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Hi, welcome to Thoughts That Bug Me, a Gen Z science podcast all about the weird and wonderful

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world of insects and the people that love them.

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My name's Zofia and along with my friend Clarisse, we're your very enthusiastic hosts.

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So we're going to dive into all sorts of questions this season.

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Why does Gen Z like Franz Kafka's roach so much?

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How many beetles does it take to eat a dead kitten?

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Do stick insects even have maternal instincts?

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But for now, here's an interview that we did on ABC Radio National on The Science Show

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with Robin Williams.

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So this interview was a little bit special because back when I was in year 9 in high

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school, the folks at The Science Show gave me my very first opportunity to write real

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science communication pieces that people would actually get to hear.

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I ended up writing a bunch of stuff for them over the years and it was so awesome to try

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and present important scientific topics in a fun, exciting way that stayed true to myself.

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And I'm very grateful that I was supported by them to be able to do that.

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So in kind of a full circle moment, here's Clarisse and I talking to Robin Williams about

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this new podcast and what we're trying to do here.

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And so to some of our or science show history, one of our guests while she was still at school

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in Melbourne was Zofia Witkowski-Blake.

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She presented talks about the bionic eye and a cosmic dog.

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And she's back with me now with a friend and colleague Clarisse Sawyer to talk about bugs.

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But let's go back to one of her poems when she was still 15 in 2017, all about Laika,

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the first big animal in space in 1957, a dog who would be 70 today had she lived.

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A multi-stage rocket with a fuel more powerful than anything the West has installed puts

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its final stage into around the world orbit.

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Two things are astonishing about Sputnik the second, its weight more than half a ton and

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its live passenger, a dog.

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shows how this flying dog kennel is probably arranged, radio, food and oxygen

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supplies and Laika, the most famous husky in the world or strictly speaking out of it.

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Laika's elliptical orbit varies from a hundred to a thousand miles above the earth's surface,

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where observatories listen eagerly for the coded radio signals, which tell the space

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scientists how Laika is standing up to her lonely journey.

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These signals give information on the brain, respiration and pulse of the first living

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being to leave earth for outer space.

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We've sent a lot of animals into space, jellyfish, beetles, bees, cats, mice, dogs,

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hares, frogs and fleas, guinea pigs, chimpanzees, positively a menagerie.

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Can you imagine the cacophony of a zoo in the sea of the sky?

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The lifeboat of Pi, but the tiger is 800 ants and the orangutan times by 32, 32 monkeys.

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But before them came a dog and her name was Laika.

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Laika didn't come from lofty places.

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She knew only of the rough streets and the faces of those who tested and trained and

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put her through her paces.

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Although she couldn't really pace, she was kept in tiny cages, smaller and smaller as

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the weeks grew and simulations of the acceleration she would go through.

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Who knew that the intrinsic eccentricities of sending a dog into space would include

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nutrient gel and playing with the children of your trainers?

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Under Laika a column of fire ignited that sent her up in a spire of heat and smoke and

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danger.

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A hundred thousand meters might have sent her out of sight, but Laika's flight brought

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her above the tears of night and a hundred thousand kilos of frenzied roaring rage lifted

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a bitza onto the world stage.

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And a hundred thousand rubles spent could have been a futile attempt to launch this

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noble mongrel, propagate the feudal craze to launch the human race, the intrinsic eccentricities

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of sending a dog into space.

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Now Laika might have been the one to take the flight, but I'm the one who doesn't

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know what's right because she didn't come down alive.

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She was never meant to.

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Did her fur stand on end as gravity grew then fell away?

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Did her nose twitch as her craft plunged into the cold abyss?

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Did the starry cosmos reflect in her colourblind eyes?

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Probably not.

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No windows.

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But we only know what we know and we know the data that was slowly thrown back into

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the muddy earthen day.

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Laika's blood pumped through her veins and that we know.

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Laika's chest rose and fell as she breathed and that we know.

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Laika an organic creature, much like our own frail human bodies with sinew and muscle and

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bone had flown and in her capsule throne had survived and that we know.

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And from what we know, we grow.

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Wasps, worms, turtles, dogs, spiders, fish, rabbits, frogs, urchins, newts, crickets,

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mice, snails, ants and butterflies, brine shrimp, moths and rats, roaches, scorpions

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and a cat.

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The cat's name was Felix.

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He was sent by the French, of course.

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Without knowing it, Laika is telling man whether in the years to come it will be safe for him

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to follow her.

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Meanwhile, he watches her progress with envious eyes, wondering to what adventures this little

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pioneer is blazing the trail.

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The beeps of Sputnik II on which Laika died, Zofia Witkowski-Blake.

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Zofia, what made you write that poem?

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I was obsessed with space like I think many young people and honestly it's truly the piece

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of writing that's been the most long lived because I read it out at a poetry night with

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Clarisse not that long ago.

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Very rare to still like something that you wrote at 14.

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It didn't embarrass you?

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Amazingly, no.

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No, amazing, it's a wonderful poem and it got to the fact that Laika was, if you like,

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a rescue dog because she couldn't have someone's nice pet or something like that.

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It wasn't looking at the universe out of the window because there was no window, it was

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just locked in.

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It's something deeply poetic and deeply sad about that fact and yet it's just another

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little bit of our science history that we sent dogs up before humans.

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And what was the response of the audience?

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Well, ask Clarisse because she was there perhaps.

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Tell me.

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Raukka's applause, everybody loved it.

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Definitely the highlight of the night, yes.

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And they could remember the nature of Laika, it wasn't regarded as too old fashioned and

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gone.

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No, I think it was very well received because I think the story of Laika resonates very

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well with people across generations.

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It's very tragic.

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Well, this of course is one of the reasons I'm interested in your work now, having graduated,

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and that is whether there is an appreciation of not only history, but also the idea of

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doing old fashioned things like collecting.

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What made you look into insects of all things to illustrate your love of nature?

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I think the passion started for me when I was a child.

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I was a massive nerd.

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I was obsessed with Charles Darwin and his collaborator, Alfred Wallace.

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Alfred Wallace was a butterfly collector and I wanted to be like him.

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So I got into insect collecting because the barrier for entry was so small.

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Insects are everywhere, even in a highly urban landscape.

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My mom helped me out a lot with that.

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I remember trapping a wasp with a picnic basket and putting it in my freezer to kill it for

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my collection, which is pretty macabre for an 11 year old.

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But that's how I started.

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And then I realized selling insect taxidermy would be a more interesting alternative to

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working at KFC.

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So that's how I got started with my current job, basically.

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Selling the insects, you're preserving them so that they can be kept.

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Yeah.

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I get my insect specimens from conservation farms overseas, so principally in Indonesia

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and Peru, and they're all non endangered species and they're all farmed.

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So it's a sustainable practice.

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And then I do the taxidermy in Melbourne and I sell them to whoever wants them, which is

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a very diverse crowd, I find.

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Very interesting.

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There's a very famous entomologist in Stanford University called Paul Ehrlich, famous for

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the population bomb and concerns about having too many people on the planet.

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And he is an expert and huge collection of moths and butterflies and said, don't tell

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the public that that's what I do because they'll think I'm soft, loving butterflies and such

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like and they won't take me seriously.

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But Zofia, do they take you seriously given the fact that you collect these insects?

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Well, I've only just started dipping my toe into collecting insects through Clarisse and

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actually through a project we did together where we preserved insects that had been on

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display as art in the Science Gallery.

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And it was an artist who's a friend of ours, Laurie Pavlovich.

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It was their work about bugs breaking binaries, but they passed away because they have fairly

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short lifespans.

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And the process of taking them and preserving them and turning them into art, I would say

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that it's probably not soft because it's a little bit gross.

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There's a little bit of guts that you've got to pull out and you've got to come to terms

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with the fact that you're preserving these creatures that were alive and now they aren't

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anymore but their beauty can continue to go on and we can continue to appreciate them

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for what they are.

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What do you mean breaking binaries?

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Aha, so there was a fantastic collection of art at the Science Gallery, Melbourne called

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Break the Binaries about all different ideas of crossing over binaries.

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This particular one was bugs against the binaries because there are so many bugs that break

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our preconceived notions of societal roles in many different ways.

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So you have tarantulas who are very maternal and beautiful and take care of the young for

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a long time.

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And then you have Australian stick insects who sort of just drop their young on the ground

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and then they head on off and have a great life and leave ants to do the work of looking

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after those young and letting them hatch in a safe place.

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And so we think a lot of the time I think that ideas of binaries can get very, very

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hot topic but in nature we can look to nature and see that there's just an explosion of

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different ways of being which is so exciting.

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What made you decide to make radio programmes about your enthusiasm?

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Well I think Robyn I can thank you a bit for that because you gave me a real opportunity

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when I was younger to talk about science on the radio and have the chance to do that and

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I love radio, I love it as a medium, I love listening to shows, I love listening to podcasts.

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I think that it's a beautiful medium but it's also accessible for us as two non-professionals

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to start making stuff because we didn't have to set up a whole set, we could just get out

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there go to the insect expo and talk to lots of people.

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And in some ways I think having a microphone in front of people it's a little scary, maybe

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less scary than having a camera in some ways because you know you don't have your face,

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you've just got your voice and you can tell your story that way.

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Clarisse, what's been the response from your listeners?

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Well we don't have any yet because it hasn't aired but the response from the people we

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interviewed was very positive.

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I think everybody was really happy to share their love for insects and how insects have

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impacted their life and their career.

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I've been really surprised by how interested our friends have been in our podcast.

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A lot of people who weren't interested in bugs before we both started working with them

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in different ways, so me through taxidermy and Zofia through working for a period of

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time at a biotech insect based start up.

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It's been so surprising how people have been really interested in learning more and have

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learnt to appreciate insects.

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I had a friend who was definitely afraid of spiders up until very recently but I've just

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been sending her pictures of tarantulas as like exposure and over time she's actually

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grown to really love them.

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I've got the same sort of situation with a colleague of ours, one of our top five scientists

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who's now based in Queensland and she's a specialist in snakes and she did a broadcast

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actually proving that snakes are basically cowards.

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If you leave them alone they don't want to attack you and what you should do is just

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have a look at them and realise suddenly they're not slimy at all, they're wonderful and smooth

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and attractive and interesting.

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So this goes for most of nature does it not?

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Yes, absolutely and I think what's really inspiring from our interviews that we did

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at the insect expo was the number of people who keep spiders in particular as pets and

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who actually grow to really love spiders.

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Maybe there's a bit of anthropomorphisation there because they sometimes believe that

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the spiders have personalities and I'm not sure exactly how accurate that is but they

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are incredibly intelligent creatures and definitely their behaviour does vary per individual.

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So it's so incredible that these people who are not scientists, they learn so much about

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spiders from actually keeping them and perhaps someday that will actually contribute to the

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body of knowledge we have about spiders.

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And you're still studying are you?

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Yes, so I just finished a honours in genetics so that was on genetically engineering frogs

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to be resistant to chytrid fungus which has been a global pandemic which has been incredibly

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horrible for amphibian populations.

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Currently I'm taking a break but I have plans to start a PhD in the nearish future.

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Zofia talking about binaries, you've chosen to call one of your episodes queer insects

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or entomology, why?

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Well the word queer is a term that's been embraced by the LGBT community as a reclamation

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and also as a term that can encompass a lot of different people in a really beautiful

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way.

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I'm no expert on it but I'm lucky enough to call myself part of that community and

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I think there's a really beautiful correlation with how we hear the word queer, it has meant

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weird and it has meant...

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Different and unacceptable.

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Exactly and you can apply that in a way to insects and a lot of people look at bugs and

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insects and they feel disgust or they look at them and they feel fear.

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And part of what we talk about here is building empathy towards insects.

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At the expo some of the communicators there had the idea of gateway bugs.

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So these are bugs like ladybugs which are cute, they're colourful and they're easier

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for people to start to care about.

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What about Jiminy Cricket?

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Jiminy Cricket, a little before my time.

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And so you start with these bugs and you start with maybe bugs in stories and then you work

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up to caring about bugs which are just as important, spiders, other insects and you

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can then care about them and love them for what they are and also appreciate the role

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that they play.

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So thinking about using that word queer in that context, thinking about Laurie's artwork

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about bugs breaking binaries, we just thought it was a great combination of empathy.

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And finally you are not necessarily studying at the moment, you're at ScienceWorks?

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I am at ScienceWorks, I'm learning facilitator at ScienceWorks which means I do shows but

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I'm also studying, I'm doing a Masters of Science in bioinformatics.

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What is bioinformatics?

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So bioinformatics is applying computing technologies to biological problems.

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And I do a bit of crossover because a lot of it is genetic data.

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So using algorithms to look at genetic data, at sequencing data is a massive part of what

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I'm studying.

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Thank you both.

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Thank you.

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Zofia and Clarisse return next week with their first insect feature with Trades also saying

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how much they love those bugs.

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That was an interview that aired on ABC Radio Nationals The Science Show.

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Next week at the same time they're broadcasting our first episode.

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It's all about insect collecting and we're going to release it here with some bonus content

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at the end.

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Hopefully you'll join us then.

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Bye.