Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb. And this is the
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind, focusing in no mythical creatures, ideas and monsters
Speaker 2: in time. I'd like to briefly return to the world
Speaker 2: of Marvel Comics to discuss a rather unique supervillain, Swarm,
Speaker 2: as described in the book Monsters Creatures of the Marvel Universe,
Speaker 2: explored by Kelly Knox. Swarm is just your average former
Speaker 2: Nazi scientist and acupuncturist consumed by a swarm of radioactive
Speaker 2: bees at a meteorite crash, transforming him into a sentient
Speaker 2: swarm of bees. He manifests as a man shaped swarm
Speaker 2: with stylish purple gloves and a ragged purple cape. The
Speaker 2: character dates back to nineteen seventy seven, created by Bill
Speaker 2: Mantillo and John Byrne in the Pages of the Champions,
Speaker 2: and I think it's safe to assume that this one
Speaker 2: was inspired by the old Suit of Bees stunt, as
Speaker 2: well as the curious properties of you social bees, because
Speaker 2: that's the really interesting thing about the whole proposition here.
Speaker 2: The former Fritz von Meyer again, now known as swarm,
Speaker 2: is said to exert control over the bees, and his
Speaker 2: consciousness is shared among the thousands of bees that make
Speaker 2: up his bee bod. It's a fantastic concept, but it
Speaker 2: also touches on the fact that bees do exert a
Speaker 2: form of emergant intelligence and are often discussed as a
Speaker 2: super organism and as a cognitive entity. Swarms exhibit properties
Speaker 2: that are not shared by the individual organism, but are
Speaker 2: rather exhibited by the larger group, such as the ability
Speaker 2: of a beehive to thermoregulate. Is pointed out by a
Speaker 2: Kadam at All in of Biofilms and Beehives published in
Speaker 2: the journal Biofilm in twenty twenty two two. When temperatures drop,
Speaker 2: bees move in closer to better share their heat with
Speaker 2: adult bees on the outside, shivering to reduce additional heat,
Speaker 2: and then moving into the interior of the mass to
Speaker 2: warm younger bees that lack the ability. As the title
Speaker 2: of the paper implies, the authors compare bee swarms to biofilms,
Speaker 2: multicellular communities of bacteria or fungi. Marvel swarm kind of
Speaker 2: stands as an attempt to take the inhuman intelligence of
Speaker 2: bees and put it in a human wrapping, something that
Speaker 2: is fantastic and certainly fun, but in a strange way
Speaker 2: a little easier to fathom. While it's impossible to truly
Speaker 2: know what it is to be another organism, much less
Speaker 2: a honey bee or a swarm of honeybees, fantastic treatments
Speaker 2: such as Swarm allow us to imagine our way a
Speaker 2: little bit closer to the reality. Tune in for additional
Speaker 2: episodes of The Monster Fact each week. As always, you
Speaker 2: can email us at contact as Stuff to bliw your
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.
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