Posts Tagged ‘urbanization’
“Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite”*…
As Rodrigo Pérez Ortega reports, that admonition has a very long history…
Long before rats roamed sewers and cockroaches lurked in kitchen corners, another unwelcome guest plagued early civilizations. A new genomic study published today in Biology Letters suggests that bedbugs—the blood-feeding insects that haunt our hotel stays—were the first urban pests, proving an itchy menace for tens of thousands of years.
“This is really amazing,” says Klaus Reinhardt, an evolutionary biologist at the Dresden University of Technology who was not involved in the new study. “I think the hypothesis is quite solid.” Still, other researchers quibble over whether bedbugs can indisputably claim that title.
Many species of bedbugs depend on us—and our blood—to survive, but long ago, their prey of choice was probably exclusively bats. Genetic evidence suggests that about 245,000 years ago, some bedbugs made the jump to early humans.
This split led to two genetically distinct bedbug lineages. One kept feeding on bats and today remains largely confined to caves and natural habitats in Europe and the Middle East. The other followed humans into modern dwellings. Exactly how that scenario played out remained a mystery, however. That’s why Warren Booth, an evolutionary biologist at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and his team set out to study the genome of the common bedbug (Cimex lectularius) in depth…
… [Their findings make] bedbugs strong contenders for the title of the world’s first true urban pest that relies solely on humans, the researchers claim. Unlike more recent urban interlopers that feast on our stored food and enjoy our cozy homes—like the German cockroach (Blattella germanica), which formed a close association with humans just 2000 years ago, or the black rat (Rattus rattus), whose commensal relationship began about 5000 years ago—bedbugs may have started parasitizing humans just as our ancestors started building permanent settlements…
… the new findings underscore how humans have shaped the evolution of urban insects. Compared with their bat-feeding cousins, human-feeding bedbugs are smaller, less hairy, and have larger limbs—adaptations likely suited to navigating smooth walls and synthetic bedding. Today’s bedbugs also carry many DNA mutations linked to insecticide resistance, a relatively recent trait that reflects the pressures of modern pest control. “They’re a remarkable yet horrible species,” Booth says.
Understanding how these pests evolved together with us could help improve strategies for controlling them, especially as cities continue to grow—and as bedbugs now feed on the poultry we raise. Further research could also help us understand how our own immune system evolved, since some people develop allergies for bedbug bites. As a start, Booth and his team are analyzing centuries-old bedbug specimens in museums, to track how the insects’ genomes—and populations—have evolved over the past century alongside us.
“There’s a pretty intimate association, whether we like it or not,” Booth says. “That’s not going away anytime soon.”…
“Bedbugs may be the first urban pest,” from @rpocisv.bsky.social in @science.org.
* common children’s rhyme
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As we contemplate the chronicle of a co-evolved curse, we might recall that it was on thus date in 1789 that Richard Kirwan published his essay in support of the phlogiston theory (the belief, that dates to alchemical times, in the existence of a fire-like element (dubbed “phlogiston”) contained within combustible bodies and released during burning. Kirwan was among the last of its advocates.
A well-regarded scientist in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Kirwan met and corresponded with Black, Lavoisier, Priestley, and Cavendish. Indeed, while scientific history remembers him as a defender of an incorrect theory, his work probably spurred Priestley and Lavoisier, who respectively discovered and named the actual elemental agent of combustion, oxygen.
But Kirwan is also remembered for a personal eccentricity (one of many) relevant to this post: he hated bugs (especially flies). He paid his servant a bounty for each one they killed.
“By its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange”*…
How did cities emerge? Where were they located? How did they change over the course of human civilization? How did they change their surroundings?
The answers to these questions are available, but hard to access. The United Nations World Urbanization Prospects, for example, only tracks urban populations and their locations from 1950 on, and so offers only a small, relatively recent snapshot of urbanization. The work of the historian Tertius Chandler and the political scientist George Modelski is much more extensive. The two painstakingly gathered population and archeological records from as far back as 2250 B.C. The problem, however, is that their data exist in the form of tables that are stuffed with hard-to-decipher numbers and notes.
A new paper published in Scientific Data takes a stab at mapping the information Chandler and Modelski gathered. Yale University researcher Meredith Reba and her colleagues digitized, transcribed, and geocoded over 6,000 years of urban data…
More at “Mapping 6,000 Years of Urban Settlements.”
* Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
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As we take it downtown, we might recall that it was on this date in 455 CE that the Vandals completed their sack of Rome. Three years earlier, the Vandal king Genseric and the Roman Emperor Valentinian III, had betrothed their children, Huneric and Eudocia, to strengthen their then-new peace treaty, but had delayed the wedding, as Eudocia was only 5 at the time. But on the 16th of March in 455, Valentinian was assassinated, and Petronius Maximus rose to the throne. Petronius, more concerned to consolidate power than to observe the decencies, married Valentinian’s widow, Licinia Eudoxia, and had his son Palladius marry Eudocia. Genseric was not amused; he sailed immediately with his army to Rome. The Vandals knocked down the city’s aqueducts on their way to the gates– which were opened to the invaders after Genseric agreed to Pope Leo I‘s request that he not raze the city nor murder it’s inhabits wholesale. The Vandals satisfied themselves with treasure and with a group of “hostages” including Eudocia and her mother. Petronius Maximus and Palladius had killed by an angry Roman mob before Genseric arrived.
“What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness”*…
… an observation that gets truer with time. Whether built from scratch…
Dubai, UAE, 1990-2013
or rebuilt…
Tokyo, Japan, after WWII in 1945 and 2013
in the developing world…
China’s high-tech hub, Shenzen, 1980-2011
or the developed…
Paris, France, 1900-2012
… cities just keep on changing, as global commerce spurs development worldwide and millions move from rural to urban lives.
More “then and now” photos of other cities at “Before and After.”
* Joesph Brodsky
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As we admit that it’s tough to keep ’em down on the farm, we might send empathetic birthday greetings to Louis “Studs” Terkel; he was born on this date in 1912. Trained as an attorney at the University of Chicago, but graduating into the Depression, he decided instead to be a hotel concierge– a post he soon deserted for the stage. In one of his first gig as an actor, he had a cast-mate also named Louis, and was asked to pick a nickname; he chose the moniker of his favorite fictional character– Studs Lonigan, of James T. Farrell’s trilogy.
In 1934, Terkel began to do radio production for the Federal Writer’s Project, which led to his own program, which daily aired on WFMT in Chicago for 45 years. Over the years he interviewed Martin Luther King, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Dorothy Parker, Tennessee Williams, and Jean Shepherd, among many, many others.
But Terkel is perhaps better known– certainly beyond the reach of Chicago radio– for his writing, largely oral histories of common Americans– e.g., Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, Working, in which (as suggested by its subtitle) “People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do,” and The Good War”: An Oral History of World War Two, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
How ya gonna keep em down on the farm?…
This simple interactive animation by Periscopic, in partnership with UNICEF, illustrates the changes in urban population from 1950 up to present, through projections for 2050. Circle size represents urban population and color is an indicator for the percentage of people living in cities or towns.
[via Flowing Data]
As we contemplate concentration, we might celebrate International Women’s Day.
Poster for Women's Day, March 8, 1914
How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm?…
A city is the pulsating product of the human hand and mind, reflecting man’s history, his struggle for freedom, creativity, genius-and his selfishness and errors.
– Charles Abrams
Beijing-based photographer Jasper James travelled Asia to create his series “City Silhouettes,” an entrancing examination of urbanization (literally) through the eyes of the individual…
[TotH to Feature Shoot]
As we re-read Jane Jacobs, we might recall that it was on this date in 1899 that the rubber heel was patented by Humphrey O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan, a printer, began by nailing a piece of rubber floor mat to his own shoes; after developing the product and patenting it, he launched a company to market his podiatric progress– in a way aimed at pedestrians pounding the pavement in America’s growing cities.
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