Cosmic Queries – Cicada Invasion! With Jessica Ware

Are you ready for the cicada invasion? In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Negin Farsad sit down with entomologist Jessica Ware to answer your questions about the millions of cicadas emerging this summer after 17 years underground.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. And for this edition, it's cosmic queries, which we are titling, "The Cicadas Are Coming! Attack of the Cicadas." I don't know what we're gonna title it, but it's about cicadas. Negin, is that you laughing? My co-host, Negin Farsad, welcome back to StarTalk, Negin.

• 0:36Negin Farsad?

  Hi, Neil, so great to be here.

• 0:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. You're a host of the podcast Fake the Nation, which I was a guest on that one time. I so enjoyed that, and you haven't invited me back ever since. So, I enjoyed it. Apparently, you didn't, alright? Just so you know. You wrote a book that has my favorite title of any book ever. It's called "How to Make White People Laugh." That's just... That's just out of control, girl. What are you... So, this is advice for people of color to make white people? Is that what that is?

• 1:10Negin Farsad?

  Um, it turns out, Neil, throughout writing the book, I found out that what makes white people laugh is what makes everybody laugh.

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. There it is. It has a kumbaya message to it, okay? It doesn't land on...

• 1:27Negin Farsad?

  But there's a lot of... It's kumbaya with a lot of fart jokes.

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright. So, I'm pretty sure you don't have expertise in this, and I definitely don't. And just insects in general are such a fascinating part of the tree of life. And I have a new colleague at the American Museum of Natural History. Been there just barely a year, and it's Dr. Jessica Ware. Jessica, welcome to StarTalk.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me on the show.

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're an evolutionary biologist, so that's sort of your base landscape on which you then have become an entomologist. So, why don't we just call you a bugologist? What's... What is the Latin root there that is saying that you study bugs?

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Well, I've actually been called a bugologist, I've been called an insectologist before, but entomologist is, you know, the study of all insects. Not all insects are bugs. All bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs. It's one of those things. So, you know, class insecta has many orders and only one of the orders.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, excuse me. If it bugs me, I'm calling it a bug, okay? Don't tell me that something that's...

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Classy people.

• 2:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not...

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Classy people call bugs bugs and insects insects. So if you want to impress people in your life, in your personal life, then you say, "Oh, well, actually, it's a bug or an insect." And people will think that you're very classy, because you know the distinction between heniphaera and the other orders. I promise you, it's a hit. It is a palpable hit at a party.

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, all right.

• 2:55Negin Farsad?

  Oh, Jessica, you live in such a weird world. If that's the distinction between people thinking you're classy or not.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, she runs around saying, "There are two kinds of people in the world."

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're a tenured curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City. So you're a fellow scientist of mine, is delighted to have you in the house. Now, your research, of course, focuses on insects. You have a specialty in dragonflies. Ooh. You know, nobody doesn't love just looking at a dragonfly. We'll get to cicadas in a moment, but just, did you grow up thinking, "I want to study dragonflies"? Is that how that happened?

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Uh, well, no, definitely not. I didn't know that people did that for a job. In fact, I didn't know that entomology was a job, really. I thought maybe I would go and work at a bank or something like that when I got a job and my aunt would say, "What do you want to do?" And I'd say, "A cab driver, because you get to meet people." And she was mortified. But no, I went to university for marine biology. And then, when I started taking invertebrate zoology classes, it turns out almost all of the classes insects, because almost all life on Earth are insects. And so then that's when I got kind of turned on to entomology. And then I was really lucky that I got to work on the coolest of all of the insects, which are the dragonflies.

• 4:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is definitely the coolest. It's, let me not say it's cool, let me just say it's badass. And it knows it, right? There it is. It's got those wings and it's got that needle shape. And it flies and then it just stops. And let me look around for a minute. And then it just keeps, and it's like, "What are you thinking, dude?" So...

• 4:36Speaker 02

  They're like lions. Like lions in the sky, really. I mean, they're like voracious predators. They can do intercept, you know, predation where they can, you know, go to where their prey is going to be in 10 seconds rather than like a dummy going where the prey is right now. I mean, like a lion would do. And I mean, that's pretty impressive.

• 4:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. So if you come back, can we do a whole show on just dragonflies? Because I've seen fossil remains of dragonflies that look like birds. And I want to get to the bottom of that. Why did they get little? How did they get big in the first place? So if you come back for that, because I, because I really want to get straight to the cicadas. All right, let's go straight to the cicadas. You're our insect person in the house. So what's about to happen? Not to the world perhaps, but just into the northeast United States in this year 2021. Don't we have enough problems, Jessica?

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, this is the solution. This is not the problem. This is the solution to having a bad year is that there's these periodical cicadas that are coming out to bring us some enthusiasm, to bring us some pep to our day. We have these-

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Says the bug person.

• 5:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Says the bug person, this is be a nice time for, for the bug people and the cicadas. Okay, just let's-

• 5:58Speaker 02

  It's a gift.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  We had a really bad year in 2020. The gift that we get, the response, the positive pep for 2021 is that we have this brood, brood 10, which is comprised of three different species of cicadas that are going to emerge and we'll get to hear them and see them. We'll get to eat them if we want to. I mean, this year is going to be pretty rad just because of the fact that we have these periodical cicadas that are going to be emerging. It's kind of remarkable.

• 6:26Negin Farsad?

  I was gonna say, if this is a gift, I really don't want to know what you get people for Christmas. Just like, go ahead and take me off the list.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I think of periodicals, I think of something that's daily or weekly or monthly or even annually. But such is not the case with these cicadas. So what's going on there? How long? What do you mean by periodic when you use that word with them?

• 6:50Speaker 02

  So these periodical cicadas are called that because they actually have a juvenile stage and an adult stage. And the juvenile stage lives underground for either 13 years or 17 years. And they emerge as adults periodically, every 17 years or every 13 years. Like, a pretty bad newspaper subscription if it was every 17 years, I would argue.

• 7:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, correct. Unless it's reporting on continental drift. Right.

• 7:16Negin Farsad?

  That was a solid joke, Neil.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you for laughing at that one, McGee.

• 7:22Negin Farsad?

  I enjoyed it. No, that was good.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what species is coming out this season? Is it the 13-year or the 17-year?

• 7:31Speaker 02

  We have 17-year cicadas that are coming out. And there's three different species in this one genus that are going to be coming out that makes up this brood, Brood 10. Because the periodical cicadas are enabled different broods, but they were just named by these, you know, these guys in the 1800s that were kind of documenting what was going on. And they gave Roman numerals to the different kind of emergences of these, you know, cicadas. And so Brood 10 kind of is, you know, an arbitrary name in some ways. It doesn't necessarily mean that 9 is next door or 11 is next door.

• 8:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this brood is not the cycling of them? It's not like the last time they came out, it was Brood 9?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  No, yeah. So the numbers don't necessarily make immediate sense when you look at the years when they came out and where they came out.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that, McGee. When a scientist says, "This won't make immediate sense to you." That's very honest. I love that.

• 8:30Negin Farsad?

  Bro ten is on a seventeen year cycle. What is that? How is that not reasonable?

• 8:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It makes complete sense. And so why aren't there also predators of these of these cicadas that would come out in that seventeen year cycle and eat them? They're very high in protein, I understand.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, there are predators that eat them. The strategy, we think, is that they're doing kind of like a satiation strategy where they come out in this giant, you know, emergence, and birds and frogs and your dogs and your cats and humans and, you know, lots of things are going to be feasting on them. And hopefully, everybody around you gets eaten, and you don't, and you can find a mate, reproduce, and then die. That's kind of the satiation strategy that we think natural selection has acted on, you know, over millions of years.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but Jessica, if that's the best you can hope for, I just hope I'm not eaten.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What kind of a life is that?

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I think that's probably what most insects are thinking. Not that they actually think. But if I was to anthropomorphize an insect, I would imagine, you know, that they have these jobs to do as an adult, right? They have to find a mate, they have to disperse, they have to lay their eggs, and then they die. And if a bird or, you know, a fish or a frog jumps up and catches you, your net fitness is zero if you're dead.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is isn't survival of the fittest. That's what you mean.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Your net fitness of...

• 9:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Now, you describe these as a genus, is that right?

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so genus, just remind me, so we are Homo sapiens. So for us, of those two words, the homo is the genus, and the sapiens is the species. So in this genus of cicadas, you have species beneath that, correct? In the taxonomy?

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I always remember it. King Philip came over for good sandwiches for the classification. Kingdom...

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Kingdom phylum came...

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Class.

• 10:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Class over...

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Order, which is...

• 10:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Order, sure, sure. No, no, why don't I say, King Philip came to order sandwiches, and then use the same word? Someone clever should get in there and fix that. Okay, so...

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cicadas.

• 10:52Negin Farsad?

  This is so weird. I'm watching two of the smartest people in the world figure out this order right now.

• 10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so King Philip came over to eat sandwiches.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  For, for, family. Family is for.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Philip came over.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  For.

• 11:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Family. Good genus, sandwiches, species.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Species. So Kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, species.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, these are all good Scrabble words, I would argue.

• 11:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, okay, all right, good. On it. I'll be an entomologist yet, okay? And I'll start liking them. So we've got.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  I was spitting through that for the record.

• 11:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so Negin, we've got cosmic queries from our Patreon members. So what? Yes. What do you have? I don't want to spoil their fun.

• 11:45Negin Farsad?

  Let's start with Violetta. This is Violetta, 12 and a half year old astrophysician and mega StarTalk and mega Negin fan. I like to start off the show with a compliment to me. Violetta's question is, how are cicadas such amazing timekeepers? What kind of hocus pocus is this? And what can it teach us about the concept of time itself? And how we measure and study time?

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Jessica, it's sorcery, clearly. They're like witches and warlocks for cicadas. What's going on down there?

• 12:12Speaker 02

  That's a very good question, Violetta. So kudos for that. Definitely, I think that, I mean, the timing of when they emerge, they're using temperature as a cue. So when the ground reaches 64 degrees Fahrenheit, then they know that it's time to emerge. But they have these kind of regimented moltings. So there are two types of insects, Violetta. There's insects that have complete metamorphosis, which are things like, you know, an egg that becomes a caterpillar, and there's a pupa, and then there's the butterfly. That butterfly has undergone a complete and total internal reorganization before emerging as a butterfly. Those insects are called holometabola, and they're the insects that have complete metamorphosis. The other insects are the non-holometabulous insects. These are insects that have incomplete

• 12:54Speaker 02

  metamorphosis, of which cicadas are one. So they instead have juvenile. That usually look a lot like the adults. They don't look like the adults in cicadas. But usually they look very similar to the adults. Grasshoppers is a small grasshopper. They get slightly larger as it goes through these molts. Molts is a molting is a period where they actually shed their skin. And then go to a large, what's called a larger instar, which are the stages of development. So cicadas, when they're underground, the juveniles, they actually, you know, when the egg hatches, the first instar actually drops down into the soil and kind of nestles down into their little pocket where they're going to start feeding on the plant roots. But then every certain amount of time, then they go through a molt. And then there's another long period of time.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  And then they go through a molt. And these are kind of like jumping ahead in their growth stages. And so the timing of those instars are kind of really precise. And they're based on like, there's a hormonal cascade that kind of controls the timing of those those instars. And then after the last one, when the temperature reaches sixty four, it's go time. And then they crawl up and then it's go time. And then it's, you know, their wings. And the adult wing cicada is what you see.

• 14:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Megan, look, look at her smiling as she describes the invasion. She's totally getting into this. Oh, my God, this is creepy. So if the ground has to be sixty five degrees, that means we will see the cicada invasion as they rise up and become our overlords. This will happen at southern latitudes sooner than in northern latitudes, we have to presume here. Is that correct?

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So at sixty four, sixty four degrees is a pretty, you know, magic number. And some individuals, you know, the timing is pretty great, right? But when you're talking about seventeen years, you know, some might come out a couple of days early. Some might come out a couple of days late because there's going to be millions of them emerged. So we got to cut them some slack a little bit with their clock.

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I guess what I'm asking. So if we're going to see this invasion in the northeast United States, as I understand it, they'll show up in like Virginia first and then because the more southerly latitudes will reach those temperatures before Maine will or before New Hampshire will, isn't that correct?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay. All right, Nigga, give me another question.

• 15:15Negin Farsad?

  Um, and also just, are they friendly? Like, is this gonna be a good hang? Or like, I grew up in the desert, so we didn't have this. Like, what happens? Like, is it gonna be cute and fun? Are we going out to brunch with the cicadas? Or is it just like awful? I don't know.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, it definitely would say it's a good hang. I mean, you want a concert, you got it. Because they're gonna be singing and they're gonna be making noise. Um, you wanna eat brunch? Their brunch, right? I mean, they, they are gonna be on the menu. So, uh, they're friendly in that they are plant feeders. They flee on, on xylem when they're, when they're juveniles. But as adults...

• 15:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Xylem would be like what? Xylem is what?

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Like the, the juices or the plant juices inside of the, the tree.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, interesting. You guys got a word for that? That's cool.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, xylem, it's, it's, it's an X word, which is another good...

• 16:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love X words, yeah, yeah. Um, we will not place Scrabble with you. We would just establish that fact, okay?

• 16:14Speaker 02

  I'm talking of a big game, but I'm actually terrible at Scrabble. But it's enthusiasm that counts, I think, rather than, than success. Who's Scrabble? Um, but yeah, so they, they emerged. They're really, their goal is to find a mate, to lay those eggs, and then they die. They're here for a good time, not a long time, right? So they're just gonna do their business, and then they dead. And we just gotta wait for the eggs to hatch.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sweep them out, man. Nigga, we, we, uh, we gotta go to the next segment. Um, so, uh, but you have, you've got more questions lined up. We're gonna find out...

• 16:45Negin Farsad?

  Oh my God, so many questions.

• 16:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we got so many. Uh, we're gonna find out, uh, what kind of damage the cicadas will actually do to us. Will they, um, destroy civilization as we know it? And we'll not give you the answer to that until we return. But StarTalk Cosmic Query.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  Hey, I'm Roy Hill Percival, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. Bringing the universe down to earth. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 17:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk, Cosmic Queries, Attack of the Cicadas.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got one of the world's experts on insects and who's all-knowing about cicadas here, a friend and colleague of mine from the American Museum of Natural History, Dr. Jessica Ware. Jessica, welcome to StarTalk. And of course, Negin Farsad. It's always great having you here as my co-host. And you've got questions for Jessica. Bring them on.

• 18:00Negin Farsad?

  Yes. Okay, so Woody asks, "What are the positive consequences of a locust plague? Feeding the birds is one thing, but is it an essential part of the ecosystem? How do you think the changing climate will affect insect plagues in the near and far future?"

• 18:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. And are you even calling this a plague, Jessica? I mean, it sounds very biblical, you know, the frogs, the locusts, the cicadas. So you see no downside to this, it seems like, because you spent this entire interview smiling ear to ear.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  I wouldn't call it a plague. I mean, the beauty of it, yes, they're great bird food, but they're food for lots of different things, lots of mammals and other organisms. And then I've talked, I've said many times, they die, right? And as they die, they decompose and all that nutrition goes into the soil, the very trees they were sucking on, you know, sometimes for that 17-year period. So, you know, nutrition for the trees and for the kind of soil community, as well as food for animals. I mean, that seems like a pretty good win. I mentioned, I like the song. The song's the music for us. That's another plus. They're beautiful. They're pretty. You like earrings?

• 19:12Speaker 02

  You could have earrings in spades because those cicada wings make really nice earrings.

• 19:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, now you're getting creepy. Wait, Jessica, stop. No, it's Jessica.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Here's your Christmas present. Here's your present.

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we're gonna stop. The interview's over, right now.

• 19:31Negin Farsad?

  Jessica is off the rails, ladies and gentlemen.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Is what you're telling me that you don't make insect jewelry?

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jessica, you gotta get out more. Jessica, we need to do an intervention. Negin, we'll do an intervention, all right?

• 19:48Negin Farsad?

  I mean, this is like the Silence of the Lambs movie poster, suddenly, you know?

• 19:55Speaker 02

  I mean, the entomologists in that movie seemed a bit intense. I might not be, you know, really increasing the rep of entomologists for this interview. But they are pretty. They're pretty. Come on. Give me that.

• 20:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so let me ask this. They don't eat our crops or anything and disrupt our food chain?

• 20:13Speaker 02

  They do not. So we really don't.

• 20:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that way they're not locusts, because locusts that eat your crops, you can justifiably call that a plague, a blight on your, on your, on your own ecosystem. Okay, so they're harmless, is what you're saying?

• 20:29Speaker 02

  They're harmless. And I mean, they've been doing this for, from what researchers seem to estimate, around 500,000 years. So they've been doing this long before we were here. And they'll continue probably to do this. Chris Simon at the University of Connecticut has done a lot of work on this particular group of cicadas. And I mean, maybe for around 4 million years or so, there have been cicadas, because there are annual cicadas that come out every year. But then around 500,000 years ago, there was a switch to having this periodical genus and species. And then like the First Nations native people that lived in this part of New Jersey, the Lenape, they had a separate word for the annual cicadas and for the periodical cicadas, and they were known to eat cicadas.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  It's been going on for a long time, and we're just lucky enough that we get to still keep witnessing it. So with climate change, it's possible that the timing of their emergence might, might change. But hopefully, this kind of neat phenomenon doesn't change.

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it. And if climate change, where things get warmer, it'll reach 65 degrees earlier in the year. That could, that's another thing that could fool birds or whoever who's expecting them on May 3rd, you know, whatever is their, their clock time that they're working on. Negin, keep it coming.

• 21:45Negin Farsad?

  Okay, so Cameron Bishop asks, how do they sustain themselves during that 17-year period where they're underground? And what impact can we expect them to have on the local ecology and wildlife?

• 21:57Speaker 02

  The order Hemiptera to which they belong.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the name of that order again? Say that order. Just say that again.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Hemiptera.

• 22:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hemiptera.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Half-wing. It stands for half-wing, I guess, because they have an interesting aspect to their wing morphology. But anyways, they all have these sucking mouth parts. And cicadas use those sucking mouth parts to kind of tap into the roots of trees and then they can suck up this xylem, this tree fluid. And so that's what, that's how they're sustaining themselves for those 17 years is just kind of drinking. Imagine what you will for these poor cicadas in their little excavation, drinking lots and lots of liquid. What comes in must come out. And so they actually, you know, it's a very sweet, sticky substance that then they have to feed into their little excavation and they sit there bathed in their own kind of liquidgery poop.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  That's their life for 17 years. That's what they do. That's who they be.

• 22:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let's make jewelry out of that. Yes, of course. Okay.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Not juveniles.

• 22:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, oh, sorry. Just the adults.

• 23:03Negin Farsad?

  By the way, is the, is the title, is the title of the episode Liquid Sugary Poop, maybe? I'm just throwing that out there.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  It's a good band name, if there's any punk rockers out there.

• 23:16Negin Farsad?

  For real?

• 23:17Speaker 02

  That they haven't taken yet.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Liquid Sugary Poop, yeah. I think that ship sailed with the punk rock era. I don't know. I don't know. So again, give me some more. These are good.

• 23:26Negin Farsad?

  Okay. So, listen, Jessica, you may be, feel a little defensive about this next question, but I promise you, Ashlyn just wants to get to the science of it. Her question is, what do cicadas do? To my knowledge, all animals fit into their own ecological career. Even wasps pollinate. Do cicadas have an important ecological purpose? Or are they just here to fill my nights of staring at the stars with music?

• 23:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Oh, that's lovely.

• 23:51Negin Farsad?

  It ended nicely. It started with a little bit of an accusation.

• 23:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the bug part of that. I see what she did there.

• 23:58Negin Farsad?

  Really lovely, really lovely.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I appreciate that. Like all organisms, they have this goal of growth, maintenance, reproduction, dispersal, mating, death. That's what they're doing, right? Their goal is to get their genes into the next generation. But even wasps that pollinate, it's not like they're doing it because they want to pollinate. You know, they're just kind of going about those other goals, right? Which is growth, maintenance, reproduction. And then eventually they die. They're passing their genes on to the next generation. So cicadas, they're a food source. So they're a food source to many things, including, you know, there's pathogens that eat them. There's birds that eat them. There's mammals that eat them. There's reptiles that eat them. Humans that eat them.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  So, I mean, in terms of something that they could put in towards the community, they provide nutrition in, you know, annual, anything that dies can, you know, decompose and provide nutrition.

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, just, I'm not buying it. Because there are birds that are born, live out their lives and die in between cicada invasions. So they would never know the cicadas. So you're gonna say it's food for animals that they get to eat once every 17 years? Well, if that's the only time I ate, I'd be dead. So clearly, it's extra food for them. So let me ask, is the extra food have an impact on the ecosystem?

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, so that's a good point. So it's not that there's, you know, a bird that only eats periodic cicadas and it goes between these long stretches of not eating. Certainly not. But, I mean, yeah, the extra food is a boon of energy, you know, that's every 17 years. But the broods are staggered, too, we have to remember. So, you know, there's a brood that's coming out this year. There'll be a brood that's coming out in two years and so on. So every few years, there's gonna be these mergers. They're not always the same size, because some broods are bigger than others.

• 25:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as you said, there are some places where there are cicadas every year. I think in the far east, for example, Japan, I heard, has cicadas, and Korea, cicadas every year. Is that correct?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, we do too. I mean, even here in Dirty Jersey, we've got annual cicadas that come out.

• 26:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you are coming to us from New Jersey right now?

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Yes, I am.

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you were formerly on the faculty at Rutgers, and then we stole you from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, so.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  They'll get some cicadas emerging, for sure.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Actually, you know what? You know, when I was a graduate student, I did my PhD at Rutgers in New Brunswick, and I had just moved here from Canada, and they were talking, my graduate students that were in the lab were talking about these periodical cicadas that were coming out, and they were going to drive over and see them in Princeton. And I had no idea what they were talking about, because there's a couple that come up in southern Ontario, but not where I lived in Canada, and I had no idea. So it's kind of blows my mind that the last time Brutem, which is the one we're talking about, came out.

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was at that time in your life?

• 26:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, first year grad student, and now look, so much has happened since then, my goodness.

• 26:57Negin Farsad?

  We used to have MySpace accounts during the last Brutem.

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 27:02Negin Farsad?

  You know? It was a simpler time.

• 27:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was no YouTube even, right? YouTube had been invented.

• 27:09Negin Farsad?

  Right, oh, that's right, yeah.

• 27:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, all right. So what more do you have, Negin? We're on Cosmic Threes mode here.

• 27:16Negin Farsad?

  So this question sounds like it comes from Elon Musk, but it actually comes from Michael Borger, who asks, "Could cicadas be used as a viable protein source for a Martian colony, and would they taste like chicken?"

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a good question.

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, Negin, we have to approach this gingerly. Have you eaten cicadas before?

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Why, yes, Neil, I have. I'm not afraid to say.

• 27:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what do they taste like?

• 27:43Negin Farsad?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 27:45Negin Farsad?

  What do they taste like?

• 27:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do they taste like chicken?

• 27:47Negin Farsad?

  Sugary liquid poop.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  I definitely do not think they tasted like chicken. The way I had them prepared lovingly, you know, sauteed in a pan and really taken care of, were just regular annual cicadas and they tasted very nutty and they tasted delicious. Periodical cicadas I had, I didn't, they weren't prepared in a very glamorous way.

• 28:03Negin Farsad?

  Yeah, it's the foie gras versus.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  But this year, so help me, I am going to make a really good feast with them. They're very nutty. If you are allergic to crustaceans, you know, it's recommended that you should check before you start eating them, just because some people who have crustacean allergies also can have allergies when they eat insects. But it's a great source of protein. So if you're going to Mars, get some insects on the menu, which is called entomophagy. That's the eating of insects.

• 28:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Entomophagy. Entomophagy. That's just, I eat insects. That's all that means. Is that right?

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't know that I would make cicadas as my main food source, probably. If I was trying to grow things quickly, I would grow mealworms or beetle larvae, something that you could like, kind of grow very quickly and have a lot of food for your Martian colonists. Recipe's available.

• 28:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It seems to me, if we have the technology to send humans to Mars to colonize it, then we could send regular food. I'm thinking, I'm just thinking, how do you have this whole modular spaceship? Oh, eat your cicadas. I'm thinking, no, no, no. If you can do this, give me, give me the ribeye, give me the, give me the lasagna, give me whatever. So that's how I'm thinking. I don't know.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, okay, not to, not to go in on a whole entomophagy thing, but technically you could make a pretty great lasagna with cicadas in it, right? I mean, as far as you're just supplementing the protein, bro.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  McGee, rescue this, please. McGee.

• 29:37Negin Farsad?

  I just, I don't know. Do you buy them from Trader Joe? Like, how do you even? I can't. Um, no, I, I, I, I think, let's all, I'm, I'm gonna make you a nice lasagna, Neil. We're gonna like, we're gonna make this happen.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. No, here's what I'll do. Jessica, I will promise you that I will eat. At least one, at most three cicadas. Um, if I prepare it in a pan with some oil, sort of pan fried, I will do that for you.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  Photos are didn't happen.

• 30:09Negin Farsad?

  Tik Tok or it didn't happen.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  I would say take the wings off because the wings are not the most fun part to eat.

• 30:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nigga, she even knows this about it.

• 30:18Negin Farsad?

  Well, she removes the, she removes the wings so she can make earrings, Neil. We've already established that. You don't eat them, you make them into jewelry.

• 30:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will, I will do that for you. Okay. As my, as my cherished colleague, I will do that for you and I will give her a full report. And you're right, Nigga, and it's gotta be Tik Tok or nothing, you know?

• 30:42Negin Farsad?

  Tik Tok or nothing. And I just want to say, Neil, I will, I will, um, I, I will join in this challenge by supporting you and watching the Tik Tok.

• 30:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is so sweet of you, Nigga.

• 30:54Negin Farsad?

  No, thank you. That's, I'm here for the show.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let's get another, get some more questions there.

• 31:00Negin Farsad?

  Well, Philip DeWitt asks, why is it a 17 year cycle and not a 15 year cycle or a 20 year cycle? God, I have the same question.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And plus 13 and 17 are both prime numbers mathematically. Is anything to that?

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that they do, uh, think that, that, that, that the fact that it's a prime number is significant and they do think that the 13 years actually were originally 17 years, but then started coming out early and we tend to see 13 year, uh, emergencies more caught, like the broods that are 13 years are more common in southern states than they are in northern states. Why 17, why 15, why 19? I don't know the answer to that. I mean, Chris Simon, like I said, the green Dean Kritsky, there are a few people that have like focused their whole life on trying to figure out why these things are periodical. But I don't know if they know the answer of why 17 and not 15 and why 17 and not 19.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And to follow up an earlier question, just to flush it out a little more, if we agree, and it's expected that climate change, if the planet gets warmed, might have the cicadas emerge from the ground sooner in the season because the ground is warmer earlier. But do you foresee climate change affecting their cycle?

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Well, I think we've already seen a little taste of it, or what some scientists think that maybe it was a little taste of it, because some of Brutus actually emerged early. Not a lot of them, but some of them emerged early. I think it was 2018. So, and they thought that perhaps that could have been influenced by climate change, you know, that could have changed the kind of developmental cycles. Like I said, it goes through, they go through these, these moles to instars, and it's kind of controlled with these biochemical cascades. And then they emerged early. You lose the benefit of that satiation strategy if it's a few scragglers that are emerging rather than millions and millions of individuals.

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, all right. That's what that looks like. And again, give me one more question before we end this segment.

• 32:51Negin Farsad?

  Okay, Eric Lineman asks, are there any other types of bugs besides cicadas that hibernate for such long periods of time? And how's the hibernation useful? Why do they hibernate in the first place?

• 33:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At all. And we don't have time to answer that. See what I did there? We gotta come back after the break. When we come back, we'll find out if this, and are we allowed to even call it hibernation? Why, you know, why is that useful at all to anybody? And I want to know the answer to that, too, when we return. Start Talk Cosmic Queries.

• 33:39Speaker 04

  Hey, it's time to give a Patreon shout out to the following Patreon patrons: Kaz Barnes, Philip Dwyant, and M. Tristan Moody. Hey, guys. Thank you for your support. Without you, we couldn't make this show what it is. And for anybody else listening who would like their name mentioned on a Patreon shout out, please go to patreon.com/startalkradio and support us.

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Cosmic Theory, Cicada Edition. Just before the cicada invasion, I've got Nagin Farzad, my co-host. Nagin, you're on social media as just your name, Nagin Farzad?

• 34:21Negin Farsad?

  Nagin Farzad.

• 34:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  N-E-G-I-N-F-A-R-S-A-D.

• 34:27Negin Farsad?

  That's right. And can I log roll really quick that I'm also in the new Adult Swim show Bird Girl on the Cartoon Network, so check that out on Sunday nights.

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa, you mean your voice is?

• 34:38Negin Farsad?

  Yes, my voice. My voice. My face is a green mind taker.

• 34:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was wondering, were you tuned, or is it just a voice for something else that doesn't look like you? Yeah. All right. Well, look for that. Very good. Very good. And Jessica, what cartoon are you in?

• 34:55Speaker 02

  I feel like there's not like a huge demand for insect cartoons, although there should be.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There should be for sure, because there's a lot of fertile material down there. So, Jessica, what are your social media handles?

• 35:07Speaker 02

  You can find me on Twitter at Jessica L. Ware Lab, or on Instagram.

• 35:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You appended the word lab after Ware. Jessica Ware Lab?

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, Jessica L. Ware Lab. And it's because there's this amazing singer, whose name is also Jessica Ware. So if you Google Jessica Ware, you'll get this British singer who sings soulful ballads, and you won't get your cicada content that you want, or your dragonfly content.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotta get the cicada content.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  You want that dragonfly content, then it's Jessica L. Ware Lab.

• 35:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotta get the insect content, okay. And on Instagram, it's what?

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Jessica Lee Ware 42.

• 35:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lee, L-E-E? Good. All right. Excellent. So before we get back to the questions, Jessica, how many cicadas can we expect?

• 35:50Speaker 02

  It's gonna be millions. About, you know, one and a half million cicadas per acre.

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Per acre? No, no, no. Did you just... What? What? No!

• 35:59Speaker 02

  It's a good number. It'll be enough.

• 36:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Per acre?

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this is the deal. There's millions and millions of them. And in the places where they're gonna be emerging, you should expect that you could take a shovel and be able to shovel some of them up.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I won't be able to walk down the street without smashing hundreds of them not on purpose.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, maybe not in Manhattan, but certainly if you were to go to some of the places where they're going to be out, yeah, you're gonna see them.

• 36:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they fly, does that mean they'll get in your, I mean, how much do they fly versus how much are they walking around on the ground?

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Well, they're, I mean, again, their goals are just to make, to find a mate. So they're gonna be, you mostly will hear them.

• 36:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stop defending them this way. Stop giving them, no, I'm tired of hearing you say, they're just trying to mate. Just, just get straight to the answer here.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  But you'll see them maybe on the bark of trees, you'll see them, and you'll hear them in the canopy, but you're not gonna really see them flying around. It's not like there'll be, you know, clouds of them or anything like that. They'll mostly be in and amongst the canopy. Sometimes you'll see them on the grass of them. If you're walking through a dewy meadow, you might see some in the grass, but it'll mostly be on the barks of trees and in trees.

• 37:12Negin Farsad?

  And the ones that are in Manhattan, are they dressed better? Are they strivers? Are they real type A cicadas?

• 37:20Speaker 02

  They do, they go from, they, they really like to go up and down looking for sushi restaurants and mostly just walking.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  It's the other diet. It's they, they're juvenile and then sushi as an adult.

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, excellent. Let's get back to our questions. Negin, you're, you're the keeper of the questions there. Bring them on.

• 37:38Negin Farsad?

  Well, before we left, we asked from Eric Lindeman, are there any other types of bugs besides cicadas that hibernate for such a long period of time? How is this hibernation useful? And why do they hibernate in the first place?

• 37:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it. Yeah, Jessica.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Well, it's a good question, but I would say that what cicadas are doing is probably not hibernation, right? Because in underground, we're not watching them, right? They're underground, but they're actually, you know, not in a hibernation state. They're not in torpor, they're, they're basically drinking, pooping, moving, molting, you know, that, for that whole 17 period. But there are other insects, certainly, that have long, it's kind of like their generation time is, is kind of long, is what we would say. And there are other insects that have long generation time. Not that I planted that question just to start talking about dragonflies again, but dragonflies have juvenile stages that are in freshwater.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  And some of them are in freshwater for, you know, five years before emerging as an adult, which is a pretty good amount of time. Termites, you know, there are some termite queens that can live for 10, 12, 13. Years. Again, they're not hibernating. They're just have these long kind of lifespans. So dragonflies and damselflies can also be frozen in solid ice, which is pretty remarkable.

• 38:59Negin Farsad?

  You're calling it hibernation, but in the pandemic era, I would just call that self-quarantining.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. That's what they're doing now there. Wait, so Jessica, I have a philosophical question. And maybe I think it's deeper than it actually is. So let me just quickly ask you. How long does a cicada live after it emerges from the ground?

• 39:21Speaker 02

  Four to six weeks.

• 39:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so its life cycle is 17 years plus four to six weeks, which means it's not hibernating, waiting to do something else in its life. That is its life.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is deep. That's deep. I mean, what is life, right?

• 39:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is life, right? That is its life. Sucking on plant roots and peeing and pooping. That is its life. And then its death throw is sunlight. And people screaming as they run away from them, except for Jessica, who wants to make jewelry out of them, and then they die.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, much like, so it's the same is true for these dragonflies that are five years in freshwater. They come out, it's one hot summer. You know, that's what these cicadas have. They got this really short window to find a mate, get that job done of passing on their genes. But that's like, that's like a bookend or a footnote, even though it's

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. Just a footnote to the whole life that they're leading, man.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, even though that's probably the most important part they do.

• 40:27Negin Farsad?

  You really have to love the process if you're a cicada. You can't be destination oriented.

• 40:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's correct.

• 40:34Negin Farsad?

  It's a marathon, not a sprint.

• 40:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a marathon, not a sprint.

• 40:37Negin Farsad?

  Yeah, you really have to love the process.

• 40:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love the journey. All right, keep coming, again.

• 40:42Negin Farsad?

  All right, we have from Bobby Reagan. We have a question that kind of merges your both of your interests. He asked, can anything like their hibernation be recreated on a human scale for deep space travel?

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Wow. Well, again, they're not hibernating. So could we go into deep space and drink syrupy sugary drinks and just poop constantly? Yeah, we could do that. I mean, I could do that. I don't think that would be hard to do. We would have to change nothing. I would have to change almost nothing about my day to day life. I would just be doing it in space.

• 41:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, wait, wait, Jessica, I think the way to do this, I think the way to do this is you prolong the time we are infants in a long space journey. Because why waste time in space as an adult when you want to have the fully developed adult brain for when you land and you want to investigate? So the so the infant would be just pooping and sucking, right?

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you increase that period of time in the human developmental cycle to be 17, 20 years. And then just put them in there and just poop and pee and that's it. And then towards the end, you bring them out and then they grow into adults. How about that?

• 42:04Negin Farsad?

  Wow, Neil, basically, you're saying that my baby has been prepping for space travel this whole time and I had no idea.

• 42:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got this figured out. How old is your baby again?

• 42:14Negin Farsad?

  She's two, so she's more of a toddler.

• 42:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no toddler, yeah, yeah, no more diapers, right?

• 42:19Negin Farsad?

  Yeah. She's she's she's pooping in a potty and if it was liquid and sugary, I mean, I'd be getting in there, but it isn't. I'm sorry, I made myself up with that.

• 42:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, Negin, I need you on the rails, not off the rails with Jessica, okay? Please stay with me here.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  You start talking about insect poop, it just goes, you accelerate towards it. This is the mental state we're in now. It's all poop talk for the rest of this.

• 42:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, okay. Well, I read that book, you know, to our kids, every everybody poops. I think it's originally an Italian kid's story. Everybody poops. It just shows all the animals, everybody pooping. And so the your kids will learn that it's a very natural thing for all things that are alive, so.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  It does make sense that liquid feeders would have liquid, you know, very liquidy poop, like miptra, which are suckers. That's what they have.

• 43:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is. All right. All right. Negin, keep it coming.

• 43:15Negin Farsad?

  Here we go. Matthew Ritter asks cicadas are known for being very loud to us humans. How good is a cicada's sense of hearing? Are they deafening to each other and drown out all the sources of auditory information in their own environment?

• 43:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  That's a good question. I mean, so you would expect that selection should act on females to be able to hear the calls of males.

• 43:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or vice versa.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Just as, yeah, just as males have been selected to make the calls long and loud. So that the like, the, the, so different species of cicadas are out at any given time, right? And so the calls that males make are actually species-specific songs.

• 43:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But so only the males make the calls? The females don't make the calls?

• 43:57Speaker 02

  The males are making the calls. The females kind of, kind of move their wings around a little bit to attract mates, but the, it's the call that's really the, the mating.

• 44:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, now I have to know, just, I gotta butt in here. Okay, so when I eat my three cicadas, should I eat the ones that are making noise or the ones that aren't? Just which ones taste better? Surely you know the answer to that question.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, so the males that call the longest and the loudest are the ones that are gonna get the most mates. So maybe you want, maybe, is that like a prime rib, like a, like a, like a grade A? Are the males that were calling the loudest?

• 44:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then I would be more destructive to the, to the, to the, to the genus, the species, if I ate the most successful. So I should eat the unsuccessful ones?

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't want to. You could wait till they've made it. And then as soon as that's done and the female goes off to do her job of laying those eggs, you get that male, you eat it. That could be your solution.

• 44:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  The males are making these long calls. The females are, are, are listening for the loudest and longest calls. And they tend to call in the hottest times of the day, which can be kind of energetically expensive. So this is, these are all cues. These are all signals that females can use, you know, to, to choose a mate that is going to be able to make it so that her, her sons would have the same traits. So they would be likely to be selected too. That's called the sexy sons hypothesis. But then also, you know, it's just, you know, she wants to get as many of her genes into the next generation as possible. You know, that's the selection, that's how selection is, is acting.

• 45:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn. Okay. Negin, we're running short on time. Let's see if we can get a quick lightning round in here. Jessica, one sentence answers.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  I'm ready.

• 45:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Negin, go.

• 45:35Negin Farsad?

  Um, my daughter Trinity asks if the cicadas cycle have been impacted by human settlement.

• 45:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  Uh, so we build over their habitat constantly.

• 45:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you happen to be under the house that got built, you ain't never coming out.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, especially if they cut down the tree, which is your food source, right? If you're sucking.

• 45:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it. That's the answer. Yeah, all right. And you died while you're developing. That would be sad.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, we don't want to go.

• 46:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got me empathizing with them now, Jessica. What's my...

• 46:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't want to empathize with these ugly bugs, okay? All right. With these beady eyes like on each corner. Okay, Negin, go.

• 46:13Negin Farsad?

  Well, Stefan Somers wants just a specific recipe. You mentioned sauteing them in oil. Are you adding any herbs in there? What's going on?

• 46:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I might add a little salt, yes. I have had exotic foods prepared for me in the past. I've had fried tarantula. Um, and it tasted like crab. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Um, and I've had, um, what else? I had beetles as well. They were sauteed. No, no, no, sorry, they weren't beetles. They were crickets, sauteed crickets. And they were sort of crunchy and made like a little snack. You know, like crunchy snacks as we like here in America. So I'm going to try to turn it into a crunchy snack. Okay, keep it going. Next one.

• 46:54Negin Farsad?

  We got a very interesting question from Nathan Kane, who says, would a flamethrower be a sufficient way to eliminate the cicadas if one in every five humans on the East Coast has one?

• 47:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Yes.

• 47:07Negin Farsad?

  You're a fan of destroying cicadas with flamethrowers, right?

• 47:12Speaker 02

  I'd say that you'd take 10 minutes in the timeout chair and really reevaluate your life. Because if you're going to throw a flamethrower and you're pointing at any of those cicadas, then Neil's going to give you your number and I'm going to go there and I'm going to feed with you to make some jewelry instead. Yeah, you could kill them with fire. But why would you? Why would you? Yeah.

• 47:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or maybe, no, no, here, here it is. I'm just gonna cook them so that I can eat them. See, there you go. There it is. And we actually have to call it quits there, but I want to add, Jessica, there was a movie where insects were a very important part of one of the characters, and it was in Men in Black. There was this guy who was just this pile of insects. And...

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Edgar.

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know his name? I forgot his name.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Edgar, he was wearing an Edgar suit, yeah.

• 47:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Edgar, excuse me. I wasn't on a first-name basis with this character. This alien character. So, yeah, so insects, plus the movie Them, with the, back from the 60s or 50s, with the big ants. Insects have made their rounds in pop culture. So I think you're in a good place for us to reach for you again, when we want to get to the bottom of what insects are up to. So, Jessica, it's been a delight to have you on. It's the first time we've had a sustained conversation, you being new to the museum. I hope to see more of you there. We can chill out and get you on more, on more StarTalk episodes. And Negin, always good to have you.

• 48:37Negin Farsad?

  So great to be here, Neil.

• 48:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm waiting for my next invitation on your podcast, on which I've only been invited once. Okay? I, I've been on The Daily Show 14 times. Okay?

• 48:49Negin Farsad?

  Well, Neil, they have different standards.

• 49:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, guys, we're gonna call it quits there. Thanks for making this work. This has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries. The Cade is her coming addition. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, bidding you to keep looking up.