Word: insects
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Burtt is an audio Audubon. Much of his recording is done "on location"--in zoos, his driveway or (lots of this in WALL?E) a junkyard. The chirps needed for WALL?E's cockroach companion were provided by "a raccoon, speeded up," and the insect's clicks came from the sound of locking handcuffs. "I was recording a policeman's Taser," Burtt recalls, "and I said, 'Let me hear your handcuffs...
...more accustomed to exterminating insects than to eating them, but in scores of countries around the world--including Thailand, where food markets are stocked with commercially-raised water beetles and bamboo worms--bugs have long been a part of a well-balanced meal. Insect lovers like Gordon argue that entomophagy--the scientific term for consuming insects--could also be a far greener way to get protein than eating chicken, cows or pigs. With the global livestock sector responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions and grain prices reaching record highs, cheap, environmentally low-impact insects could...
...Scientist Amit Lal and his team insert mechanical components into baby bugs during "the caterpillar and the pupae stages," which would then allow the adult bugs to be deployed to do the Pentagon's bidding. "The HI-MEMS program is aimed at developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis," DARPA says. "Since a majority of the tissue development in insects occurs in the later stages of metamorphosis, the renewed tissue growth around the MEMS will tend to heal, and form a reliable and stable tissue-machine interface...
...what's hot at DARPA right now? Bugs. The creepy, crawly flying kind. The Agency's Microsystems Technology Office is hard at work on HI-MEMS (Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical System), raising real insects filled with electronic circuitry, which could be guided using GPS technology to specific targets via electrical impulses sent to their muscles. These half-bug, half-chip creations - DARPA calls them "insect cyborgs" - would be ideal for surveillance missions, the agency says in a brief description on its website...
...some diseases, climate change will be boon. Take malaria - right now, the insect-borne disease is mostly confined to hot tropical areas, which is why you don't need to take quinine when you're hiking through Central Park. But if temperatures increase, the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite will be able to expand their range, while more intense rainstorms will give them more places to breed. A report this year by Australia's Center for Epidemiology and Public Health estimated that between 20 to 80 million more people will be living in malarial regions...