For more than 20,000 years, humans have used poison—in hunting, in pest and plant control, and even to kill other humans.

Castor bean residue is the source for ricin, which causes multiple organ failure. But it’s used by some indigenous tribes on their hunting arrows.

But the deadliest synthetic poison is VX, a nerve agent that stops victims' breathing. Originally developed as an insecticide, it proved too lethal for that. One gram could kill 2,500 people.

Another profoundly lethal poison is the radioactive isotope of polonium, famously used to assassinate a Russian dissident in 2006. One gram could kill 10 million people.

The most deadly one, surprisingly, is used routinely. Extremely tiny quantities of botulinum toxin, produced by bacteria, are used to paralyze facial muscles to reduce wrinkles. But just one gram could kill one billion people!

All these may be deadly, but the riskiest poisons are the ones found at home—cabinets full of pesticides, cleaning solutions and medications.

There’s one poisoning reported in the U.S. every eight seconds, and 90 percent of them occur in households.

Little kids tend to put things in their mouths, so they’re the most vulnerable. Nearly 4 percent of children below six will have a poison exposure.

A good reason to put child locks on cabinets that contain potentially poisonous household chemicals.

Heavy farm equipment is now as heavy as the heaviest dinosaurs—and, surprisingly, there may be some similarities.

Today, a fully loaded combine weighs 60,000 pounds—or more!

Engineers have worked to distribute their increasing weight across the soil, widening the tires, sometimes putting three tires on each hub.

But research has shown these heavier machines compact not just the tilled topsoil but soil far beneath it, into the root zones of crops.

This heavy compaction can destroy soil structure: the pores of air space, fungi, insects, earthworms, and beneficial microbes that are essential to soil health and thriving plants. And this damage can persist for decades.

Likewise, the heaviest dinosaurs, tromping through vegetated areas for millions of years, must have compacted those soils, hampering growth of the food they depended on.

Scientists think their long necks may have been an adaptation to help them stay on established pathways and reach into untouched vegetation—much like elephants do today.

We may never know, but modern farmers are looking for machinery solutions that don’t compact the soil as much. They probably won’t have long necks—but they probably will stick to defined paths.

The most likely solution may be fleets of small robotic tractors, controlled remotely by one operator or autonomously, keeping to set patterns.

The farms of the future, informed by the giants of the past.

Lobsters used to be considered the “cockroach of the sea,” food fit only for indentured servants and prisoners. My, how times have changed.

Could the same change be coming for crickets?

Today, nearly 40 percent of habitable land is used to raise livestock and their feed.

By 2050, the UN projects global population will increase by two billion people—people who will need protein in their diet. There may not be enough real estate to produce today’s livestock for them.

For the same amount of protein, farming insects requires 5 times less feed, 15 times less land and 50 times less water than beef—and produces 80 times less methane!

Insects grow quickly, in days instead of months or years, produce huge numbers of offspring, and can be farmed vertically, like produce.

In fact, raising insects may have less environmental impact than many crops!

They can be fed organic waste. And their waste can then be used as fertilizer.

And they’re good for you. Insects are rich in amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Flour made from ground crickets has more iron than spinach and more calcium than milk.

The UN has catalogued 1,900 species of edible insects—and there are already two billion people who eat them: dried grasshoppers in Mexico, fried grubs in Africa, and roasted insects of all kinds in Asia.

Once we get a taste for them, they may wriggle their way into many more diets.