Passion can take you a long way, as Québec-based entomologist Georges Brossard explains in a BBC interview:

I'm the bug man – a real bug man. I love bugs. I sleep with them, I dream about them. I eat them. I love bugs.

The Montréal Insectarium – founded in 1990 by a 250,000-insect donation from Brossard – attracts over 350,000 visitors each year, and offers annual insect tastings.

Science is constantly looking to the natural world for clues on how to built the better machine. The flight of the butterfly is paving the way for tiny aerial machines . The erratic looking flight of the butterfly, on closer examination, is a total mastery of the air, where the insect can use 6 different sorts motions of the wings to stay aloft, changing as needed from wingflap to wingflap. It was compared to the way a horse can change gait effortlessly.
The beautiful brittle star isn't where most people would look to for superior eyesight, but they are literally covered with perfect lenses, allowing for a total wrap around view. The lenses are much better than what we can make, thanks to the perfect use of chalk-like calcite crystals in its skeleton.

ABC News has posted an AP article about an Iowa State University study which found catnip oil up to ten times more effective at repelling mosquitoes than the most common ingredient in repellent sprays. The story also briefly mentions and earlier study which showed catnip repelled cockroaches. Note from Gene: no wonder mosquitoes almost never bit me back when I lived in mosquito country.