Sean Murphy could have just as well become the hero of all people afraid of roaches. He has tormented 16 roaches by stuffing them in his mouth and setting an unofficial world record. The last record was 11 roaches.
Murphy, who works at a pet store had come across the previous world record and figured he could do better. Opportunity presented itself when they started thinking of a killer Halloween stunt to drive traffic to their store.
According to Murphy, he keeps the roaches cool and comfortable before stuffing them in his mouth. But they get warm soon and start crawling around. Sometimes they tend to explore his throat. We understand if this makes you queasy, but frankly, we thrive on facts like this.
Each roach is about 2.5 inches long. These mega roaches have barbed feet which makes them slightly uncomfortable to have in the mouth. Nevertheless, Murphy has pulled the stunt off. He is awaiting a reply from the Guinness Book of World Records. Watch the super cool video and go green.
In an another indirectly related roach news, Dr. Kambhampati, an entomologist (folks who study insects), is rather bugged. His research has shown that cockroaches don’t need to pee. Seriously!
Because of an evolutionary quirk, the roaches have been outfitted with a microbe called the Blattabacterium, which through some complicated chemical means breaks down the components of uric acid. Other genes then recycle these molecules and use them to make amino acids, repair cell walls and membranes, and perform other metabolic tasks. The overly curious can read the details on Wired.com.
The fact that roaches don’t pee doesn’t bug Dr. Kambhampati. The fact that roaches cannot exist without this microbe is the key to the good doctor’s angst. Apparently new pesticides are being created which don’t kill the roach directly but destroy the microbe inside it.
I don’t see the point. How is a dead roach less important than a roach that doesn’t pee? The doctor is pissed off that his research is being used against the roaches. It’s like what Oppenheimer would have felt when he witnessed the enormous power of the H-Bomb for the first time. He was thinking of all the good stuff that could be done with atomic research, and then they almost wiped out the Japs.
However, there’s still one little thing that’s really bothering me about all this, if roaches don’t pee, why are they in my loo?
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