Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Monday Mini: The Song of Cicadas

Transcript

Monday Mini: The Song of Cicadas · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and welcome to Steff whenever told you
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a prediction of iHeartRadio. And yes I'm still above myself.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: But Samantha is probably happy about that. For this one,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: because I am talking about cicados once again. It's gonna
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: be a bit of a shorter episode, but I did
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: really want to find a way to talk about them,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and I think we're going to try to find another
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: way to talk about them if anybody knows women in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: entomology would like to talk with us. So yeah, as
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you've probably heard, perhaps from me for the first time
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: since the eighteen hundreds, two broods of cicadas are going
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: to emerge in the US. At the same time, it's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: being called all kinds of things like cicada apocalyps. People
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: are freaking out about it on TV. I'm interested. I
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: don't think at Lanta, which is where we are, is
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: gonna get the brunt of it. We're gonna get some,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: but I'm interested to see how loud it's going to be,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: especially as someone who records audio from home. I was
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: determined to find a feminist topic to talk about with
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: this and find it. I did, as I've said previously,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: fascinated with the science of cicadas, and it was one
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of the first podcast episodes I ever edited was about cicadas. So,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: all right, if you've heard the loud, humming, buzzing, chirping
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of cicadas, you know that it is a culmination of
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: several sounds that are occurring at the same time. This
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: is the result of different sounds made by different species
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of cicadas. For a long time we didn't know, though.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Inter entomologist Margaretta Harre Morris in the early nineteenth century.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Ever since she was a teenager, she had studied cicadas
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: when they would come out, and in eighteen seventeen she
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: heard one song, and in eighteen thirty four she heard
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: a different one. In eighteen forty six, at the age
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: of forty nine, she publicly voiced her opinion that she
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: had discovered a news species of cicada. This was in
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: part due to some digging that she'd done that unearthed
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: cicada larvae a whole five years before they were set
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to emerge. They were sucking at the roots of trees,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: which was a pretty big discovery in terms of how
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: cicada survived underground. Four seventeen years in itself, at the time,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: but on top of that, she realized some were significantly
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: smaller than others. So that very year she wrote up
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: her findings in a report she sent off to the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, asserting that she was
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: quote inclined to believe that there are two species differing
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: sufficiently in size. She even wrote descriptions describing the different
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: sounds that they made. The larger ones were more sluggish
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and made a sound like bahoo. The smaller ones, on
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the other hand, were very active. Their song quote sharp
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and shrill, like the noise made by the loom of
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a stocking weaver. These are yea fa ru was a
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: quote also, by the way, Because she wasn't a member
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: of this academy, though, she had to enlist a male
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: scientist to present her paper and supporting specimens to them.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: As you can imagine, they were dismissive. But she didn't
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: give up. She submitted and published articles about her findings
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to publications across the country. She invited scientists to visit
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: her garden to see for themselves what she was talking about.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Through these efforts, she built up an army of supporters
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of her theory in eighteen fifty she was one of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the first women ever to be elected to the American
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Association for the Advancements of Science. So yeah, I mean basically,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: she impressed largely these dudes who were in control with
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: her methods and her dedication and all of the work
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: she had done. But of course she has largely been forgotten.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: One of the main reasons for that has to do
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: with the years between the emergence of broods of cicadas.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: After the next emergence of cicada's post Morris's publications, in
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one, two male scientists who had read her
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: work announced that they had discovered a new PCs of
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: cicada that was smaller and thriller. So yes, exactly what
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: she said, and they named it after themselves, which is frustrating.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: And this is especially bad in terms of the lack
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: of women entomologists at that time and now. So like
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: every time you're reading about cicadas or talking about cicadas,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you see remnants of these two men who named the
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: cicadas after themselves. But here was Morris who had done
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: this work. It's documented. I think people in the field
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: know who she is, But for people who don't you
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: see their names, not hers, and associate them with this
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: discovery and not hers. And as we talked about on
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: our recent celebration with Eves of our fiftieth Female First,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: that it does inspire people when you see when you're
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: young and you're like, oh, so I can do that too.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: But she was sort of removed from the picture unless
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: you looked deeper, which it wasn't hard to find her.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: So again, it's not like she doesn't exist, but she's
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: not the first thing you will find at all. And
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: on top of that, as we also discussed in that
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: episode of Female First, it's you know, I don't know,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: but I was reading this and I was thinking, like, who,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: who else maybe had made this discovery outside of Morris
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: and didn't get any credit. It's entirely possible she wasn't
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the first either, but certainly it wasn't the two dudes
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: to get credit for it. But yeah, I would. You
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: can look up more about this. I'm hoping to return
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: to another cicada based topic for listeners. If you are
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: in I believe it's like Chicagos, certain areas of the Midwest,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: we're really going to get all these cicadas. Let us
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: know how it goes, how you're feeling, Yeah, because I'm
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: very interested to see how this is going to play out.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: But I hope that now our listeners will think of Morris,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: who was just curious about cicadas and did our own research.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It seems like just from a very passionate, interested, scientific place,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: she was just really intrigued by this, which I can
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: relate to. But yes, listeners, if you would like to
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: contact us, you can our email Stephanie Momsteff at iHeartMedia
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: dot com. You can find is on Twitter at most
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: of a podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok that's stuff
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I've never told you. You can also find us on YouTube.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: We have a tea public store, and we have a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: as always too, our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: and our contributor Joey. And thanks to you for listening.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Steffan never told you his direction of I Heart Radio.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: out the heart Radio app Apple Podcasts wherever you listen
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.