I've long been fascinated by these speedy beasts. What goes on in their tiny brain? Are they merely a biological mechanism? I'd love to be a cockroach for one single day and know what it is like. If the Hindu reincarnation thing were true, it might happen!
If you're going to be a cockroach, you might want to wait until the end of the yuga. Cockroaches are supposed to be the size of dogs by then and roam in packs. Less chance of getting stepped on by some clumsy human. ;) In any case, they are pretty interesting. They are such an old species.
I saw something somewhere, on TV maybe, that explained why cockroaches and insects in general evolve to become any larger. Something to do with a fixed internal tube that they breath through, and unless that gene mutates and allows for a bigger diameter, the insect cannot get enough oxygen to support a larger body, so any growth due to other factors (like extreeeeeeme efficiency, as in the cockroach) is self limiting.
I read somewhere else that normally, the more successful a species is, the larger it eventually becomes--which contradicts the idea of a small cockroach, but the tube explanation may be the reason. I don't know.
I hope if I wind up a cockroach in another incarnation, it is in Asha's house, who by then will probably be Queen of India. She will set food out for me, and her friends will compose music in my honor!
Roy, as you are already Royal Composer of Great Renown (who does not remember the whimsy and beauty of the, now sadly lost, etude La Danza de los Treis Insettos Elegantes?) would it not be the perfection of symmetry if you prepared musical offerings for the future you now? After all, who else could even begin to create compositions worthy of such a venerable incarnation?
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I've long been fascinated by these speedy beasts. What goes on in their tiny brain? Are they merely a biological mechanism? I'd love to be a cockroach for one single day and know what it is like.
If the Hindu reincarnation thing were true, it might happen!
If you're going to be a cockroach, you might want to wait until the end of the yuga. Cockroaches are supposed to be the size of dogs by then and roam in packs. Less chance of getting stepped on by some clumsy human. ;) In any case, they are pretty interesting. They are such an old species.
I saw something somewhere, on TV maybe, that explained why cockroaches and insects in general evolve to become any larger. Something to do with a fixed internal tube that they breath through, and unless that gene mutates and allows for a bigger diameter, the insect cannot get enough oxygen to support a larger body, so any growth due to other factors (like extreeeeeeme efficiency, as in the cockroach) is self limiting.
I read somewhere else that normally, the more successful a species is, the larger it eventually becomes--which contradicts the idea of a small cockroach, but the tube explanation may be the reason. I don't know.
I hope if I wind up a cockroach in another incarnation, it is in Asha's house, who by then will probably be Queen of India. She will set food out for me, and her friends will compose music in my honor!
Roy, as you are already Royal Composer of Great Renown (who does not remember the whimsy and beauty of the, now sadly lost, etude La Danza de los Treis Insettos Elegantes?) would it not be the perfection of symmetry if you prepared musical offerings for the future you now? After all, who else could even begin to create compositions worthy of such a venerable incarnation?
Lots of projects. I had forgotten about that.
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