A Why not eat insects? So asked British entomologist Vincent M. Holt in the title of his 1885 treatise on the benefits of what he named entomophagy – the consumption of insects (and similar creatures) as a food source. The prospect of eating dishes such as “wireworm sauce” and “slug soup” failed to garner favour amongst those in the stuffy, proper, Victorian social milieu of his time, however, and Holt’s visionary ideas were considered at best eccentric, at worst an offense to every refined palate. Anticipating such a reaction, Holt acknowledged the difficulty in unseating deep-rooted prejudices against insect cuisine, but quietly asserted his confidence that “we shall some day quite gladly cook and eat them”.

B It has taken nearly 150 years but an eclectic Western-driven movement has finally mounted around the entomophagic cause. In Los Angeles and other cosmopolitan Western cities, insects have been caught up in the endless pursuit of novel and authentic delicacies. “Eating grasshoppers is a thing you do here”, bugsupplier Bricia Lopez has explained. “There’s more of a ‘cool’ factor involved.” Meanwhile, the Food and Agricultural Organization has considered a policy paper on the subject, initiated farming projects in Laos, and set down plans for a world congress on insect farming in 2013

C Eating insects is not a new phenomenon. In fact, insects and other such creatures are already eaten in 80 per cent of the world’s countries, prepared in customary dishes ranging from deep-fried tarantula in Cambodia to bowls of baby bees in China. With the specialist knowledge that Western companies and organisations can bring to the table, however, these hand-prepared delicacies have the potential to be produced on a scale large enough to lower costs and open up mass markets. A new American company, for example, is attempting to develop pressurisation machines that would de-shell insects and make them available in the form of cutlets. According to the entrepreneur behind the company, Matthew Krisiloff, this will be the key to pleasing the uninitiated palate.

D Insects certainly possess some key advantages over traditional Western meat sources. According to research findings from Professor Arnold van Huis, a Dutch entomologist, breeding insects results in far fewer noxious by products. Insects produce less ammonia than pig and poultry farming, ten times less methane than livestock, and 300 times less nitrous oxide. Huis also notes that insects – being coldblooded creatures – can convert food to protein at a rate far superior to that of cows, since the latter exhaust much of their energy just keeping themselves warm.

E Although insects are sometimes perceived by Westerners as unhygienic or disease-ridden, they are a reliable option in light of recent global epidemics (as Holt pointed out many years ago, insects are “decidedly more particular in their feeding than ourselves”). Because bugs are genetically distant from humans, species-hopping diseases such as swine flu or mad cow disease are much less likely to start or spread amongst grasshoppers or slugs than in poultry and cattle. Furthermore, the squalid, cramped quarters that encourage diseases to propagate among many animal populations are actually the residence of choice for insects, which thrive in such conditions

F Then, of course, there are the commercial gains. As FAO Forestry Manager Patrick Durst notes, in developing countries many rural people and traditional forest dwellers have remarkable knowledge about managing insect populations to produce food. Until now, they have only used this knowledge to meet their own subsistence needs, but Durst believes that, with the adoption of modern technology and improved promotional methods, opportunities to expand the market to new consumers will flourish. This could provide a crucial step into the global economic arena for those primarily rural, impoverished populations who have been excluded from the rise of manufacturing and large-scale agriculture

G Nevertheless, much stands in the way of the entomophagic movement. One problem is the damage that has been caused, and continues to be caused, by Western organisations prepared to kill off grasshoppers and locusts – complete food proteins – in favour of preserving the incomplete protein crops of millet, wheat, barley and maize. Entomologist Florence Dunkel has described the consequences of such interventions. While examining children’s diets as a part of her field work in Mali, Dunkel discovered that a protein deficiency syndrome called kwashiorkor was increasing in incidence. Children in the area were once protected against kwashiorkor by a diet high in grasshoppers, but these had become unsafe to eat after pesticide use in the area increased.

H A further issue is the persistent fear many Westerners still have about eating insects. “The problem is the ick factor—the eyes, the wings, the legs,” Krisiloff has said. “It’s not as simple as hiding it in a bug nugget. People won’t accept it beyond the novelty. When you think of a chicken, you think of a chicken breast, not the eyes, wings, and beak.” For Marcel Dicke, the key lies in camouflaging the fact that people are eating insects at all. Insect flour is one of his propositions, as is changing the language of insect cuisine. “If you say it’s mealworms, it makes people think of ringworm”, he notes. “So stop saying ‘worm’. If we use Latin names, say it’s a Tenebrio quiche, it sounds much more fancy”. For Krisiloff, Dicke and others, keeping quiet about the gritty reality of our food is often the best approach.

I It is yet to be seen if history will truly redeem Vincent Holt and his suggestion that British families should gather around their dining tables for a breakfast of “moths on toast”. It is clear, however, that entomophagy, far from being a kooky sideshow to the real business of food production, has much to offer in meeting the challenges that global societies in the 21st century will face.

“Love stories” are often associated – at least in the popular imagination – with fairy tales, adolescent day dreams, Disney movies and other frivolous pastimes. For psychologists developing taxonomies2 of affection and attachment, however, this is an area of rigorous academic pursuit. Beginning in the early 1970s with the groundbreaking contributions of John Alan Lee, researchers have developed classifications that they believe better characterise our romantic predispositions. This involves examining not a single, universal, emotional expression (“love”), but rather a series of divergent behaviours and narratives that each has an individualised purpose, desired outcome and state of mind. Lee’s gritty methodology painstakingly involved participants matching 170 typical romantic encounters (e.g., “The night after I met X…”) with nearly 1500 possible reactions (“I could hardly get to sleep” or “I wrote X a letter”). The patterns unknowingly expressed by respondents culminated in a taxonomy of six distinct love “styles” that continue to inform research in the area forty years later.

The first of these styles – eros – is closely tied in with images of romantic love that are promulgated in Western popular culture. Characteristic of this style is a passionate emotional intensity, a strong physical magnetism – as if the two partners were literally being “pulled” together – and a sense of inevitability about the relationship. A related but more frantic style of love called mania involves an obsessive, compulsive attitude toward one’s partner. Vast swings in mood from ecstasy to agony – dependent on the level of attention a person is receiving from his or her partner – are typical of manic love.

Two styles were much more subdued, however. Storge is a quiet,
companionate type of loving – “love by evolution” rather than “love by revolution”, according to some theorists. Relationships built on a foundation of platonic affection and caring are archetypal of storge. When care is extended to a sacrificial level of doting, however, it becomes another style – agape. In an agape relationship, one partner becomes a “caretaker”, exalting the welfare of the other above his or her own needs

The final two styles of love seem to lack aspects of emotion and reciprocity altogether. The Ludus style envisions relationships primarily as a game in which it is best to “play the field” or experience a diverse set of partners over time. Mutuallygratifying outcomes in relationships are not considered necessary, and deception of a partner and lack of disclosure about one’s activities are also typical. While Lee found that college students in his study overwhelmingly disagreed with the tenets of this style, substantial numbers of them acted in a typically ludic style while dating, a finding that proves correct the deceit inherent in ludus. Pragma lovers also downplayed emotive aspects of relationships but favoured practical, sensible connections. Successful arranged marriages are a great example of pragma, in that the couple decide to make the relationship work; but anyone who seeks an ideal partner with a shopping list of necessary attributes (high salary, same religion, etc.) fits the classification.

Robert J. Sternberg’s contemporary research on love stories has elaborated on how these narratives determine the shape of our relationships and our lives. Sternberg and others have proposed and tested the theory of love as a story, “whereby the interaction of our personal attributes with the environment – which we in part create – leads to the development of stories about love that we then seek to fulfil, to the extent possible, in our lives.” Sternberg’s taxonomy of love stories numbers far more, at twenty-six, than Lee’s taxonomy of love styles, but as Sternberg himself admits there
is plenty of overlap. The seventh story, Game, coincides with ludus, for example, while the nineteenth story, Sacrifice, fits neatly on top of agape.

Sternberg’s research demonstrates that we may have predilections toward multiple love stories, each represented in a mental hierarchy and varying in weight in terms of their personal significance. This explains the frustration many of us experience when comparing potential partners. One person often fulfils some expected narratives – such as a need for mystery and fantasy – while lacking the
ability to meet the demands of others (which may lie in direct contradiction). It is also the case that stories have varying abilities to adapt to a given cultural milieu and its respective demands. Love stories are, therefore, interactive and adaptive phenomena
in our lives rather than rigid prescriptions.

Steinberg also explores how our love stories interact with the love stories of our partners. What happens when someone who sees love as art collides with someone who sees love as business? Can a Sewing story (love is what you make it) co-exist with a Theatre story (love is a script with predictable acts, scenes and lines)?
Certainly, it is clear that we look for partners with love stories that complement and are compatible with our own narratives. But they do not have to be an identical match.
Someone who sees love as mystery and art, for example, might locate that mystery better in a partner who views love through a lens of business and humour. Not all love stories, however, are equally well predisposed to relationship longevity; stories that view love as a game, as a kind of surveillance or as an addiction are all unlikely to
prove durable.

Research on love stories continues apace. Defying the myth that rigorous science and the romantic persuasions of ordinary people are incompatible, this research demonstrates that good psychology can clarify and comment on the way we give affection and form attachments.

The first of our three brains to evolve is what scientists call the reptilian cortex. This brain sustains the elementary activities of animal survival such as respiration, adequate rest and a beating heart. We are not required to consciously “think” about these activities. The reptilian cortex also houses the “startle centre”, a mechanism that facilitates swift reactions to unexpected occurrences in our surroundings. That panicked lurch you experience when a door slams shut somewhere in the house, or the heightened awareness you feel when a twig cracks in a nearby bush while out on an evening stroll are both examples of the reptilian cortex at work. When it comes to our interaction with others, the reptilian brain offers up only the most basic impulses: aggression, mating, and territorial defence. There is no great difference, in this sense, between a crocodile defending its spot along the river and a turf war between two urban gangs.

Although the lizard may stake a claim to its habitat, it exerts total indifference toward the well-being of its young. Listen to the anguished squeal of a dolphin separated from its pod or witness the sight of elephants mourning their dead, however, and it is clear that a new development is at play. Scientists have identified this as the limbic cortex. Unique to mammals, the limbic cortex impels creatures to nurture their offspring by delivering feelings of tenderness and warmth to the parent when children are nearby. These same sensations also cause mammals to develop various types of social relations and kinship networks. When we are with others of “our kind” – be it at soccer practice, church, school or a nightclub – we experience positive sensations of togetherness, solidarity and comfort. If we spend too long away from these networks, then loneliness sets in and encourages us to seek companionship.

Only human capabilities extend far beyond the scope of these two cortexes. Humans eat, sleep and play, but we also speak, plot, rationalise and debate finer points of morality. Our unique abilities are the result of an expansive third brain – the neocortex – which engages with logic, reason and ideas. The power of the neocortex comes from its ability to think beyond the present, concrete moment. While other mammals are mainly restricted to impulsive actions (although some, such as apes, can learn and remember simple lessons), humans can think about the “big picture”. We can string together simple lessons (for example, an apple drops downwards from a tree; hurting others causes unhappiness) to develop complex theories of physical or social phenomena (such as the laws of gravity and a concern for human rights).

The neocortex is also responsible for the process by which we decide on and commit to particular courses of action. Strung together over time, these choices can accumulate into feats of progress unknown to other animals. Anticipating a better grade on the following morning’s exam, a student can ignore the limbic urge to socialise and go to sleep early instead. Over three years, this ongoing sacrifice translates into a first class degree and a scholarship to graduate school; over a lifetime, it can mean ground-breaking contributions to human knowledge and development. The ability to sacrifice our drive for immediate satisfaction in order to benefit later is a product of the neocortex.

Understanding the triune brain can help us appreciate the different natures of brain damage and psychological disorders. The most devastating form of brain damage, for example, is a condition in which someone is understood to be brain dead. In this state a person appears merely unconscious – sleeping, perhaps – but this is illusory. Here, the reptilian brain is functioning on autopilot despite the permanent loss of other cortexes.

Disturbances to the limbic cortex are registered in a different manner. Pups with limbic damage can move around and feed themselves well enough but do not register the presence of their littermates. Scientists have observed how, after a limbic lobotomy2 , “one impaired monkey stepped on his outraged peers as if treading on a log or a rock”. In our own species, limbic damage is closely related to sociopathic behaviour. Sociopaths in possession of fully-functioning neocortexes are often shrewd and emotionally intelligent people but lack any ability to relate to, empathise with or express concern for others.

One of the neurological wonders of history occurred when a railway worker named Phineas Gage survived an incident during which a metal rod skewered his skull, taking a considerable amount of his neocortex with it. Though Gage continued to live and work as before, his fellow employees observed a shift in the equilibrium of his personality. Gage’s animal propensities were now sharply pronounced while his intellectual abilities suffered; garrulous or obscene jokes replaced his once quick wit. New findings suggest, however, that Gage managed to soften these abrupt changes over time and rediscover an appropriate social manner. This would indicate that

reparative therapy has the potential to help patients with advanced brain trauma to gain an improved quality of life.

A In recent years we have all been exposed to dire media reports concerning the impending demise of global coal and oil reserves, but the depletion of another key non-renewable resource continues without receiving much press at all. Helium – an inert, odourless, monatomic element known to lay people as the substance that makes balloons float and voices squeak when inhaled – could be gone from this planet within a generation.

BHelium itself is not rare; there is actually a plentiful supply of it in the cosmos. In fact, 24 per cent of our galaxy’s elemental mass consists of helium, which makes it the second most abundant element in our universe. Because of its lightness, however, most helium vanished from our own planet many years ago. Consequently, only a miniscule proportion – 0.00052%, to be exact – remains in earth’s atmosphere. Helium is the by-product of millennia of radioactive decay from the elements thorium and uranium. The helium is mostly trapped in subterranean natural gas bunkers and commercially extracted through a method known as fractional distillation.

C The loss of helium on Earth would affect society greatly. Defying the perception of it as a novelty substance for parties and gimmicks, the element actually has many vital applications in society. Probably the most well known commercial usage is in airships and blimps (non-flammable helium replaced hydrogen as the lifting gas du jour after the Hindenburg catastrophe in 1932, during which an airship burst into flames and crashed to the ground killing some passengers and crew). But helium is also instrumental in deep-sea diving, where it is blended with nitrogen to mitigate the dangers of inhaling ordinary air under high pressure; as a cleaning agent for rocket engines; and, in its most prevalent use, as a coolant for superconducting magnets in hospital MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanners.

D The possibility of losing helium forever poses the threat of a real crisis because its unique qualities are extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible to duplicate (certainly, no biosynthetic ersatz product is close to approaching the point of feasibility for helium, even as similar developments continue apace for oil and coal). Helium is even cheerfully derided as a “loner” element since it does not adhere to other molecules like its cousin, hydrogen. According to Dr. Lee Sobotka, helium is the “most noble of gases, meaning it’s very stable and non-reactive for the most part … it has a closed electronic configuration, a very tightly bound atom. It is this coveting of its own electrons that prevents combination with other elements’. Another important attribute is helium’s unique boiling point, which is lower than that for any other element. The worsening global shortage could render millions of dollars of high-value, life-saving equipment totally useless. The dwindling supplies have already resulted in the postponement of research and development projects in physics laboratories and manufacturing plants around the world. There is an enormous supply and demand imbalance partly brought about by the expansion of high-tech manufacturing in Asia.

E The source of the problem is the Helium Privatisation Act (HPA), an American law passed in 1996 that requires the U.S. National Helium Reserve to liquidate its helium assets by 2015 regardless of the market price. Although intended to settle the original cost of the reserve by a U.S. Congress ignorant of its ramifications, the result of this fire sale is that global helium prices are so artificially deflated that few can be bothered recycling the substance or using it judiciously. Deflated values also mean that natural gas extractors see no reason to capture helium. Much is lost in the process of extraction. As Sobotka notes: “[t]he government had the good vision to store helium, and the question now is: Will the corporations have the vision to capture it when extracting natural gas, and consumers the wisdom to recycle? This takes long-term vision because present market forces are not sufficient to compel prudent practice”. For Nobel-prize laureate Robert Richardson, the U.S. government must be prevailed upon to repeal its privatisation policy as the country supplies over 80 per cent of global helium, mostly from the National Helium Reserve. For Richardson, a twenty- to fifty-fold increase in prices would provide incentives to recycle.

FA number of steps need to be taken in order to avert a costly predicament in the coming decades. Firstly, all existing supplies of helium ought to be conserved and released only by permit, with medical uses receiving precedence over other commercial or recreational demands. Secondly, conservation should be obligatory and enforced by a regulatory agency. At the moment some users, such as hospitals, tend to recycle diligently while others, such as NASA, squander massive amounts of helium. Lastly, research into alternatives to helium must begin in earnest.