Creepy crawling creatures co-exist among us in our homes, but before you whip out the bug spray, consider this offer from scientist Michelle Trautwein. She and a team of researchers would like to inspect, collect samples from and analyze the insect species found in and around your home. It’s for a new project called “Arthropods of Our Homes,” a research study based at North Carolina State University. Trautwein is the assistant director of biodiversity at the Nature Research Center in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. She joins host Frank Stasio to talk about what kinds of bugs live with us and why and how citizen scientists are the backbone of research projects like this.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.