Ed Yong
speaker
354 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2025
last heard 25 Sep
Ed Yong’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
It's a special kind of parasite because it also manipulates the mind and the behavior of its host.
So the wasp's sting...
not only lays an egg, but it also delivers venom to the cockroach's brain that changes its behavior.
It makes it very docile.
And, you know, we all know when cockroaches are threatened, they run away very easily.
But once stung, the cockroach becomes very, very amenable.
So the wasp actually grabs it by its antennae and leads it to its nest like a person walking a dog.
It's crazy.
It's wild.
It really does.
Now, where touch comes in is...
how does the wasp know where to inject venom, right?
So it's stung the cockroach.
The tip of the sting is full of touch sensors.
So the sting not only is an egg-laying tube and a drill, but it's also kind of like a hand, right?
It's an organ of touch.
And the wasp can detect the...
Yeah, yeah.
And there have been some great experiments showing that it's doing this by replacing the cockroach brain with stuff that feels very different, stuff that feels like a fake brain, and seeing what the wasps do.
So yeah, the wasp is absolutely using its sense of touch to feel for the distinctive feel of a cockroach brain.
Showing 221–240 of 354 · page 12 of 18
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