Hopes are safer than aspirations, as regards small insects keeping their proper place. Hopes do not by themselves cause an infestation, in the head of a human being, of gnats, midges, anthomid flies, Collembola and wasps parasitic upon the flies. Aspirations can, and sometimes do. This fact dawns on anyone who reads a report called Myiasis Resulting from the Use of the Aspirator Method in the Collection of Insects, published in the journal Science in June 1954.
So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.