Tuesday 15 July 2014

Meet the Insect - Cockroach

Wikipedia Commons - lmbuga
I can tell you two things about cockroaches which you may already know. They are supposed to be able to survive a nuclear war, and they are tremendous fun to google.

So first of all, here's a lady that seems to know about the nuclear war thing. Apparently humans can withstand 5 rems of radiation safely and 800 rems would kills us. It would take about 100,000 to kill a German cockroach. I've not really got a way of imagining what a rem is - but lets just say it they can take over a 100 times more radiation than us. But if it was anywhere near the blast the heat would vapourise a cockroach instantly pretty much the same as everything else.

Let's just hope we never find out. Although  if a cockroach did survive, there wouldn't be a scientist around to verify it. Or anyone else. There's a thought experiment for you.

So, back to google. Louis Armstrong was fed cockroach soup for colds and sore throats. Not sure that's a recommendation. Much as I love Satchmo, his is not a voice that cries out "my larynx has been cosseted all my life".

But if the bare necessities has inspired you to look for help from nature here's a rather unsettling list of insects you can use to cure yourself. And for those with a really strong stomach here's some news from a Chinese cockroach farm.

And here's something to terrify star treak fans - a cockroach cyborg

You gotta love 'em. Sort of.

And of course here's the link to the pamphlet with the cockroach poem in it.