Doctor Karl’s shirts and cicadas

Karl Kruszelnicki is a long-time science dude (‘science communicator’ makes him sound so – conventional, is it?) on ABC radio and tv in particular. He seems to know everything you could ever want to know about scientific things and has been around for many years, wearing colourful shirts and being engaged and vibrant and funny and informative. He won an IgNobel prize in 2002 for research he did into belly button fluff – who gets it, when, how much, what colour. But he’s also done lots of serious things too – invented a machine to help diagnose eye disease, work on climate change and on and on. My friend Kathy sent me a little piece he’s recently done about cicadas (here) (I can only find it on Facebook, and can’t seem to embed it here, so hopefully you will be able to see it by clicking on the link. I didn’t have to log in to see it, so it should be accessible to all!)

Off on a tangent now, the cicadas are amazing! They live long lives, some of them (called periodic cicadas), mostly underground. There are three species of this type, with 7, 13 and 17 year life cycles. Apparently, the length of the cycle (all prime numbers) is related to either the need not to all arrive at the same time and eat out all the food available, or to avoid predator insects with shorter or more regular life cycles. Anyway, this year, the 13 year and the 17 year broods are going to arrive at the same time – for the first time since 1803! Just the logistics that Dr Karl outlines are mind blowing. What happens to all the poo! And all those babies – holy toledo! And don’t you just love it that people observe and study these things – an article I read when looking around for news about it quoted one guy who said “I’ve been studying cicadas for 50 years”!!!!

Back to Dr Karl. I really like his style – combination of rigorous and funny and a bit unique and quirky thrown in too. Here is a link to a terrific piece about his shirts, and his partner who makes them for him. It seems to sum him up pretty well. Mary, his partner, seems like a fascinating person too. And here are a few pics of him (and one of him and Mary) and a selection of shirts. (You can find out about the farting on you tube!)