[ExI] blue bug

Sat May 5 15:46:15 UTC 2018

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Saturday, May 5, 2018 8:04 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] blue bug

>…It sounds like the blue coloration isn't caused by a blue pigment but by a light interference effect produced by a orderly arrangement of microscopic crystal structures on the bugs outer shell made by the virus. Is the blue color iridescent, does its blue hue change when you look at it from different angles? You might also try looking at it with polarized sunglasses.  

The most intense blue coloration in the natural world comes from an African plant called "Pollia fruit" and it does it by interference not pigment

:

http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2012/09/04/1210105109.full.pdf 

John K Clark

Ja, and it has me thinking.  Sow bugs (pick your favorite name among half a dozen or more) are everywhere (and we know where to find them (in decaying leafy material (damp dark areas (kinda like the crustacean counterpart of roaches (a land-based crustacean! (how cool is that?)))))) so it stands to reason they should be easy enough to breed in huge numbers.

So… the blue bug is caused by a virus.  Viruses spread.  So we get a bunch of these guys, find a blue one, see if we can put him in with the others, create a bunch of the blue ones, then see if we can isolate the iridovirus with the perished specimens.  Then we see if we can get other bugs to catch it.  Perhaps a new kind of pesticide?

Or we can try to create teams, blacks vs blues, in some kind of races or games?  It isn’t clear what those might be, but I hear there are reindeer games, so why not crustacean games?

Or no, wait, better idea: what’s your favorite sushi?  Lotta people will say nigiri (one of my favorites.)  Shrimp are crustacea, and we devour them whole and raw, ja?  Well the little one we do (the bigger ones gross out even hard core sorts (perhaps we cut off their heads first (and only do it after drinking several beers (on a fishing trip (with the guys double-dog daring each other to do silly things like that)))) but in any case, shrimp are edible and the small ones have shells that are soft and digestible (don’t bother asking how I know (hey, we guys are helpless when those are issued (a double dog dare is the modern equivalent of back in the old days when guys used to challenge each other to a pistol duel (so no choice ya gotta do it (but double dog dares seldom result in injury or serious fatality (as they did in the old days (Alexander Hamilton ya know.))))) 

So.  What if… we breed a skerjillion of these guys (rolly pollys, not shrimp) and notice that they molt.  Their shells don’t really grow enough so they need to periodically shuck em and grow new ones.  If you look around where they hang out, you can find what looks like a white armadillo bug, which is what is left over after he got rid of his old shell.  The newly emerged bug is a lighter color, kind of a light gray-tan color, and they just look tender and perhaps tasty.  So… we get some kind of robot arm which can spot the white guys, reaches into the container, grabs him, drops him in a pot of hot water, we get to create perhaps a filler for shrimp salad with the tender bits.

spike 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20180505/16609846/attachment.html>