Soft-Lit

...it's mean to step on bugs. So what actually happens when you step on a bug? The answer to this question might seem relatively straightforward. Surely its simply that the exoskeleton of bug has a certain amount of compressive strength that allows it to resist a certain amount of weight, and your weight easily eclipses that. Like an empty soda can, the thin “foil” of the bug’s exoskeleton simply fails to uphold a weight greater than it was “designed” for. In short, the load-bearing system fails. Right? What actually happens is a bit more complicated, and requires us to dive into the world of thermodynamics. Just a little. A bug, after all, is not an empty soda can. In fact, it is more appropriate to think of it as a fluid. Its exoskeleton helps to maintain the shape of this fluid, but it’s not the exoskeleton failing that kills the bug after all. It’s what happens after the exoskeleton fails. And the principles of what happens next can broadly be applied to any living