Podcast Summary
Adapting to audience needs can lead to new discoveries: Ecologist Rob Dunn adapted to audience questions about pests in homes, leading to new research areas. Apple Card and State Farm Small Business Insurance tailor offerings to meet unique customer needs.
Understanding the needs and concerns of your audience, even if they seem unrelated to your expertise, can lead to new discoveries and areas of research. Rob Dunn, an ecologist, initially dismissed questions about dealing with pests in people's homes during his talks about his research on insects in faraway places. However, he eventually realized that these questions revealed a deeper curiosity about the biology of daily life. This realization led him to explore new areas of research, focusing on how pests evolve to suit their environments and which other species coexist with them in homes. Meanwhile, Apple Card offers daily cashback on purchases and a high annual percentage yield on savings, encouraging customers to save and grow their earnings. State Farm Small Business Insurance, on the other hand, provides personalized policies for small business owners, ensuring they have the right coverage for their unique needs. Both examples illustrate the importance of adapting to the needs of one's audience and audience segments, whether in research or business.
Exploring the biodiversity of household bugs: Ecologist Rob Dunn's study of household bugs revealed many are not pests but potentially beneficial, leading to a project collecting bugs from 50 homes in Raleigh to understand their diversity and potential benefits.
Our homes are not as sterile as we think and are teeming with a diverse range of arthropods, or bugs, which we know very little about. Rob Dunn, an ecologist, started exploring this idea by treating houses like rainforests and discovered that many household bugs are not pests but could be beneficial to us. This led to a project where Michelle Trautwein, an entomologist, and her team collected bugs from 50 homes in Raleigh, North Carolina, to understand the biodiversity in our living spaces. This shift in perspective could potentially lead to new discoveries and even improvements in our daily lives.
Discovering Indoor Arthropod Biodiversity: Research reveals an average of 100 unique arthropod species in homes, despite tidiness and insecticides, requiring exhausting collection and identification methods.
The indoor environment harbors a surprising and diverse array of arthropods, regardless of tidiness or the use of insecticides. Michelle and her team's research in houses in Raleigh, North Carolina, revealed an average of around 100 different species in each home. This discovery has held up in their exploration of houses worldwide, with some variations based on factors like house layout and plant life outside. The process of collecting and identifying these insects was exhausting and sometimes gross, involving hands and knees and even sucking dust into vials. Despite the challenges, the team was excited to uncover this hidden world of indoor biodiversity, which is worth exploring and understanding.
Exploring the complex ecosystems of insects and mites in our homes: Studying the insects and mites in our homes could lead to discovering healthier cohabitants, as they form intricate food chains and parasitic relationships
Our homes harbor complex ecosystems of insects and mites, with each organism playing a role in the food chain. For instance, dust mites feed on human skin cells, larger mites consume dust mites, and house centipedes eat the larger mites. Parasitic relationships also exist, such as wasps that lay their eggs in certain cockroach species, which then the wasps' offspring consume alive. These findings highlight our ignorance about the bugs in our surroundings and the potential benefits of studying them. As Rob puts it, understanding the bugs in our homes could lead to discovering healthier cohabitants. The episode also features a promotion for Apple Card and State Farm.
Looking beyond the surface: Shifting perspective can reveal hidden potential in seemingly ordinary things, like small businesses or bugs.
Our perspective towards seemingly insignificant things, like bugs or small businesses, can change once we look beyond their surface level and understand their deeper significance. State Farm's tagline goes beyond marketing as their agents are small business owners themselves, providing personalized insurance plans for small businesses based on their unique needs and budgets. Meanwhile, in the world of ecology, Rob's discovery of the spread of Asian camel crickets in homes led him to ponder about their potential benefits for humans. Despite initial skepticism, he realized that their ability to digest hard-to-digest materials could lead to the discovery of useful gut enzymes or microbes. Both examples illustrate the importance of shifting our perspective and considering the hidden potential of seemingly ordinary things. Whether it's a State Farm agent or a camel cricket, there may be more to them than meets the eye. So next time you encounter a challenge or an annoyance, try to look beyond the surface and explore the deeper possibilities.
Discovering value in environmental microbes and insects: Exploring the roles of microbes and insects in our environments could lead to the discovery of new antibiotics and ecologically-friendly pest control methods.
There are valuable discoveries to be made by studying the microbes and insects that live in our own environments, rather than constantly trying to eliminate them. For instance, researchers have found microbes in camel cricket guts that can break down black liquor, a waste product from paper production, and turn it into energy. Similarly, common ants produce antibiotics and other useful compounds. By understanding the roles of these insects and microbes, we could potentially manage our homes to favor species that benefit us, creating a more effective and sustainable pest control system. This approach has already been successful in reducing disease transmission in separate cultures through the introduction of social spider colonies. The potential applications of this research extend beyond just discovering new antibiotics, and could lead to the development of more effective and ecologically-friendly methods for managing pests.
Minimizing pest-use for a healthier home: Applying integrated pest management in homes can reduce pesticide use, encourage beneficial insects, and lead to a better coexistence with insects.
Aiming for a completely pest-free home through excessive use of pesticides may do more harm than good. While pesticides can eliminate unwanted pests, they can also kill beneficial ones, such as spiders that help control mosquitoes. Integrated pest management, which is used in crops, could be applied to houses to minimize the use of pesticides and encourage the presence of beneficial insects. However, more research is needed to understand which insects are helpful and how to invite them into our homes. This idea might be difficult to accept for those who have experienced significant pest infestations, but it could lead to a better understanding and coexistence with the insects that share our living spaces. For more information, check out Michelle Trautwein's research and Rob Dunn's book "Never Home Alone." If you'd like to support researchers in this field, consider joining the Never Home Alone project on iNaturalist.org.
Send in home bug photos for scientific research: Contribute to science by sending in home bug photos to Vox's podcast 'Unexplainable' via email or social media
Vox's podcast "Unexplainable" invites listeners to send in pictures of bugs found in their homes for potential use in scientific research. This can be done by emailing unexplainable@vox.com. The team may also share these images on social media or feature them in an episode. The podcast is made possible by the hard work of various team members, including reporters, producers, editors, musicians, and sound designers. A special shout-out to Christian Ehle for his exceptional sound design work. The podcast is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network and will return next week. So, if you encounter mysterious bugs at home, consider contributing to science by sending in your photos.
