tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post7681015261202375118..comments2024-03-29T00:04:32.434-05:00Comments on Althouse: Flesh! and calenture.Ann Althousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-15763416376242563882014-01-18T19:21:26.727-06:002014-01-18T19:21:26.727-06:00Well, in truth they were oatmeal mealworm cookies,...Well, in truth they were oatmeal mealworm cookies, which probably accounted for the oatmeal taste.Paco Wovéhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00053886112561036768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-38026915005843373652014-01-18T19:20:04.350-06:002014-01-18T19:20:04.350-06:00I've had mealworm cookies. They weren't ba...I've had mealworm cookies. They weren't bad... tasted like oatmeal.<br /><br />Didn't like roasted crickets though. Legs got stuck between my teeth.Paco Wovéhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00053886112561036768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-48629232402949366522014-01-18T17:56:57.331-06:002014-01-18T17:56:57.331-06:00Etymology and entomology a two for one postEtymology and entomology a two for one postAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-63797984754442514112014-01-18T16:48:54.278-06:002014-01-18T16:48:54.278-06:00My son was in the Galapagos and posted a photo of ...My son was in the Galapagos and posted a photo of the chitin pizza he was having for dinner. He enjoyed the meal and said it tasted a little like squid. I don't know if the truly indigenous people there eat chitin or not, these were about 3 inches long, and would probably be good protein.Rockport Conservativehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08472979749733378317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-25829577002127502782014-01-18T15:15:25.798-06:002014-01-18T15:15:25.798-06:00Would you eat a Chapul bar?
Yes, I'd eat a Ch...<i>Would you eat a Chapul bar?</i><br /><br />Yes, I'd eat a Chapul bar. I don't fear insects as food. However, I wouldn't buy one. Evah.<br /><br />Chapul bars cost $22.26 per pound less shipping and tax. Fillet mignon costs less than $19 per pound delivered to my neighborhood grocer. The cost of going to the store and broiling it myself is less than the difference per pound, and the taste, texture and aroma of beef is far superior to any cricket, raw or processed. No contest, I'll buy fillet mignon very time. Furthermore fillet mignon is 24.7% protein, compared to the measly 14.8% protein of a Chapul bar.<br /><br />"Feed the revolution" my ass. This Chapul bar crap just goes to show what hopeless morons vegans and other alternative eats monomaniacs are. Just push the right buttons and the clowns will happily spend more for one meal than an Sudanese peasant spends in a year for food, and feel morally superior to boot. <br /><br />Crickets are a non-solution to the non-problem of beef. I've bought thousands of live crickets over the years, which I have mostly fed to crappies who have been in turn loathe to allow themselves to be eaten by me, the ungrateful little bastards. By the pound live crickets are more expensive than Big Macs.Quaestorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13688608372863540573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-80162617480804517842014-01-18T13:47:45.731-06:002014-01-18T13:47:45.731-06:00Do insects have "flesh"? Isn't "...<i>Do insects have "flesh"? Isn't "flesh" just muscle... and do insects have "muscle"... and if not, what do they have that enables them to move?</i><br /><br />Wow. For someone who has spent so many years in academia, risen to a professor's chair at a prestigious university, gained a national following to ask such an elementary question of natural science is... surprising to put it mildly. Ever dined on lobster, Professor? If so what did you suppose you were eating? Granted a crustacean is not an insect, but they are both arthropods and are physiologically more alike than different.<br /><br />The "goo that exudes from a stepped-on grasshopper" is mostly masticated plant matter and water, a lot of water. Just like us insects rely on water. It's crucial for their digestion, and they carry a lot of it in their bodies. Occasionally you'll see an insect drinking. They use an organ called a proboscis to drink, which can resemble a soda straw or a conventional mammalian tongue. They don't drink very often because they are much more efficient at water conservation than we are, but they need a sip now and then. Some of the goo is blood, but not much of it. Insects have blood (hemolymph, more properly) and circulation, however they oxygenate their tissues by direct contact with atmospheric air through a system of tubes call trachea. Insect blood is not used as a gas exchange medium, though some insects have hemocyanin (a copper-based analog of hemoglobin) in their blood. Muscle would be evident among the remains of stepped-on grasshopper if one cared to examine the corpse with a strong magnifying glass, though one would note that it makes up a small proportion of the insect's mass as compared to muscle in a vertebrate. It's part of the advantage of being small. Moving an exoskeleton from the inside appears to more efficient than moving an endoskeleton from the outside. However, exoskeletons are very heavy. The biggest land-dwelling arthropods are certain land crabs from the South Pacific, and they move very slowly indeed. Inspite of classic sci-fi movies like <i>Them!</i> an ant the size of a Studebaker would be totally immobilized by its own weight.Quaestorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13688608372863540573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-16718701057277501072014-01-18T13:22:57.281-06:002014-01-18T13:22:57.281-06:00as long as we're still on the edges of paleo v...as long as we're still on the edges of paleo v whatever, heh.<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zVxA6yipv4southcentralpahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01394514417579609775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-86569899993927613812014-01-18T12:59:07.214-06:002014-01-18T12:59:07.214-06:00"Fruit flies have an enormous literature. 86,...<i>"Fruit flies have an enormous literature. 86,002 references on PubMed today."</i><br /><br /><a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Flesh+fly&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C16&as_sdtp=" rel="nofollow">Flesh flies</a> get over 235,000 hits on Google Scholar.Paco Wovéhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00053886112561036768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-18355808827979271872014-01-18T12:14:38.267-06:002014-01-18T12:14:38.267-06:00Phew, Professor. Will there be a test on this?!
T...Phew, Professor. Will there be a test on this?!<br /><br />Twenty years ago I subscribed to <a href="http://www.foodinsectsnewsletter.org" rel="nofollow">"The Food Insects Newsletter</a>," a publication for scholarly researchers. (At the time I was also getting literature from <a href="http://www.alcor.org" rel="nofollow">Alcor</a>, too.) Read by anthropologists as well as others in the food sciences. It was clear then that lots of profs were studying how to mass manufacture insects for human consumption. Commonplace in other countries. There are scorpion ranches in China.<br /><br />This candy bar is the model...Totally disguise the source of the protein. The next step will be to invent a new word or words to replace the words "insect" "grub" or "worm." May I suggest "minibeef" or "micropork" or "ecoshrimp"?<br /><br />First, this stuff will be fed to prison convicts, then soldiers, then school children. If my parents told me I'd be strong like Popeye if I ate nasty tasting spinach, then why not tell kids they'll be tough as Spiderman if they eat "arachnuggets?" Nursing homes would be a good target destination for this food. Get a tax rebate for feeding the demented insects. George M. Spencerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07818413936028778734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-9382151908377442112014-01-18T12:11:47.680-06:002014-01-18T12:11:47.680-06:00Do insects have politics
According to Aristotle t...<i>Do insects have politics</i><br /><br />According to Aristotle the answer is no. Ari was the first modern naturalist in that he reckoned Man to be a part of Nature -- just another animal, but one with special distinctions. Among other things Man is the only animal that lives in a <i>polis</i>, ergo Man is the only animal that has politics.<br /><br />I question this reasoning in that politics go hand-in-hand with society. There are many social insects (ants, wasps, honey bees, termites, et al.) so the question of insect politics is problematic and not simply a matter of logic.<br /><br />One thing we've come to associate with politics is social dynamism. We live in an age when the idea of a fixed society is so alien as to be almost inconceivable. However such fixity was the norm over the greater part of history, so evidently politics can function within the margins of variability (which wife of the pharaoh is foremost, who gets the vizier's post) of fixed societies, unless we want to limit politics to modern societies only.<br /><br />Insect societies are rather firmly fixed, but can't be unchangeable because we know that social insects have a long evolutionary history -- from the Mesozoic at least. They could not have endured without change, consequently there's wiggle room for insect politics of some kind. Ants make war on other ants, take captives and make slaves of them. Clausewitz says war is politics by other means, so maybe the answer is yes, insects have politics.Quaestorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13688608372863540573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-45963320944663485022014-01-18T12:07:55.638-06:002014-01-18T12:07:55.638-06:00As the Chinese get richer they'll stop eating ...As the Chinese get richer they'll stop eating babies and move up to adolescents.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-8900388897010243602014-01-18T11:15:09.180-06:002014-01-18T11:15:09.180-06:00Fruit flies have an enormous literature. 86,002 re...Fruit flies have an enormous literature. 86,002 references on PubMed today.Michael Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18127450762129879267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-66370099082028173592014-01-18T11:12:29.298-06:002014-01-18T11:12:29.298-06:00Oh! Sorry.
"no politics yet discovered"...Oh! Sorry. <br /><br />"no politics yet discovered"<br /><br />Thanks, further, then, to Schorsch, for remembering my concern about insect politics. <br /><br />And thanks, too, to Paco, for his Schorsched Earth policy.Ann Althousehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-19237748356681317012014-01-18T10:59:04.767-06:002014-01-18T10:59:04.767-06:00Flesh! Dids't thou not read the poor man's...Flesh! Dids't thou not read the poor man's very comment?!Paco Wovéhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00053886112561036768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-59084772388587606352014-01-18T10:47:30.748-06:002014-01-18T10:47:30.748-06:00Thanks, Schorsch. What a great life, to be an ento...Thanks, Schorsch. What a great life, to be an entomologist. I wish I'd had the sense to learn about something so specific and real. <br /><br />Do you specialize in any particular insect?<br /><br />Also, can you answer the question, raised in the movie "The Fly," do insects have politics?Ann Althousehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-47622706628929346382014-01-18T10:31:05.550-06:002014-01-18T10:31:05.550-06:00Hello from your very occasional entomologist comme...Hello from your very occasional entomologist commenter! I can confirm wikipedia, insects do have muscles. My work involves how they control these muscles to creep and crawl. I also poke around in their brains. People are often surprised to hear that they have those. Muscles, brains, hunger, lust, society, but no politics yet discovered, as of this writing.Schorschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10086968194057010381noreply@blogger.com