Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology

Abstract

First edition. "Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, the award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli introduces us to the enigmatic creatures that collectively outweigh human beings ten to one and consume $40 billion worth of valuable stuff annually. Over the course of a decade-long obsession with one of nature's most influential but least understood bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching biologists, roboticists, and geneticists. What begins as a natural history of the termite becomes a personal exploration of the unnatural future we're building, with darker observations on power, technology, historical trauma, and the limits of human cognition. Her globe-trotting journey veers into uncharted territory, from evolutionary theory to Edwardian science literature to the military-industrial complex. Whether in Namibia or Cambridge, Arizona or Australia, Margonelli turns up astounding facts and raises provocative questions. Is a termite an individual or a unit of a superorganism? Can we harness the termite's properties to change the world? If we build termite-like swarming robots, will they inevitably destroy us? Is it possible to think without having a mind? Underbug burrows into these questions and many others--unearthing disquieting answers about the world's most underrated insect and what it means to be human."--Dust jacket. Part I -- A termite safari -- Part II -- Riddles in the dirt -- An inconvenient insect -- Into the mound -- Complexity is the essence -- Because they are so sweet -- A black box with six legs -- Waiting for Carnot -- Part III -- The second termite safari -- Life in the firehose -- Jazz in the metagenome -- Burning very slowly -- Restless streams -- Part IV -- Crossing the abstraction barrier -- Influential individuals -- The robot apocalypse -- Part V -- Darwin's termites -- The soul of the soil -- The math of fairy circles -- The soul of the cell -- Empathy and the drone -- White ants -- Part VI -- Them and us.