As an antidote to the daily soul-sucking stream of news about political infighting, actual warmongering, natural and manmade calamities, and all manner of heartbreaking individual tragedies, allow me to present:

Yes, bugs. More specifically, a new and exciting effort by hundreds of scientists in Brazil to count every species of insect in a small area of the Amazon rainforest. That made me smile, at least at first.

Data collected in the early stages of this project and reported this past week in Nature magazine suggest that there are more than 40,000 species in this 39-square-mile area, a tract smaller than the landmass of the Town of Babylon. And the Amazon rainforest covers more than 2 million square miles. Do the math.

Many of these 40,000 species are unknown to humans. That’s where the excitement resides for all of us. One would like to think that finding these new species will foster a greater understanding of our ecosystems, a greater appreciation for the diversity that undergirds our existence, and a greater recognition of the importance of preserving life........

© Newsday