The Emerald Cochroach Wasp....

I found a great science connection for the book "House of the Scorpion" at a literacy conference I attended last month. This book is a fabulous reflection on human nature and the ends to which we will go to have power and life. In the book the powerful El Patron captures immigrants and forces them to become eejits through computer chip brain implants. The people then surrender their personalities and wills and perform only their assigned tasks. This bug, the Emerald Cockroach Wasp, does a similar thing to her prey. She uses her venom to render the cockroach a zombie/eejit. She then does a variety of things such as chewing off the ends of it's antennae to guide it into a lair where the wasp lays her egg on the roach and blocks it from exiting. The roach, still alive,  eventually becomes the home and food for the larva. It is a disturbing reproductive cycle, but it mimics the events of the book quite well.  I was shocked by how quickly my students found the connections. They even noticed the connection to the way that El Patron tried to trick Matt into prolonging his life by making him comfortable and disguising his plan to use his insides etc. I just love when we are able to make connections from things we have read or studied to things in the real world!