,262 --> 00:11:40,424
Thank you.

210
00:11:40,448 --> 00:11:44,931
(Applause)