Does surge of serotonin cure their blues?

Dr. Robert Buckman Special to the Star

Now we all know that the unpleasant insects called locusts have a habit of getting together in groups of a few billion or so and then swarming over areas of vegetation and eating it all – like flying gatecrashers except that they're non-drinkers and much more thorough in their destruction.

Apparently, as they prepare for swarming, the locusts get ready by developing darker bodies and growing in bulk. Then, when they are all set, they gather together and set off, presumably thinking that if there are enough of them – which there always are – they won't be stopped by the police. Which they aren't.

Now this activity of swarming is intermittent and occurs every few years (not regularly every seven years as the Egyptian Hebrew Bible stories would have you believe) and scientists have been wondering for decades what it is that triggers the swarm.

Now they know.

Scientists in Oxford, Sydney and Cambridge apparently made the same discovery conjointly. Perhaps they held a mini-swarm of their own. Anyway, it turns out that there is a chemical that makes the locusts become darker and grow bulkier, and it isn't any kind of mascara or anything that they spray on or apply with a brush. It's a chemical called serotonin.

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