Hey, everybody. I'm really happy to introduce you to today's guest, Dr. Brian Brown,

who is the head of the Los Angeles Natural History Museum's

Anomology Department and the curator of Anomology. He has pursued an interest in insect since he was

five years old when he created an insect whistle in his backyard at Toronto, Canada. Dr. Brown

received his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Guelph, his doctorate at the

University of Alberta. And he spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Ireland

and the Smithsonian in Washington DC. He especially is on Foridflies, B-H-O-R-I-D,

and particularly a parasitic insect species known as an ant-decapitating flies and bee-killing flies.

And we talk a lot about it. Any issue on this program that affects children's health and

the children's health and democracy, I wanted to have you on one because I read a wonderful

article about you that was an unnatural geographic magazine about, I think you were one of the

codis covers of these high-altitude insects that are living in the upper canopy of the hundreds

and hundreds of new species recently discovered in the upper canopies and the amnesty. But also because

we've recently been talking a lot about the impacts of the certain pesticides on the

this dramatic decline in the insect populations and particularly wind insects that has occurred

over the past decade. And to me it is as alarming as anything that I've seen or experienced in my

lifetime, this mass extinction of the species and yet something that is not reported in the

mainstream press and you know I think the most people don't understand the implications. I

want to ask you first why should people like me who are concerned with children's health

and the future of our children, why should we be concerned about the insect, the disappearance of

insects? Well insects are commonly thought of as pests. That's the main reason why people don't

concern themselves with insects. But really insects help underlie all of the ecological

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