It's Okay To Be Smart asks 'will we all eat bugs in the future?'

I can't resist a video about eating bugs once I know about it, at least, not for long.  So when YouTube suggested one to me when I was researching Recycling is broken but it can be fixed says It's Okay To Be Smart, it was a foregone conclusion that I would share it here.  Watch as It's Okay To Be Smart asks Will We All Eat Bugs in the Future?

People say insects are the food of the future. They’re more environmentally sustainable and more humane than other sources of animal protein. Can they really catch on in western diets? I’m a pretty adventurous eater, but I’ve never actually tried edible insects. So when I got invited to an edible insect Thanksgiving feast, I had to say yes. Along the way I learned that eating bugs isn’t really that new for humans, and that this really could be a delicious food we all eat in the near future.

As I wrote in Verge Science looks at the current state of farming insects for food, "I'm glad to see another revival of interest in the topic" of eating insects, AKA  entomophagy.  I really do think insects are a food of the future.  I'm also happy to see someone from Michigan in the video with Julie Lesnik of Wayne State University as the main expert on the subject.  Detroit represent!

It's Okay To Be Smart also referred its viewers to a video by Brain Scoop on eating bugs for Thanksgiving.  I'm sure I'll get to embedding it, too, but only after I post another entry about impeachment.  Stay tuned.

Space, Ebola, volcanoes, stroke, and human expansion the topics of Science and Technology Documentary nominees

"Stay tuned for Science and Technology Documentary nominees tomorrow" was my closing for 'Sonic Sea,' a triple nominee, and its competitors.  It's tomorrow, so it's time to examine the competitors in this category.

In alphabetical order, the first nominee is "A Year in Space" from PBS.

On March 27, 2015, astronaut Scott Kelly began a historic year in space. Follow Scott and his identical twin Mark Kelly as the two-part program tells the story of what it takes, mentally and physically, to spend a year in space.

I blogged about Scott and Mark Kelly's twin experiment in Twins on Earth and Space.  That was three years ago.  It's about time I followed up!

Speaking of following up, Time Magazine, which co-produced this documentary, announced that a "second installment, Beyond a Year in Space, will air this fall on PBS.  Here's to it being nominated for an Emmy next year.  If so, I'm looking forward to blogging about it.

Follow over the jump for the other four nominees.

Historical candy left over from Halloween

I missed one item that should have gone into Happy Halloween on campus, but I missed it.  Instead, I managed to get it into Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Eclipse, Sandy Anniversary, and Fall Back).  Here is Boston University's How Did Halloween Get Started?
CGS lecturer on vampires, zombies, things that go bump in the night
By Amy Laskowski
10.31.2013

When you think of Halloween, you’re likely to conjure up images of Jack o’-lanterns, superhero costumes, and haunted houses. And candy—Americans will purchase nearly 600 million pounds of the sweet stuff to hand out and consume today. Overall, we are expected to spend a whopping $6.9 billion celebrating the holiday, according to a recent survey by the National Retail Federation.

Often lost among all the costumes, decorations, and sugar is the origin of the holiday. Halloween is based largely on Celtic religious traditions, says Regina Hansen, a College of General Studies senior lecturer in rhetoric and an expert in the supernatural and how it’s portrayed in literature and film. She is also a scholar of Neo-Victorianism.

Hansen’s affinity for the supernatural began as a child, fueled by her love of authors like J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Edgar Allan Poe. In graduate school she joined the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, a scholarly organization devoted to the study of the fantastic, which includes the genres of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. There, she says, she “found a home for people who wanted to write about scary stuff. Now my scholarship has moved from writing about Victorian literature and sneaking in supernatural stuff, to being more on top of it.”

Oh, goodie, a chance to use my fantasy label for a post about academics!

Friday the 13th research a bit late

Here's something appropriate for yesterday that I only found today.  Better late than never.

University of Cincinnati: Friday the 13th and Other Bad-Luck Beliefs Actually Do Us Some Good
It's here – Friday the 13th. There will be another in December. A UC culture expert provides pointers as to why such superstitions prove so powerful and how they can actually serve a good purpose.
By: M.B. Reilly
Date: 9/9/2013 7:30:00 AM

In Western cultures, Friday was traditionally considered a day of bad luck, dating as far back as the 14th century, if not earlier – likely due to religious associations with the crucifixion.

And the number 13 has long been considered unlucky as well. According to University of Cincinnati popular culture expert Rebecca Borah, associate professor, English and comparative literature in the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, 13 was considered unlucky by both pre-Christian and, later, Christian societies.

She stated, “The pre-Christian societies often noted the number 12 as representing completeness due to lunar cycles. So, 13 was a stepchild of a number. Later, a Christian overlay was added since the 13th apostle was Judas Iscariot.”

She added that it was in the early 1900s when we can find evidence where the two superstitions merged, and Friday the 13th emerged as a day of “especially bad karma.”

I might just recycle this story in December.

Speaking of recycling, the most read entry yesterday was Paraskevidekatriaphobia and Happy Apophis Day!  Like Jason Vorhees, that post never seems to die.

Jared Diamond on risk

I couldn't ask for a better video on the topic of this month's theme to appear on my YouTube feed.

The author of Guns, Germs and Steel, Professor Jared Diamond discusses the differences of risk evaluation between modern and traditional cultures.

I was expecting Diamond to say he survived driving, but I can accept that taking a shower might be riskier at his age.

Follow over the jump for more from Diamond about the lessons modern societies can learn from traditional ones.

Watch evolution in action on Black Friday

In honor of Black Friday, I am reposting my favorite article I wrote as Detroit Science News Examiner from 2009 in its entirety.  It is just as timely today as it was when I first posted it on Christmas Eve two years ago.  In addition to being my favorite from that year, this article was the first one of mine to be ranked as the most popular on the Detroit Edition of Examiner.com, something I was so proud of that I took a screenshot of it.




And now, the article.

Watch evolution in action among last-minute Christmas shoppers