Nnedi Okorafor’s “From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7” was one of my favorite reads this semester. The plot of the two researchers trudging through a jungle in pursuit of a mysterious CPU plant was fascinating, and Okorafor did an incredible job in creating the “Jungle-fever” feel.

What I most liked about the story, of course, was the entomological influence on the organisms. In a world that was supposedly far advanced than our current society, the insects seemed to have evolved as well. We see that the wingless hawk moth is acting almost as a guard against the CPU plant. This behavior is not different from current insects protecting their territories from invaders. However, what a drastic change is the size in the moth. Currently, insects are thought to be limited in size due to the relatively low oxygen concentrations in the air (21%). This is supported by the fact that we had dragonflies the size of eagles in ancient times when oxygen concentrations were higher (35%). Since insects have a passive respiratory system and no way to pump oxygen around, how much oxygen in the air is hypothesized to be correlated with size. Perhaps in the plant-dominated world of TreeFrog7, oxygen levels have increased enough so that you get giant moths that intelligently stalk you from behind.

URLs:

https://www.livescience.com/24122-why-insects-are-not-bigger.html (Info)

Here’s an image of a beetle pupa that reminds me very much of Giger’s art. The ribbing of the abdominal section on the pupa looks just like the ridges you see in the dead pilot alien. It’s also interesting how this pupa is almost entirely immobile and inactive (although the innards are churning through the metamorphic processes), just like the frozen pilot. I actually thought there was going to be a jump scare of the alien popping out- thank goodness that didn’t happen.

Are you convinced that invertebrates can inspire SF? I think more and more through this journey I am coming to the conclusion that that is the case.

URLs:

https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/38729066 (Image1)

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-alien-1979 (Image 2)

After watching Alien (1979) and being astonished by the fusion of mechanical and biological systems to create the Alien world, I was interested in the mentality of the creator behind it all- H.R. Giger. I had originally learned about him from my co-worker this past summer who was raving about the art. As I mentioned in my previous Alien post, much of his creations were inspired by invertebrates.

A further search into Giger’s works revealed many interesting things about the artist. Contrary to what I thought, his work mainly surrounds the intersection of humans and machines. This actually makes sense since the final form of the Alien is still humanoid in shape. Furthermore, though the facehugger is invertebrate-like, it is very much shaped like a human hand. That said, since invertebrates are segmented creatures and machines often have distinct sections, it is easy to melt vertebrates and invertebrates together in this art form.

Fun fact: turns out Giger has several bars designed with his “biomechanical” theme!

URLs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._Giger (Info)

https://hrgiger.com/ (Info + images)

I briefly mentioned in another post about the butterfly drones in Cimini’s The City in the Sky. In the film these are presented in an ominous fashion, almost like trackers for the android or for the clone hiding from his “master”. As we discussed in class, there is tremendous irony here since in many cultures butterflies symbolize life and the soul (http://www.gardenswithwings.com/butterfly-stories/butterfly-symbolism.html). Furthermore, the butterfly’s beauty (especially swallowtail butterflies) remind people of the magnificence of nature. By creating artificial butterflies in a dark, metallic world, we see a glimmer of hope that is instantly extinguished when we see they are likely to help track down beings considered as “property”.

I do not think the butterflies in this story are necessarily a warning from Cimini against using insects as drones, since I see it as merely a way to artistically enhance the desperate environment of the story. That said, it is still an example of the permeation of invertebrates within works of SF.

(Screenshot from City in the Sky)

URLs:

http://www.gardenswithwings.com/butterfly-stories/butterfly-symbolism.html

There are so many animal-like drones out there. Though this one isn’t exactly an insect drone, this bird-mimicking camera is deployed to record insect activity! Check out this video. Absolutely fascinating.

This goes to show how insect drones have an advantage in that they could reduce spooking or detection. I never thought of using a robot to capture footage of natural systems, but clearly this video demonstrates that capability. I think so much of this is framed by dystopian SF works, like the spying butterflies we see in Cimini’s City in the Sky.

URLs:

https://fstoppers.com/documentary/drone-disguised-hummingbird-captures-incredible-footage-monarch-butterfly-swarm-480714?fbclid=IwAR3Qn5bhJap2aTBD7hEbcKK0ZDMjKfNGvuwhwCU4LwEsGE5B__51MBRHa0w (Info)

“This is ground control from Major Tom…”

A classic line from David Bowie’s famous “Space Oddity”. The zany synthesizers and electric guitar tracks create a “space-like” feel, and we are transported into the “tin can” Major Tom is floating in out in Earth’s orbit. Further SF feel comes from the “protein pills” to be taken right before blast-off.

Before taking this class I thought that SF was limited to text and film, but boy was I wrong. Bowie himself adopts SF as a way of expressing himself through his music. Yet, with my bug-post heavy blog I wanted to point out how his background band was called The Spiders from Mars. Furthermore, he has an entire tour called the Glass Spider Tour, in which a massive 60-foot tall spider sculpture was brought to every set he performed (take a look at the picture). Again we see how invertebrates have creeped into works of SF, almost blurring the lines between alien and arthropod (Who knows, maybe the bugs are aliens, as proposed in the Fermi Paradox).

URLs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Oddity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spiders_from_Mars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Spider_Tour

https://withberlinlove.com/2016/01/17/david-bowie-berlin-concert-1987-glass-spider-tour/ (Image)

I had an absolute blast reading Wells’ The War of the Worlds, one of the earliest works of science fiction. The first time I read it was back in middle school (prime SF years), and had no idea it was written in 1898. From the imagery and language nothing indicated to me that it written far before our modern times. Martian cylinders plummeting to earth and huge alien tripod machines terrorizing towns sounded like came straight out of a recent SF movie. In fact, this book has been adapted in a recent 2005 film!

Therefore, I was shocked when we spoke about what qualifies as SF and The War of the Worlds was classified as proto-SF. Of course, one of our main questions of the class is to ask, “What is Science Fiction?”. My initial reaction definitely came from my 14-year old perspective of SF: aliens, robots, and world terror. Though I have gone through class as a 22-year old, I have to admit I still see this book at SF since had the same story had been written 100 years later the themes would qualify it as normal SF. Of course, I am being very nit-picky here but I think a question to think about is whether we should treat early works of a genre as equals or not.

(https://www.amazon.com/War-Worlds-H-G-Wells/dp/1590171586)

In response to Diego Villamarin’s comment:

“… I’m also a Bio person but for all the talks that I’ve had about using animals as model organisms, I never believed we would be able to reach this level of manipulation and control over them!
I guess I’m left wondering what your thoughts are regarding the morality of this kind of tech? I know you are very knowledgable about bugs and this side of Biology. Do you think there are benefits to using these bionic organisms over small drones or fully robotic technology? I can only seem to think that it helps with camouflage and perhaps cost effectiveness, assuming the device on the bug’s back is somewhat cheap to manufacture. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts!”

Hey Diego!

Thank you so much for your question about the morality of insect drones. The video of the struggling beetles getting wired up and twitching under electrical currents also made me question the ethics of this technology. I hate watching animals unnecessarily suffering, but I find sacrificing an insect rather than having a human scout in dangerous situations far out weigh the moral implications.

You nailed it on the head with camouflage as an advantage. Since insects are much smaller you could also work them into much tighter spaces, such as underneath doors or cracks in walls. I think in the future the cost effectiveness would also come into play, but it is going to take a while to get efficient in wiring up these bugs. These microsurgeries surely can’t help with the health of the insects, so I do think turning to insect-mimic robots would be a better option.

At Harvard they’ve designed a solar-powered drone that utilizes wing construction from bees. Three years ago one of the Harvard biomimetic researchers actually came to Bowdoin to give a talk about how they optimize the durability of these wings. They found that bumblebees had a elastic joint in their wing, reducing the damage caused upon bumping into an object and keeping their flight in path. On the other hand, wasp wings without the joint fared much more poorly in the durability test. I have to admit the research methods were a bit savage since they took live insects, strapped them into rotisseries, and spun them so their wings would smash against a surface. I can’t find the study but here’s a link to Harvard’s microbiotics lab (https://www.micro.seas.harvard.edu/)

URLs:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/26/134377/robot-bee-solar-powered-flying-drones/ (Info + image)

https://www.micro.seas.harvard.edu/ (Info)

Alien (1979) is perhaps one of the most influential SF films. This film is praised for its cinematic excellence and the overarching allegory to rape. Not only does the film address issues of sexual assault, but it reverses male-on-female rape to female-on-male rape. This is accomplished by creating a fictional parasitic alien “facehugger” that deposits an alien egg into a human’s throat through a phallic ovipositor that comes out of a vagina-like orifice (take a look at the picture). In the early works of HR Giger (the creator of the alien organisms), you can further see that the facehugger’s legs much resemble that of a human hand.

Quite the freaky creature! You might think “how the heck did they come up with that!?”, but the answer lies in real animals. Take a look at a horseshoe crab. See the resemblance? By turning to organisms that are already “freakish” by human standards SF filmmakers and writers tap into our fears and emotions.

Not only physical aspects of facehuggers are based off real creatures; their life cycle is similar to that of parasitic wasps. Many species of wasps will paralyze caterpillars, bring them back to a nest, and lay eggs in the caterpillar for the young to eat inside out. As we see with the alien embryo bursting out of the human’s chest, the wasp larvae tear out of their host’s body and repeat the cycle. Bugs may seem pretty harmless with their tiny size, but clearly they are wild enough to inspire SF films that turn into cinematic masterpieces!

URLs:

https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Facehugger (Information on facehuggers and picture 1)

https://www.silive.com/news/2017/10/horseshoe_crab_shells_wash_ash.html (Horseshoe crab image)

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/2770-parasitoid-wasp-life-cycle (Parasitic wasp life cycle image)