Cicada Invasion

Ever found yourself spiraling down a rabbit hole of Easter candy, only to emerge with a chocolate-induced grin and tales of family gathering chaos? That's where we kick things off on our latest sonic adventure, sharing not just our confectionary confessions but also the sweet, sweet nostalgia of holidays past. Gigi's pavlova might steal the dessert spotlight, but it's Sam’s virtual DJ comeback that's got us pulsing to the beat of reminiscence and rhythm. Tayla’s skepticism about streaming DJ sets turns to surprise as she discovers the power of electronic music to amplify her focus and fuel her workday. And keep your ears perked for a hint of exclusive merchandise that might just be your next wardrobe rave.

Switching from beats to bugs, we buzz into the world of cicadas and the avant-garde trend of bug cuisine. Imagine a reality where broods X and XIX of cicadas, dormant for nearly two decades, synchronize their emergence in an event unseen since the early 19th century—a phenomenon rife with ecological intrigue and backyard drama. As if lifted from the scenes of "Snowpiercer," we chew over the prospect of insects as a sustainable protein, dissecting culinary customs from around the globe and pondering whether our Western palates are ready for such a crunchy revolution. We round off this episode with a look at South Africa's flying ant feasts and consider how these tiny creatures might just solve big environmental challenges. Tune in for a taste of the unexpected as we explore traditions, transformations, and the tantalizing world of entomophagy.

Transcript

Sam: 0:10

Welcome to Babe. What Do you Know About the podcast with your favorite husband and wife, duo Sam

Tayla: 0:16

and Tayla. Each week we dive deep into a new subject, blending fun and seriousness to push boundaries and buttons.

Sam: 0:24

Get ready to expand your knowledge, challenge your perspectives and have a blast along the way.

Tayla: 0:32

Pretty much going to have chocolate until the end of the year.

Sam: 0:37

Yeah, I kind of feel sick. Today I kind of snuck some Easter candy.

Tayla: 0:41

Did you?

Sam: 0:42

Yeah, this afternoon.

Tayla: 0:44

What? What did you sneak? I didn't see it.

Sam: 0:48

See it oh, is this while we were out? Yeah, so I was doing on the computer, I was, I had some like jelly bellies I've been eating those today. I know just sitting there I had a little caramel chocolate easter egg. It's pretty good oh, the like cadbury cream something like that, and then I had two of the marshmallow classics wow, the beacon eggs, and then I had a bar of that like creamy milk chocolate.

Tayla: 1:19

No, today was bad it was like the most chocolate I've eaten in a very long time Like months.

Sam: 1:24

Yeah, I feel ill.

Tayla: 1:28

I just had jelly bellies cause they're like a special Easter kind, so they're. They're pretty good actually they're like kind of silvery, glittery which makes me a little bit concerned for what I'm ingesting. But I was running a new heart orientation at work for the people starting in my department this week and it took too long to change a slide for my co-presenter because I was eating J Lee Bailey's. But fortunately, a lot of empathy, everyone just had Easter as well.

Tayla: 1:55

So, I just had those, though I probably had 20 J Lee Bailey's today, but I did have a Chick-fil-A shake.

Sam: 2:02

Oh nice.

Tayla: 2:02

Very good Mistake, mistake, mistake. But Easter was pretty nice. It was chaotic. Maxwell down the stairs.

Sam: 2:12

Maxwell down the stairs, yeah.

Tayla: 2:16

There's a lot of people, a lot of crying, yeah, but it was fun. I would say it was fun. The food was delicious. My grandma, who goes by Gigi, she made a pavlova.

Sam: 2:28

Oh, I did have that, it was nice.

Tayla: 2:30

If you guys don't know what it is, it's pretty much this huge meringue with cream and fruit dish Dessert rather Ridiculously good. I love that so much. Now that we're done talking about sugar, though, what was? I I gonna talk about I don't know uh, yes, I remember sam has been djing again, oh yeah it's been how many like three weeks that I've seen two weeks uh two weeks, yeah, so just two weeks of it.

Sam: 3:02

So used to do a friday show like a decade ago a virtual show yeah, kind of.

Sam: 3:08

So we had a warehouse in a studio in miami and we used to do a set every friday and we streamed to you know like 500 to 1000 people and that's the one thing me and, you know, conrad were talking about. What do we miss about the music stuff? And there's a lot we don't. But that was super fun. It was a great way, because it was a great way to kind of like decompress and like transition from work week to weekend.

Sam: 3:39

So yeah just was a lot of fun. So, anyways, we just decided to, you know, spin up a camera and some DJ equipment. Stream on Fridays Every Friday the last two Fridays. I guess We'll do it again. It's fun for us, so it's kind of like. I think I looked at the numbers. There's like 20-something people showed up.

Tayla: 3:59

That's awesome For a couple weeks. That's pretty good. Yeah, no one's there, but it's fun for me, by the way. Yeah, no, I, what's it? What do you? What do you guys?

Sam: 4:12

electronic never dies, yeah, so he came up with the name electronic.

Tayla: 4:15

Never dies e and d and d e and d, e and d that's how I was picture being chanted but I have to admit that when you first were explaining how you like literally just play a dj music set but online in a stream for people to watch, I just didn't get it.

Tayla: 4:34

I was like what the who who would go watch stuff like that? Apparently it's a popular thing, apparently a lot of people do it, but I I didn't get it. So I show up on the first week to be supportive wife over here and it was actually so fun. I just was able to put you on like my side screen while I was finishing my Friday work stuff and it was so chill I could chat in, I could. I felt like we were hanging out a little bit because you interacted a bit. But the the I have to say, as someone who's more of like a rock kind of pop kind of music person, electronic music is very good to work too is that something that I just like have slept on yes, actually that's so like I this is gonna sound funny.

Tayla: 5:19

I think a good half of any sort of success I had in music was because people listening to it in the background or doing homework or something like that it's like I actually my boss jy, came in to my little office that I've taken for myself last week on friday when you were streaming and I was like, oh, it's my husband's stream, he's doing like, and he was like, oh, this is good work music. I was like, yeah, it is. He's like, did you not know that electronic music? Electronic music is excellent for studying or working. And I was like I had no idea.

Tayla: 5:50

And he's like, yeah, well, it is and then he left but he thought it was really cool, the setup's really cool, the lighting, all that so I'm just waiting for merch, merch, yes it'll be fun maybe in a fun few weeks, yeah, yeah well, today might end up being more of a mini soad. I'm not sure it's like an interesting enough topic that I still wanted to cover it, but I don't know exactly how long we'll be able to spend talking about it. But let me do my intro.

Sam: 6:20

Let me just say well, my favorite part about this episode is was how it came about. Tayla litchi litchi like? I don't know if I heard her scream or something? She just was reading about some sort of news article and I was like what, what, what? Tell me what, what is going on.

Tayla: 6:35

And then she's like you know yeah, did you know?

Sam: 6:37

it sends me a thing. We should do an episode on this.

Tayla: 6:39

I'm like okay okay, here we are. First of all, the episode is going to involve talk of zombies, so pretty dope, also std related zombie disease. It's pretty cool. That's going to talk about a lot of things, but it was interesting enough that I was like okay, this is a wild year for cicadas, or chiquitas, or however you pronounce it. How are you supposed to pronounce it?

Sam: 7:01

Cicada.

Tayla: 7:02

Cicada.

Sam: 7:03

I don't know.

Tayla: 7:04

All right, I'm going to do my intro and we'll go from there. So 2024, the year of the cicadas. So there's going to be a symphony of buzzing this spring. Not one, but two broods of these fascinating insects are going to emerge from their underground slumber in a synchronized event not with not witnessed since the days of Thomas Jefferson. We're talking trillions of cicadas blanketing parts of the midwest and southeast in a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. So these are not your average garden cicadas. These periodical cicadas have spent the last 13 or 17 years developing underground and when they finally burst forth, they'll be on a mission to find a mate, reproduce and then die within a few short weeks. So it's a frenzy of buzzing wings and flashing bodies fueled by a primal urge. Now, before you start picturing apocalyptic scenes from a horror movie, the cicadas are harmless to humans and pets. They don't bite or sting or carry any diseases to humans or mammals.

Tayla: 8:11

But there is a fascinating twist a parasitic fungus called Massospora which acts like a kind of zombie std in the cicada world. Infected cicadas become mindless slaves to the fungus, even helping it spread by singing more than their healthy counterparts. So it's going to be an episode of cicada facts and their bizarre life cycle, and we'll talk about a bit about the synchronized emergence and talk about the zombie fungus, etc. So, babe, what do you know about the cicada invasion of?

Sam: 8:44

2024? Very little. But here's my question for you Do you feel like we're not reacting enough to how serious of an event this could be?

Tayla: 8:57

Us or us as a society?

Sam: 8:59

Us as a society.

Tayla: 9:00

Okay okay because I'm reacting appropriately. I think trillions of these massive cicadas is. I think I'm, but yeah, yeah, I feel like people are sleeping on it, but I don't think they will be. I think as soon as these things start emerging, people will be talking about it, especially in those regions. Now, can you google something for me that I thought I should google about an hour ago and didn't? Are cicadas only in the United States? I think so. If you guys do not know what a cicada is, it is a green slash, brown winged insect that kind of looks a little bit like an ugly leaf bug, but it also has like grasshopper legs at the back as well.

Sam: 9:42

A leafhopper.

Tayla: 9:43

A leafhopper.

Sam: 9:46

One exclusively North American. There is one that is North American only, but there's some other ones. There's, like some in China.

Tayla: 9:56

Okay, I think this brood convergence is happening in north america, from what I understand. So, yes, how these cicadas work. So not all cicadas work this way, but this specific one does is. It's fascinating, actually. Let's see. How do I? How do I put this? Okay, so the broods are named. So the two broods that are emerging?

Tayla: 10:18

Okay, so brood x or 10 I think it's a roman numeral, so I don't know how you're supposed to pronounce it this emerges every 17 years. So they're, they like, will sleep and grow and whatever for 17 years and then emerge. And then brood xix, which I think is 14, emerges every 13 years. So these two broods in particular have have not emerged together since 1803. So this is the first time that, like that 13 17 year cycle is like merging into one year. So, okay.

Tayla: 10:52

So these periodical cicadas they're different from annual cicadas that you've probably seen all the time, because they spend most of their lives underground as nymphs. They go underground and they feed on tree root fluids. That's how they survive and live underground. But I feel like that's such a long time, like I don't feel like it's common for any bug to live like multiple years, never mind like 13 or 17 years. It's pretty insane. But what do you think would be like the. What do you? How do I put this Survival of the fittest Like? What is the ecological or primitive benefit of like a cycle like this, as comparison to like yearly cicadas, I guess? Why do you think this even happened?

Sam: 11:39

Babe, I guess. Why do you think this even happened? Babe, I have no idea.

Tayla: 11:45

I'm asking what you think, not what you know. Babe, what do you think about this?

Sam: 11:52

I have no idea. Seriously, I have no idea.

Tayla: 11:58

It's got to be just like protection from predators, right? So I do know that. I do know that studies show that caterpillars do much better during years, that these cyclical cicadas come out, because there's literally trillions of them, so the birds just go like crazy eating these things yeah, I was reading a little bit about it.

Sam: 12:17

Well, while I was speaking because I was just curious it's. It's actually. This can be seen almost as a more positive thing. They're going to be a massive source of protein for a lot of like birds and other things that eat on these bugs well, that brings up an interesting question.

Tayla: 12:34

Do you remember the? That? It's unrelated specifically to cicadas, but it's just about protein and bugs, okay, so I'm following do you remember that train movie we watched? Is this snowpiercer?

Sam: 12:46

oh, the old one yeah with yeah, what's this? Yeah, and the the bug, the bug jelly.

Tayla: 12:51

Okay, wait wait, but what's the? What's his name?

Sam: 12:53

the axis captain america, chris evans. Okay, he's in it.

Tayla: 12:56

It is quite an intense, violent movie yeah we watched it and we ended up just being like what the hell did we just watch.

Sam: 13:03

At least that's how I felt I was like this is traumatic, very good movie though.

Tayla: 13:08

In it. There are these people that are being controlled. They don't have access to their own food and stuff and they get fed this like jelly-like substance. That's how they like survive. That's the only thing they eat all the time, and they eventually figure out that it's literally like a bunch of crickets and bugs being ground up and gelatinized, but it kept everyone alive and sustained for in this like post-apocalyptic thing now in western society at least, it is very uncommon to be eating bugs.

Tayla: 13:39

What do you think of the future of like bug cuisine is for the West? Do you feel like that's something we're going to have to like pivot to oh?

Sam: 13:47

you know what I mean eventually. So there's already like a, a number of these companies that do it. They do like little, like granola bar kind of stuff. Serious, yeah, it's already out and about there's. I serious, yeah, it's already out and about there's. I've seen some on shark tank like do people buy them? And yeah, it's just yeah, they're, they're growing.

Tayla: 14:03

It's a growing industry in the in the west what bugs typically I'm pretty sure it's like crickets yeah yeah, man, oh, I just this feels like something I could resort to out of necessity, not preemptively, if that makes sense did you never eat a flying ant growing up? No, I would not do it. Everyone has eaten.

Sam: 14:30

Tell the thing, it's a thing okay, so there's a seasonal time for flying in south africa where all the flying ants basically come out. They fly, they lose their wings, they go like there's just thousands and thousands of them everywhere and every year. You know all the kids in primary school, so like ages like 6 to 12, all kind of tell each other that you have to eat the.

Tayla: 14:52

You know flying ants and you do yeah, so let me just let me describe these. I'm gonna have to post this on our Instagram it tastes like nothing and just crunchy. Okay, but they don't look like ants, so we call them flying ants. They actually look more like termite kind of things. They have four very big wings compared to their body and they're very weak, so they like fall off very easily.

Sam: 15:14

Yeah.

Tayla: 15:15

I haven't thought about this in a long time During this season, especially in johannesburg. Like they were just like loose wings everywhere, all over the pool, in the bath. Like no I did not like it. I'd oh, stop, stop, I didn't like it. And my parents definitely like when we would have people from the community over or whatever. My dad would like fry them in butter.

Sam: 15:39

Yeah, no, that's what you do.

Tayla: 15:41

No, and I would, I refused, I wouldn't even touch the wings, don't want to touch, Don't want, don't want any of it. No, no, no.

Sam: 15:47

It doesn't taste like anything.

Tayla: 15:49

That's not the that's not the point. It wasn't the taste. I was averse to Dead things that are fully dead. If that makes sense, Like the whole body, I can see it.

Sam: 16:04

So if I just had dissected the flying ants and give you little pieces.

Tayla: 16:05

Maybe if it was like munched up into something like I, would be more willing. It's literally just a carcass.

Sam: 16:09

Put it in a, you know, potato puree.

Tayla: 16:12

I would be definitely more amenable to eating that, as opposed to like just like a bug carcass, yeah, but that's truly that's how I feel about. I just didn't even want to touch the wings, like I'm afraid of that. That's a phobe. I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

Sam: 16:28

Fascinating.

Tayla: 16:30

I know. So when like Ella, by the way, our four-year-old, since she was like two loves bugs.

Sam: 16:35

Loves bugs. We have books on bugs for her because she loves them so much. And we go on walks and she'll find bugs and she will stop and she'll pick them up, she'll touch them and hold them.

Tayla: 16:43

Yep.

Sam: 16:45

And I inside.

Tayla: 16:46

I hate it, but I feel like it's really good for her, so I let her do it and I swallow my vomit and allow it to happen, but probably I feel like that's got to be. It's a very sustainable way of eating and protein and getting nutrition Very sustainable and cheap and easy and there's not like the humane issues that you have with meat and meat products and stuff. I feel like I would.

Sam: 17:12

When things are bad enough, I would eat it, doing it preemptively, I just so if you are lucky enough to live in the following us states, you'll be able to you know partake of some extra protein this summer, because I want to find out where exactly all these cicadas, the zombie bugs are gonna be?

Tayla: 17:32

are they edible? Yeah, yeah, they're not like poisonous. No to eat? I don't think so anyways, they're not poisonous to birds, at least. Yeah, these two birds.

Sam: 17:43

Okay, here's some states. These are the states that the bugs are going to be happening in first of all, is utah on that list I'll get there. I'm going to go in alphabetical order all right, so alabama arkansas, georgia, illinois Do you say Illinois or Illinois?

Tayla: 18:00

I say Illinois because that's how I was told how to say it before I saw how to spell it Illinois. Illinois.

Sam: 18:08

Indiana, iowa, kentucky, louisiana, louisiana, maryland, mississippi, missouri. We're getting closer.

Tayla: 18:19

My brother lives in Missouri.

Sam: 18:20

Ooh, north Carolina, oklahoma, south Carolina, tennessee, tennessee, virginia oh, we're not on the list and no texas, no texas. That's the biggest surprise of all, shocking yeah, especially if louisiana's on the list.

Tayla: 18:36

Yeah, I'm sure like a couple, a couple mil, pop over the border just like everyone else inappropriate that's pretty inappropriate.

Tayla: 18:48

Okay, all right, all in all, let's talk about. So, speaking of wings, because we were talking about flying ants and wings Apparently, as cicadas emerge and molt, their discarded exoskeletons also can accumulate in large piles on the ground, creating a crunchy shimmering carpet. A crunchy shimmering carpet. So for those of you in those states previously read, you're going to have a carpet of skeletons discarded by the cicadas. I have no advice, just I'm so sorry. Sounds horrible.

Sam: 19:26

You know what? Here's the thing to think about. You probably breathe in that exoskeleton. You know what I mean. Like because it gets into, like grounded to dust. Here's the thing to think about. You probably breathe in that excess because you know I mean like because it gets into, like grounded to dust. You just breathe it in yes, I mean okay.

Tayla: 19:41

So I actually have random breathing in story. So I lived in london for a few months doing a study abroad there and loved it, loved everything about it, use the tube, which is the train system, to get everywhere. And it was hot, very hot down there in the tunnels. And one day I was sitting waiting for a train and some weird guy stands next to me and he's like sometimes I just think about all the dead skin down here that I'm breathing in and I was just like dude, get away from me. And then I I couldn't stop thinking about it every time I was down in the tube from then on.

Tayla: 20:22

Just the amount of things and I we talked about this. I don't think it was on the podcast, but we talked about just all the stuff we're exposed to and interacting with that like we don't think about, but like if you're in a lake or in the ocean, all the dead bodies that are down there decomposing that you're in the same matter with yeah, and did you know?

Sam: 20:45

there's microplastics in everything now? So your drinking water Tayla out of your tap has microplastics in it and it's gonna. When you drink it, it ends up in your bloodstream.

Tayla: 20:57

Think about that somehow less concerning to me than being in a lake with a dead person and breathing in exoskeletons somehow, even though even though my brain knows that's wrong. That's how, how I'm feeling. That's how.

Sam: 21:10

I'm feeling about it.

Tayla: 21:14

Okay, let's talk about so obviously, bugs are very important to the ecosystem, very important. Over 75% of flowering plants rely on insects for pollination. Beads, butterflies, moths and other pollinators transfer pollen between flowers to reproduce. Huge consequences to agriculture if pollinators no longer exist and they are on the decline. So what I have seen some scientists, or whatever their solution to this is to try and create some sort of bee-like robot, things to like substitute, which I feel like is a weird approach, considering you could just like focus on saving the real organic bees, but we almost we when we bought this house that we're in, there was an apiary at the bottom that I thought we were going to get.

Tayla: 22:05

I was excited.

Sam: 22:06

Yeah, and then they came and took it.

Tayla: 22:08

Yeah, they did. But my dad used to work for a honey company, a bee company, and that's when my huge appreciation for bees and protectiveness over them came. And it is kind of freaky when my brain stops to remember that, oh, our world is dying and bees are dying and we're not going to be able to eat anything. And there's bird flu in the meat and I don't know if you heard about that. Someone contracted bird flu from cattle in the united states today.

Tayla: 22:39

I think when you stop to think about that stuff, it is like really crushing to think about, but it is. It's really concerning, um, probably dealing with microplastics and other things. It's a good way to deal with the rest of it, but, like, what do you do we? We rely so much on things that I just don't think we think that much about like bugs, like they're weird cycles and stuff, and what do we need to do?

Sam: 23:06

okay, well okay, here we go, I'm gonna repeat something that I've said a bunch. This is where it starts. Number one get money out of politics, Because if we have the right people in leadership, we have the people making decisions. That's best for the people, not best for the lobbyists and best for the people that have bought them.

Tayla: 23:27

That's where we start, true that.

Sam: 23:29

Because me and you and most people want to do the right things, but we can't do the right things because we're not in power, and the reason we're not in power is because we're, you know.

Tayla: 23:38

Don't have money.

Sam: 23:39

We don't have money and we don't have the ability to, you know, compete, you know, politically, against the machine. So yeah, step one get money out of politics, go from there.

Tayla: 23:49

So Step one get money out of politics, Go from there. So hashtag, go vote. But I do think that I do feel like that's wild. How politicized the planet is. Like just science showing us all the stuff we're wrecking about the planet, Like that's. I feel like that's just not debatable, but somehow it still feels like it is with some demographics, Like no, global warming is not a thing and blah, blah, blah is not a thing, and it's just kind of like these are facts that you can very easily see data for, but because it's been politicized, no, we don't want to save our planet. Like I don't know, and I feel like it's. I will say, and I'll rag on the right again the same people who are like we need to protect our future and have like all these millions of children and do all these things are the same ones.

Tayla: 24:41

Like not providing a place for that, that future to live.

Sam: 24:47

That is a hundred percent true, and I agree with you and support you know, and with you in that opinion. But think about how dumb the left is. Also, let's all get rid of plastic straws, because that's going to be the thing that we should, all you know, abstain from and not do, and it's gonna make the big difference. Yet we completely like it's it's. It's a weird thing to focus on when there's like so much plastic consumption all around you, in your plastic cup and your plastic lid and your plastic fork and everything else.

Sam: 25:17

It wasn't somehow you know, and so it makes the right kind of like point of view and be like that. You're just as ridiculous, this is ridiculous.

Tayla: 25:26

Yeah, but I think the reason that that happens is because the main culprits that are responsible for most of the pollution and issues that we have are actually not like individual consumers so much as corporations, and we can't do freaking anything about that. You can only do something about your own behaviors and try to like vote to have corporations controlled. And I think that's why the left kind of resorted to that, because it's like, well, I can't do freaking anything, but I guess we can try stop drinking with straws, with plastic straws, like I guess we could do. That is it? Is it really that helpful? Probably not, but it's better than doing nothing, that's for sure. Really, it's the corporations that we should be saying you can't use this, you can't use that exactly I 100 money the root of all evil, though I like this rabbit hole that we went down.

Tayla: 26:18

Didn't expect to talk about this when it came to mysticators, but, as I said, I think this is going to be a mini soda. Let me see if there's any last things that I do want to talk about before we finish.

Sam: 26:30

Um, oh what let's talk about the uh fungus, the zombie fungus, because here's why.

Tayla: 26:35

Here's why I've seen.

Sam: 26:36

I've seen people you know, because there's a couple like horror movies about this where what's the show with pedro pascal, the lost of us, that's literally it yeah. So that's that, that shows, explain it is is a. Basically it's a, you know, kind of like a. It's a zombie show and yeah, it's where the fungus takes over the brain and the fungus is the thing that's yeah, it's a zombie show with.

Tayla: 27:04

The zombies are because of fungus.

Sam: 27:06

This is the exact thing that you get the idea from, where there is true like zombie-like behavior that a fungus controls an insect, and so I think they've seen it in birds too, or there's something like that where there has been a little bit of extra so it can affect.

Tayla: 27:21

If a bird is consuming a bug, that's in about a cicada that's infected. It doesn't take over, it's not, it's not the same. It can't like take over the bird's body and kill it and have it do. But it does it. It makes them high essentially, but not in like a good way in a bad way like they're.

Sam: 27:41

They have psychological effects from that but anyways, I think at some point though I think I don't know if the next few thousand years, if people are still around and the fungus is still around, there's going to be enough mutation where it can affect, like mammals and stuff I don't like any of this so the zombie apocalypse legitimately a real thing happen, we will have the walking dead, we have the.

Tayla: 28:07

we'll have the walking dead this spring in the United States, the walking dead cicadas. But I think you're probably right. I mean, it just kind of stands to reason that if it can happen with enough time and mutations and interventions, that it for sure could affect.

Sam: 28:27

Well, considering they're leaf hoppers, I would say it's the hopping dead, the hopping dead, hopping dead anyways saved.

Tayla: 28:37

Have a good week everybody. Thanks for listening to the babe. What do you know about podcast?

Sam: 28:46

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