Taking the Bugs-Eye View

Dr. Hugh Raffles is amazed that people don't pay much attention to the vast communities often just a few feet away.

There are far more insects in the world than people and some argue that our ecosystem depends much more on the bugs than it does people.

Raffles tells 26 journeys into the world(s) of insects, with his book INSECTOPEDIA. Through the tales of trained crickets and parachuting spiders and more Raffles funnels an anthropological study that is more about humans than it is about insects.

LISTEN: HUGH RAFFLES - INSECTOPEDIA

The Harvest of Pandora's Box

The way humans are living in the 21st century isn't well matched to the way we're built.

Geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells traces the long history of humans by gathering DNA samples and looking for the demarcations of change back in a family tree.

In his study of the long view of humanity Wells has learned that for most of our species's existence we lived in small groups and hunted or gathered our food. About ten thousand years ago something happened: farming. Wells suggests that although the practice of cultivating crops helped humans succeed as far as building up numbers, the shift in to this common practice of survival is having consequences that we are just encountering today.

LISTEN: SPENCER WELLS - PANDORA'S SEED