WEBVTT 00:00:01.793 --> 00:00:06.785 So, people are more afraid of insects than they are of dying. 00:00:06.809 --> 00:00:08.587 (Laughter) 00:00:08.611 --> 00:00:13.119 At least, according to a 1973 "Book of Lists" survey 00:00:13.143 --> 00:00:20.143 which preceded all those online best, worst, funniest lists that you see today. 00:00:20.167 --> 00:00:23.805 Only heights and public speaking 00:00:23.829 --> 00:00:27.365 exceeded the six-legged as sources of fear. 00:00:27.884 --> 00:00:31.436 And I suspect if you had put spiders in there, 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:35.989 the combinations of insects and spiders would have just topped the chart. 00:00:36.736 --> 00:00:38.839 Now, I am not one of those people. 00:00:38.863 --> 00:00:41.009 I really love insects. 00:00:41.033 --> 00:00:45.084 I think they're interesting and beautiful, 00:00:45.108 --> 00:00:46.596 and sometimes even cute. 00:00:46.620 --> 00:00:48.087 (Laughter) 00:00:48.111 --> 00:00:49.479 And I'm not alone. 00:00:49.503 --> 00:00:53.209 For centuries, some of the greatest minds in science, 00:00:53.233 --> 00:00:56.245 from Charles Darwin to E.O. Wilson, 00:00:56.269 --> 00:01:01.550 have drawn inspiration from studying some of the smallest minds on Earth. 00:01:02.661 --> 00:01:04.362 Well, why is that? 00:01:04.386 --> 00:01:07.431 What is that keeps us coming back to insects? 00:01:08.055 --> 00:01:12.654 Some of it, of course, is just the sheer magnitude of almost everything about them. 00:01:12.678 --> 00:01:15.665 They're more numerous than any other kind of animal. 00:01:15.689 --> 00:01:18.513 We don't even know how many species of insects there are, 00:01:18.537 --> 00:01:21.254 because new ones are being discovered all the time. 00:01:21.278 --> 00:01:24.903 There are at least a million, maybe as many as 10 million. 00:01:25.221 --> 00:01:29.485 This means that you could have an insect-of-the-month calendar 00:01:29.509 --> 00:01:33.494 and not have to reuse a species for over 80,000 years. 00:01:33.518 --> 00:01:36.418 (Laughter) 00:01:36.442 --> 00:01:38.130 Take that, pandas and kittens! 00:01:38.154 --> 00:01:40.482 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:01:40.506 --> 00:01:43.974 More seriously, insects are essential. 00:01:43.998 --> 00:01:45.445 We need them. 00:01:45.469 --> 00:01:48.869 It's been estimated that 1 out of every 3 bites of food 00:01:48.893 --> 00:01:51.567 is made possible by a pollinator. 00:01:52.972 --> 00:01:56.199 Scientist use insects to make fundamental discoveries 00:01:56.223 --> 00:01:59.124 about everything from the structure of our nervous systems 00:01:59.148 --> 00:02:01.296 to how our genes and DNA work. 00:02:02.388 --> 00:02:04.266 But what I love most about insects 00:02:04.290 --> 00:02:07.071 is what they can tell us about our own behavior. 00:02:07.539 --> 00:02:10.596 Insects seem like they do everything that people do. 00:02:10.620 --> 00:02:14.159 They meet, they mate, they fight, they break up. 00:02:14.509 --> 00:02:18.570 And they do so with what looks like love or animosity. 00:02:19.665 --> 00:02:24.876 But what drives their behaviors is really different than what drives our own, 00:02:24.900 --> 00:02:27.474 and that difference can be really illuminating. 00:02:28.234 --> 00:02:30.101 There's nowhere where that's more true 00:02:30.125 --> 00:02:33.686 than when it comes to one of our most consuming interests -- sex. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:34.142 --> 00:02:36.975 Now, I will maintain. and I think I can defend, 00:02:36.999 --> 00:02:39.400 what may seem like a surprising statement. 00:02:40.749 --> 00:02:44.296 I think sex in insects is more interesting than sex in people. 00:02:44.320 --> 00:02:46.107 (Laughter) 00:02:46.131 --> 00:02:49.270 And the wild variety that we see 00:02:49.294 --> 00:02:52.207 makes us challenge some of our own assumptions 00:02:52.231 --> 00:02:54.955 about what it means to be male and female. 00:02:55.663 --> 00:02:57.314 Of course, to start with, 00:02:57.338 --> 00:03:00.295 a lot of insects don't need to have sex at all to reproduce. 00:03:00.319 --> 00:03:04.749 Female aphids can make little, tiny clones of themselves without ever mating. 00:03:05.441 --> 00:03:06.914 Virgin birth, right there. 00:03:06.938 --> 00:03:08.226 On your rose bushes. 00:03:08.250 --> 00:03:11.446 (Laughter) 00:03:11.470 --> 00:03:13.011 When they do have sex, 00:03:13.035 --> 00:03:16.292 even their sperm is more interesting than human sperm. 00:03:16.316 --> 00:03:18.691 There are some kinds of fruit flies 00:03:18.715 --> 00:03:22.192 whose sperm is longer than the male's own body. 00:03:22.216 --> 00:03:26.476 And that's important because the males use their sperm to compete. 00:03:26.873 --> 00:03:31.060 Now, male insects do compete with weapons, like the horns on these beetles. 00:03:31.553 --> 00:03:35.797 But they also compete after mating with their sperm. 00:03:36.726 --> 00:03:41.852 Dragonflies and damselflies have penises that look kind of like Swiss Army knives 00:03:41.876 --> 00:03:43.969 with all of the attachments pulled out. 00:03:43.993 --> 00:03:45.863 (Laughter) 00:03:45.887 --> 00:03:50.033 They use these formidable devices like scoops, 00:03:50.057 --> 00:03:54.794 to remove the sperm from previous males that the female has mated with. 00:03:54.818 --> 00:03:56.885 (Laughter) 00:03:56.909 --> 00:03:59.606 So, what can we learn from this? 00:03:59.630 --> 00:04:05.309 (Laughter) 00:04:05.333 --> 00:04:10.343 All right, it is not a lesson in the sense of us imitating them 00:04:10.367 --> 00:04:13.891 or of them setting an example for us to follow. 00:04:13.915 --> 00:04:17.241 Which, given this, is probably just as well. 00:04:17.265 --> 00:04:20.839 And also, did I mention sexual cannibalism is rampant among insects? 00:04:20.863 --> 00:04:23.191 So, no, that's not the point. 00:04:23.215 --> 00:04:24.952 But what I think insects do, 00:04:24.976 --> 00:04:30.965 is break a lot of the rules that we humans have about the sex roles. 00:04:31.319 --> 00:04:36.848 So, people have this idea that nature dictates kind of a 1950s sitcom version 00:04:36.872 --> 00:04:38.827 of what males and females are like. 00:04:38.851 --> 00:04:42.004 So that males are always supposed to be dominant and aggressive, 00:04:42.028 --> 00:04:43.770 and females are passive and coy. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:43.794 --> 00:04:45.744 But that's just not the case. 00:04:46.606 --> 00:04:48.668 So for example, take katydids, 00:04:48.692 --> 00:04:51.534 which are relatives of crickets and grasshoppers. 00:04:51.558 --> 00:04:55.035 The males are very picky about who they mate with, 00:04:55.059 --> 00:04:58.284 because they not only transfer sperm during mating, 00:04:58.308 --> 00:05:02.774 they also give the female something called a nuptial gift. 00:05:02.798 --> 00:05:06.475 You can see two katydids mating in these photos. 00:05:06.499 --> 00:05:08.819 In both panels, the male's the one on the right, 00:05:08.843 --> 00:05:12.423 and that sword-like appendage is the female's egg-laying organ. 00:05:13.126 --> 00:05:15.653 The white blob is the sperm, 00:05:15.677 --> 00:05:19.063 the green blob is the nuptial gift, 00:05:19.087 --> 00:05:22.453 and the male manufactures this from his own body 00:05:22.477 --> 00:05:24.655 and it's extremely costly to produce. 00:05:24.679 --> 00:05:27.387 It can weigh up to a third of his body mass. 00:05:27.985 --> 00:05:30.519 I will now pause for a moment and let you think about 00:05:30.543 --> 00:05:34.706 what it would be like if human men, every time they had sex, 00:05:34.730 --> 00:05:40.777 had to produce something that weighed 50, 60, 70 pounds. 00:05:40.801 --> 00:05:44.408 (Laughter) 00:05:44.432 --> 00:05:47.671 Okay, they would not be able to do that very often. 00:05:47.695 --> 00:05:49.192 (Laughter) 00:05:49.216 --> 00:05:51.617 And indeed, neither can the katydids. 00:05:52.343 --> 00:05:54.255 And so what that means 00:05:54.279 --> 00:05:58.087 is the katydid males are very choosy 00:05:58.111 --> 00:06:01.191 about who they offer these nuptial gifts to. 00:06:01.215 --> 00:06:03.141 Now, the gift is very nutritious, 00:06:03.165 --> 00:06:05.859 and the female eats it during and after mating. 00:06:05.883 --> 00:06:08.240 So, the bigger it is, the better off the male is, 00:06:08.264 --> 00:06:10.440 because that means more time for his sperm 00:06:10.464 --> 00:06:12.912 to drain into her body and fertilize her eggs. 00:06:13.521 --> 00:06:17.871 But it also means that the males are very passive about mating, 00:06:17.895 --> 00:06:21.420 whereas the females are extremely aggressive and competitive, 00:06:21.444 --> 00:06:25.760 in an attempt to get as many of these nutritious nuptial gifts as they can. 00:06:25.784 --> 00:06:29.579 So, it's not exactly a stereotypical set of rules. 00:06:30.974 --> 00:06:32.685 Even more generally though, 00:06:32.709 --> 00:06:37.773 males are actually not all that important in the lives of a lot of insects. 00:06:37.797 --> 00:06:42.226 In the social insects -- the bees and wasps and ants -- 00:06:42.250 --> 00:06:44.845 the individuals that you see every day -- 00:06:44.869 --> 00:06:47.314 the ants going back and forth to your sugar bowl, 00:06:47.338 --> 00:06:50.347 the honey bees that are flitting from flower to flower -- 00:06:50.371 --> 00:06:52.670 all of those are always female. 00:06:53.300 --> 00:06:57.876 People have had a hard time getting their head around that idea for millennia. 00:06:57.900 --> 00:07:02.998 The ancient Greeks knew that there was a class of bees, the drones, 00:07:03.022 --> 00:07:05.073 that are larger than the workers, 00:07:05.097 --> 00:07:07.667 although they disapproved of the drones' laziness 00:07:07.691 --> 00:07:10.746 because they could see that the drones just hang around the hive 00:07:10.770 --> 00:07:12.295 until the mating flight -- 00:07:12.319 --> 00:07:13.538 they're the males. 00:07:13.562 --> 00:07:15.581 They hang around until the mating flight, 00:07:15.605 --> 00:07:18.344 but they don't participate in gathering nectar or pollen. 00:07:18.368 --> 00:07:20.652 The Greeks couldn't figure out the drones' sex, 00:07:20.676 --> 00:07:25.243 and part of the confusion was that they were aware of the stinging ability of bees 00:07:25.267 --> 00:07:28.124 but they found it difficult to believe 00:07:28.148 --> 00:07:31.395 that any animals that bore such a weapon could possibly be a female. 00:07:31.705 --> 00:07:34.715 Aristotle tried to get involved as well. 00:07:34.739 --> 00:07:39.327 He suggested, "OK, if the stinging individuals are going to be the males ..." 00:07:39.351 --> 00:07:41.817 Then he got confused, because that would have meant 00:07:41.841 --> 00:07:44.570 the males were also taking care of the young in a colony, 00:07:44.594 --> 00:07:49.002 and he seemed to think that would be completely impossible. 00:07:49.026 --> 00:07:52.075 He then concluded that maybe bees had the organs of both sexes 00:07:52.099 --> 00:07:53.250 in the same individual, 00:07:53.274 --> 00:07:55.843 which is not that far-fetched, some animals do that, 00:07:55.867 --> 00:07:58.120 but he never really did get it figured out. 00:07:58.744 --> 00:08:02.530 And you know, even today, my students, for instance, 00:08:02.554 --> 00:08:07.245 call every animal they see, including insects, a male. 00:08:07.585 --> 00:08:11.121 And when I tell them that the ferocious army-ant soldiers 00:08:11.145 --> 00:08:14.078 with their giant jaws, used to defend the colony, 00:08:14.102 --> 00:08:17.204 are all always female, 00:08:17.228 --> 00:08:19.562 they seem to not quite believe me. 00:08:19.586 --> 00:08:20.731 (Laughter) 00:08:20.755 --> 00:08:25.955 And certainly all of the movies -- Antz, Bee Movie -- 00:08:25.979 --> 00:08:31.834 portray the main character in the social insects as being male. 00:08:32.869 --> 00:08:34.673 Well, what difference does this make? 00:08:34.697 --> 00:08:36.334 These are movies. They're fiction. 00:08:36.358 --> 00:08:37.980 They have talking animals in them. 00:08:38.004 --> 00:08:41.684 What difference does it make if they talk like Jerry Seinfeld? 00:08:41.708 --> 00:08:43.872 I think it does matter, 00:08:43.896 --> 00:08:46.760 and it's a problem that actually is part of a much deeper one 00:08:46.784 --> 00:08:50.913 that has implications for medicine and health 00:08:50.937 --> 00:08:53.571 and a lot of other aspects of our lives. 00:08:53.595 --> 00:08:57.088 You all know that scientists use what we call model systems, 00:08:57.112 --> 00:09:00.473 which are creatures -- white rats or fruit flies -- 00:09:00.497 --> 00:09:05.051 that are kind of stand-ins for all other animals, including people. 00:09:05.075 --> 00:09:08.019 And the idea is that what's true for a person 00:09:08.043 --> 00:09:10.454 will also be true for the white rat. 00:09:10.478 --> 00:09:13.458 And by and large, that turns out to be the case. 00:09:13.482 --> 00:09:17.243 But you can take the idea of a model system too far. 00:09:17.924 --> 00:09:20.193 And what I think we've done, 00:09:20.217 --> 00:09:25.668 is use males, in any species, as though they are the model system. 00:09:25.692 --> 00:09:26.915 The norm. 00:09:26.939 --> 00:09:29.486 The way things are supposed to be. 00:09:29.510 --> 00:09:32.559 And females as a kind of variant -- 00:09:32.583 --> 00:09:36.310 something special that you only study after you get the basics down. 00:09:37.802 --> 00:09:40.485 And so, back to the insects. 00:09:40.509 --> 00:09:41.857 I think what that means 00:09:41.881 --> 00:09:44.700 is that people just couldn't see what was in front of them. 00:09:44.724 --> 00:09:51.160 Because they assumed that the world's stage was largely occupied by male players 00:09:51.184 --> 00:09:55.036 and females would only have minor, walk-on roles. 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. 00:10:01.588 --> 00:10:08.587 And we can also miss out on the way natural, living things, including people, 00:10:08.611 --> 00:10:10.001 can vary. 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, 00:10:15.124 --> 00:10:17.189 something that we know now to be a problem 00:10:17.213 --> 00:10:21.610 if we want the results to apply to both men and women. 00:10:22.760 --> 00:10:25.287 Well, the last thing I really love about insects 00:10:25.311 --> 00:10:28.572 is something that a lot of people find unnerving about them. 00:10:28.596 --> 00:10:30.363 They have little, tiny brains 00:10:30.387 --> 00:10:33.780 with very little cognitive ability, the way we normally think of it. 00:10:34.398 --> 00:10:39.074 They have complicated behavior, but they lack complicated brains. 00:10:39.860 --> 00:10:45.037 And so, we can't just think of them as though they're little people 00:10:45.061 --> 00:10:48.606 because they don't do things the way that we do. 00:10:48.630 --> 00:10:52.730 I really love that it's difficult to anthropomorphize insects, 00:10:52.754 --> 00:10:56.277 to look at them and just think of them like they're little people 00:10:56.301 --> 00:10:58.439 in exoskeletons, with six legs. 00:10:58.927 --> 00:11:00.188 (Laughter) 00:11:00.212 --> 00:11:03.757 Instead, you really have to accept them on their own terms, 00:11:03.781 --> 00:11:08.914 because insects make us question what's normal and what's natural. 00:11:09.527 --> 00:11:14.160 Now, you know, people write fiction and talk about parallel universes. 00:11:14.184 --> 00:11:17.482 They speculate about the supernatural, 00:11:17.506 --> 00:11:20.939 maybe the spirits of the departed walking among us. 00:11:22.537 --> 00:11:25.733 The allure of another world 00:11:25.757 --> 00:11:31.911 is something that people say is part of why they want to dabble in the paranormal. 00:11:32.376 --> 00:11:34.665 But as far as I'm concerned, 00:11:34.689 --> 00:11:36.858 who needs to be able to see dead people, 00:11:36.882 --> 00:11:38.560 when you can see live insects? 00:11:39.262 --> 00:11:40.424 Thank you. 00:11:40.448 --> 00:11:44.931 (Applause)