Needs more warnings at the end - May cause poisonous burns, itching, rashes, scars, insects / bites, decapitation, potent hallucinogenic plant experience ego death (this is a good thing), wild fire, sneezing, rashes, pulled muscles, sweating, potential flash flood, tornado, blunt force death (hail storm), suffocation (ie quicksand), dehydration, drowning (helicopter drops retardant on you or otherwise), hypothermia, freezing, lethal stings, booby traps, rednecks, cannibals, serial killers, getting lost and starving...

They say with overpopulation and scarcity of food, we will have to eat insects. Protein shakes seem like a great option.

insect concentration gradient at work.

And if you want a bug free patio at night, use yellow lights, most insects can't see that wavelength and ignore it. ; )

It's funny. The idea of things living in me used to be an enormous phobia of mine and this kind of video would have freaked me fuck out (a la newtboy above), but for some reason now I just giggle at videos like these (below). No idea why, but I'd like what she's having. (And by "she" I mean me.)

*related=http://videosift.com/video/bunch-of-maggots-being-pulled-from-an-ear

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Earwax-And-Insect-Ear-Removal

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Cockroach-Inside-Human-Ear-Nice-Halloween-puke-Video

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Doctor-I-have-something-in-my-ear

bunch of maggots being pulled from an ear has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760.

Earwax And Insect Removal has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760.

Cockroach Inside Human Ear! Nice Halloween *puke* Video.. has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760.

Doctor, I have something in my ear. has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760.

All Hail hypno -mantis.
I, for one, welcome our new alien insect overlords.

My family owns and operates a farm, wheat and corn, in Kansas. We use Roundup herbicides sometimes.

Specifically, there is a GMO variant of field corn called "Roundup Ready" where the corn is genetically resistant to the herbicide. Plant a field of that corn, then after it emerges but well before harvesting (obviously) spray it with Roundup, diluted to an appropriate level. All of the pest plants in the field die. The corn looks a little wilted / harried for a few days after spraying, but bounces back and grows out just fine.

We use that specific kind (Roundup Ready) about 1 year out of every 4 or 5, only when pest plants are starting to become an issue. They'd love to sell it to farmers every year, but most only rotate it in when necessary, just like us, and use a small amount of normal seed (not GMO, just some of the normal corn we harvest) held in reserve from previous year(s) in the other years.

Before Roundup (and other major herbicides and pesticides), pest plants could be a major problem. From what my family says, corn can cross-pollinate or do some kind of hybridization with other crops like milo or sorghum or something, which results in a sterile cane-stalk plant like corn that produces no actual grain. Back 20+ years ago, that was a fairly major problem ... but it is very easily controlled nowadays with herbicides, and Roundup in particular.

Pure, concentrated Roundup is pretty nasty stuff. Then again, farmers still use or have used a lot of much nastier stuff during normal farm operations, like Malathion being sprinkled into grain bins to kill off insects and other small pests. I wouldn't want to chug down a glass full of any of that crap, BUT on the other hand I think we're way better as the human race off WITH all these things being used to control what can be or have been significantly damaging pests than how things would be WITHOUT them. Not to mention that all of these things are used in very very trace amounts compared to the actual amount of food produced itself, and usually a *really* long time before it becomes food. I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to detect any of them in the parts-per-multi-multi-billion scale by them time we eat them.


...That being said, the dude walked right in to this one. If his message was "this stuff is 100% safe and beneficial if used properly", I'd actually 100% agree with him. But when he's trying to oversell it by saying that it is perfectly safe to drink a glass of it ... of course somebody is going to call his bluff. Duh.

From my investigation, that's incorrect.
The places in China where hand pollination is used still have bees. The reason they do hand pollination is they switched to a very few varieties of apples and pears...and apple and pear trees need a DIFFERENT apple or pear tree to pollinate, so if you only have one apple variety (the norm there) it won't self pollinate, no matter how many bees there are. Also, climate change is putting the bee cycles and the tree cycles out of synch, making natural pollination even more difficult or impossible. By hand pollinating, they are able to have less than 10% 'pollination' trees to 90% 'fruiting' trees, and pollinate on the tree's cycle. THAT'S why production was better with hand pollination, not because people could do it better, but humans could target which pollen to use on which flower/tree. Also, commercial beekeepers won't 'lend' (rent) their hives out, or require high payments for them pricing most farmers out, because farmers there still use pesticides that kill bees through the pollination seasons.

Other areas that used to do hand pollination have stopped thanks to education. Now they plant more variety (so the bees/insects/birds CAN pollinate for them) and use less pesticides (that they actually didn't realize would kill bees) and are getting better yields for less money than the Chinese.

EDIT: These 'studies' always seem to ignore the incalculable cost of removing all the natural food pollinated by bees, and the collapse of many food webs caused by the loss of that food base. If people are spending cash to do the pollination work, you can be certain they'll go to great lengths to NOT share that produce with any wildlife.

Also, human hand pollination doesn't work for crops like certain grains and smaller vegetables and nuts, main human food sources. It only works for foods where a single pollinated flower will produce something worth the cost of pollination...grains simply don't, and neither do most vegetables, fruits, or nuts. Only large fruits or vegetables could use this economically. So while you're correct, it CAN be done, doing it across the board would probably quadruple the cost of average foods, if not worse.

WIKI-" If humans were to replace bees as pollinators in the United States, the annual cost would be estimated to be $90,000,000,000.[4]"

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/will-we-still-have-fruit-if-bees-die-off/

There is no honour among insects.

I used my right hand on a small flying insect on my desk while getting my left arm's blood pressure checked this mawning.

That is what I am saying. THE pixie dust does exist - you could snort if you wanted to and it would show you - many cultures have for thousands of years - it's called Yopo contains (Bufotenin (5-HO-DMT), 5-MEO-DMT and NN DMT) - I would NOT recommend doing it (take NN DMT and smoke it or do Ayahuasca to get there). But, it's not going to be about what your puny ape brain considers "ever lasting" it is something completely different - to some degree it seems that we are eternal but not in way of ever lasting memory of one life to another, but it does contain "death" as well and you will remember that you've been there before even though it's beyond any fucking ape insect of Earth's imagination or comprehension. Do it and find out for yourself, lol! I was just as cynical as Dawkins about the afterlife until 4 seconds into the experience... it's like an atomic fucking bomb of alien consciousness (gold mine).

Ah, not talking about some sort of insect infestation. Good.

Definitely rummaging around the bottom of the barrel. On the other hand, I understand that's how we got 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and I thought that turned out great.

I've never heard of Ant Man before, but I take it that his super power is that he can shrink himself down to the size of an ant and, I dunno, probably communicate with insects. That could be interesting, although it's definitely more of a 'useful sidekick' sort of character than a lone hero.

Sounds like a good argument, but 0.5% isn't nothing. Would you eat food that was 0.5% feces or insect? Would you like to die 0.5% earlier? Don't worry, it's almost all water and between 15-50% of the "acids" and polyacrylamide will be removed. That's up to half of 0.5%!