I think it started when Buzzfeed pivoted from the Steele dossier to dildos.
From Smithsonian Magazine, April 7:
Cockroach Sex Is Evolving in Response to PesticidesA new study highlights the insects’ resiliency in spite of human attempts to kill them
For decades, humans have set traps for cockroaches and laced them with sugar to attract the insects to their doom. But in response, some populations of cockroaches developed a self-preserving distaste for glucose, which allows them to steer clear of the traps.
As it turns out, though, a glucose aversion can kill the mood during cockroach mating, a ritual centered around a secreted sweet treat the male presents to the female.
In a study published last week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, scientists show that lab-raised German cockroaches have adapted to maintain their sex lives while still avoiding sugary baited traps. Males have tweaked the recipe for their sweet “nuptial gifts,” making their offerings more palatable to females that have been turned off to glucose by human-produced poisons....
....MUCH MORE
Apparently this news has been reported at all the best sites but I was blind to it until I saw Royal Society B.As noted in a March 12 post:
Proceedings of The Royal Society A and B? With the departure of Sir Paul Nurse as President of The Royal Society the journals seem to be tacking back closer to what can be found from the Presidencies of Pepys, Wren and Newton in The Philosophical Transactions.
And although he makes no specific mention of cockroaches, Pepys does mention insect sex in his Diary entry for Friday 14 December 1660:
Also all this day looking upon my workmen. Only met with the Comptroller at the office a little both forenoon and afternoon, and at night step a little with him to the Coffee House where we light upon very good company and had very good discourse concerning insects and their having a generative faculty as well as other creatures....
