Common Misconceptions

Jan 14
Everyone has heard some tale about insects at some point in their lives. May Berenbaum devoted herself to writing an entire book about these "old wives' tales". Berenbaum addressed three stories that I have heard at some point in my life before; these stories were: bumblebees cannot fly and cockroaches can survive a nuclear reaction First of all Berenbaum disproves the theory that bees cannot fly. I first heard this when I took AP physics in high school. My teacher brought up this theory that insects cannot fly, but it never made sense to me since they do obviously fly. I just never understood how or why. Berenbaum says physicists all calculate the kinetic equations and kinematics of bees and they all prove that it is physically impossible that bees fly. However, this creature still manages to be air bound because the physicist did not account for the flexibility of the wings. The wings can move in 200  beats per second, and these wings act like rotors and can move in different oscillatory motions (Berenbaum 2). In addition to the theory that bees cannot fly, I have also heard that cockroaches can survive nuclear wars and bombs. As a kid different cartoons would portray this phenomenal theory, but it never really "clicked"in my head, since I never understood. But now I realize this theory is ridiculous. Nuclear reactions contain such large quantities of gamma radiation, how can anything survive such a blast of energy? Well Berenbaum certainly surprised me when she provided data that proved roaches survive the lowest amount of radiation (20,000 rad), when fruit flies survived 60,000 rad and wasps survived 180,000 rad (Berenbaum 100). Wow, roaches probably won't survive these extreme conditions, but the other two insects certainly will. In addition to surviving nuclear radiation, Berenbaum described a species of beetles that had their life prolonged when exposed to radiation. An experiment was conducted where beetles were exposed to X-ray radiation of 60 rads (Berenbaum 97). While surfing the internet for this topic, some think insects are more resistant to radiation due to their molting cycles (David Hiskey). http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/04/why-cockroaches-and-insects-are-resistant-to-radiation/
 Since cell division isn't continually happening, radiation has a less chance effecting its cell cycle checkpoints in division, specifically the S checkpoint, which determines the cell to undergo apoptosis if conditions aren't ideal. Another specific about this S checkpoint is that this checkpoint is also crucial to the disease of the cell cycle, cancer. If cancer can get past the S point then the cell can divide repeatedly. Linking to insects, since they do not divide as frequently, then the percentage of it affecting the cycles is less. All of these tales I heard as a kid prove not to be true at all, but for interesting reasons.