U.N. encourages people to eat more insects

Deep-fried insects for sale at a food stand in Bangkok, Thailand (Wikicommons)The United Nations has some advice for the starving people of the world that might bug you. Eating insects might just be the future of food.

A new report from the U.N. says that eating insects (high in protein, low in fat) can help fight global warming, pollutions, and yes, hunger. And if the suggestion catches on, it could even be great for small businesses.

The concept of eating insects as part of a regular diet is known as entomophagy is already practiced by an estimated two billion people, according to the report, which was issued on Monday, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

In 2012, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation named Dr. Aaron T. Dossey’s “All Things Bugs” company the winner of the foundation’s annual Grand Challenges Explorations contest. The group received a grant to pursue its project to come up with viable insect protein options to combat malnutrition in children.

So, which bugs earned the U.N.’s seal of approval? Well, there are reportedly more than 1,900 edible insect species. The international governing body suggested people try red ants, bees, caterpillars, crickets, grasshoppers, locusts wasps and certain types of water beetles.

And why do insects provide a viable alternative to other livestock?

That’s because on average insects product less greenhouse gas than larger animals and require a smaller ratio of food compared to the amount of substanance they provide. A Rice University study found that cultivating insects for food requires about 10 times less plant and land-mass than producing food from traditional livestock sources.

And the U.N. is looking to insects for more than food. A recent $100,000 was given by the organization to study whether South African flies can be used to transform blood, manure and other organic waste into animal feed.

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Arianna Huffington's Pet Peeve: People Bragging About Working 24/7

Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, told ABC News' Benjamin Bell that her biggest pet peeve is "people who pride themselves at working 24/7."

"You know, people who say, 'Oh, I don't need sleep,' 'I can just work around the clock.' And they use this, especially men, as a virility symbol, you know. I was having dinner with a guy recently and he bragged that he only got four hours of sleep the night before. And I didn't say it, but I thought to myself, 'You know what, if you had gotten five this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.' So I think the fact that people brag about how they over-work and they don't notice that this is making them less healthy and less effective is a pet peeve."

Huffington sat down for a web exclusive interview on Sunday, answering viewer questions from Facebook and Twitter, after her appearance on the "This Week" roundtable. She responded to a variety of questions regarding her perspective as a Greek-American, the Huffington Post news site as well as her Saturday Night Live doppelganger and her "real life" love for Seth Meyers.

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Q: Soultana Nolidis: What distinguishes a Greek-American vantage [point] in a sea of diverse views, opinions [and] perspectives?

A: "Well, definitely, the fact that I'm an immigrant in this country. That I've been blessed to live the American dream makes me very sensitive to many issues. Not just immigration issues, but what's happening to the middle class. The fact that right now…the middle class is actually suffering, and…instead of seeing upward mobility, which is a big part of the American dream, we're seeing downward mobility. And that's why everything I said on the show today had to do with prioritizing jobs, prioritizing growth. Because these are like keys for the lives of millions of Americans."

Q: Ilene Angel: Has the enormity of the success of HuffPost changed your view of the media and its responsibility?

Katherine Dobay Edmiston: Why does she lower the tenor of her website with such features as those devoted to catching celebrities revealing their flesh, either accidentally or intentionally?

A: "Well, first of all, we feel that putting our community at the center of everything we do, we've made the Huffington Post very engaging. So the Huffington Post now has almost 50 million unique visitors, is not just about us talking to our readers. It's about listening to our readers and giving them a platform where they can express themselves."

"Also, the Huffington Post is unapologetically a mixture of high-brow and low-brow. We believe that people want a mixture of everything and it's up to them to decide what to click on."

Q: Miguel Gomez: Could Julian Castro mount a challenge against Hillary just like an unknown Illinois [state] senator who also delivered the keynote at the 2004 Democratic National Convention did?

A: "You know anything is possible. Obviously, Hillary Clinton, if she decides to run, it appears she's already running, would be the presumptive nominee. But as we saw in 2008, the presumptive nominee did not turn out to be the nominee. So it's a long way between now and 2016."

Q: Tom Dwyer: When will she go on 'SNL' and do 'Weekend Update' with [Nasim Pedrad] that does a spot on impersonation of her?

A: "I think she does an amazing impersonation of me. And I also think the writing is so funny. I love Seth Meyers in real life as much as on SNL pretend life. It's a fun, fun segment."

Lightning Round:

Q: Favorite show?

A: "Veep. Julia Louis-Dreyfus on HBO."

Q: Guilty pleasure?

A: "My guilty pleasure is spending a large part of the weekend in bed-even doing my work sometimes, reading books that have nothing to do with work, and just kind of completely luxuriating without having to get out, get dressed, get makeup or anything like that."

Q: Biggest misperception about you?

A: "The biggest misperception about me is that I have a funny accent."

Viewer questions have been edited, shortened and condensed in some cases.

Arianna Huffington

Like "This Week" on Facebook here. You can also follow the show on Twitter here.

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Colo. weighs gun ban for people who 'pose threat'

DENVER (AP) — Legislation that would block people who are suspected of being dangerous from possessing a firearm is expected to be introduced in Colorado, setting up the next fight over gun control laws.

The bill would allow psychologists, nurses, family therapists and counselors to ask that a person's name be entered into the national background check system, prohibiting possession of a firearm for a year.

A draft of Democratic Rep. Beth McCann's proposal says the gun ban would apply to people "who pose a threat of harm."

The NRA says it's "most unconstitutional" legislation of the session.

Limits on ammunition magazines and required background checks on all gun sales already have been signed into law this year in Colorado.

McCann says she's working on the bill and will file it soon.

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12 Million Americans Believe Lizard People Run Our Country

About 90 million Americans believe aliens exist. Some 66 million of us think aliens landed at Roswell in 1948. These are the things you learn when there's a lull in political news and pollsters get to ask whatever questions they want.

RELATED: Why This Poll Finding Perry Beating Obama Isn't Making Headlines

Public Policy Polling has raised weird polls to an art form. During last year's presidential campaign, the firm earned a bit of a reputation for its unorthodox questions; for example, "If God exists, do you approve of its handling of natural disasters?"

RELATED: Obama Has a Big Lead in Virginia, Romney Ahead in Florida

Today PPP released the results of a national survey looking at common conspiracy theories. Broken down by topic and cross-referenced by political preference, the results will not inspire a lot of patriotism. If you need to defend your fellow countrymen, be sure to note that the margin of error is 2.8 percent.

RELATED: Media and Romney Campaign Tussle on the Campaign Trail

We took the findings and arranged them from most- to least-believed. And, just to inspire additional shame, figured out how many actual Americans that meant must believe in things like the danger of fluoride in water. (28 million, if you're wondering.)

RELATED: Rudy Giuliani Slips Up, Attacks Romney's Job Creation Record

View the full question asked for each conspiracy.

RELATED: Why Romney's Already Responding to Obama's Jobs Ads

Conspiracy	Percent believing	Number of Americans believing
JFK was killed by conspiracy	51 percent	160,096,160
Bush intentionally misled on Iraq WMDs	44 percent	138,122,178
Global warming is a hoax	37 percent	116,148,195
Aliens exist	29 percent	91,035,072
New World Order	28 percent	87,895,931
Hussein was involved in 9/11	28 percent	87,895,931
A UFO crashed at Roswell	21 percent	65,921,948
Vaccines are linked to autism	20 percent	62,782,808
The government controls minds with TV	15 percent	47,087,106
Medical industry invents diseases	15 percent	47,087,106
CIA developed crack	14 percent	43,947,966
Bigfoot exists	14 percent	43,947,966
Obama is the Antichrist	13 percent	40,808,825
The government allowed 9/11	11 percent	34,530,544
Fluoride is dangerous	9 percent	28,252,264
The moon landing was faked	7 percent	21,973,983
Bin Laden is alive	6 percent	18,834,842
Airplane contrails are sinister chemicals	5 percent	15,695,702
McCartney died in 1966	5 percent	15,695,702
Lizard people control politics	4 percent	12,556,562

Just to further inspire conversation, PPP broke down belief in each theory by whom the respondent supported in the 2012 election. This yielded some genuinely interesting results.

For example, only two conspiracies were more commonly believed by Obama supporters: that Bush intentionally misled America about Iraq's WMDs (a massive 69 percent of his supporters believe that one) and that the moon landing was faked. There two theories with equal support among Obama and Romney supporters: that aliens exist and theone about fluoridation. Everything else, from lizard people to vaccines and autism to global warming being a hoax? Believed by more Romney supporters.

No conspiracy was less commonly believed than one suggesting that the government is populated by lizard people. But that's mostly because only 2 percent of Obama supporters believe the theory while 5 percent of Romney supporters do.

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PM Note: The People vs. The Court, Recalling Gay Marriage in '04, Senate Stampede

First Woman to Head Secret Service - And she used to wear a costume at Disney World - http://abcn.ws/10LZOoP (Mary Bruce)

Dowd: Gay Marriage Didn't Swing 2004 Election - "On this day when a momentous series of cases related to gay marriage are being heard before the Supreme Court, I thought it time to reflect on a broader topic of leadership and motivation." http://abcn.ws/ZVcAA2 (Matthew Dowd)

Same Sex Marriage at SCOTUS - Catch up on the day in same sex marriage at our live blog, which isn't technically live any more, but includes some of the better pictures from in front of the court, video of people on both sides, some prognosticating, some tea leaf reading, and a heavy dose of couching - http://abcn.ws/16eVG1Y

Or you can read a more traditional form of news story from our court watchers here - http://abcn.ws/YFZrIB

The headline and lede:

Court Struggles With Federal Right to Gay Marriage

Supreme Court justices seemed to struggle with the notion of extending marriage rights to same-sex couples as they grilled lawyers this morning in a potentially landmark case over California's ban on gay marriages.

As the politics change by the day, the court heard a case - Proposition 8 - that could drastically change how states and the federal government approach one of the touchiest social issues of the past decade.

The justices today challenged lawyers on both sides on common points of contention that arise whenever gay marriage is debated. http://abcn.ws/10M8Kuo (Good, Moran, de Vogue)

Boy are those politics changing. Rick Klein called it a "Senate Stampede." - http://abcn.ws/16VYT7W

5 Democratic Senators (Rob Portman is still the only sitting Republican) have come out for gay marriage in the past 48 hours or so.

Yesterday we told you about the conversions of retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and recently re-elected Sen. Claire McCaskill. Today Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and Sen. Jon Tester joined the club. Tester even made the HRC logo his Facebook profile pic.

But not every Democrat wants to take the leap. The left-leaning Huffington Post has a banner headline "Shame on Dem" with pictures of the ten Democratic Senators who don't support gay marriage.

Their reactions range from continued opposition - Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor - to maintaining it should be a state issue - North Dakotan Heidi Heitkamp.

Other responses were more nuanced.

A spokesman for Sen. Bob Casey, the conservative Pennsylvania Democrat, told Sunlen Miller that Casey is closely following the debate and will review any legislation he sees.

Sen. Tom Carper, the Delaware Democrat, said he is evolving.

"Sen. Carper was proud to support Delaware's efforts to enact Civil Union legislation and earlier this month he joined 211 of his Congressional colleagues in co-signing the Amicus brief that urges the Supreme Court to invalidate Section 3 of DOMA. He has also said that he would vote to repeal DOMA. He also opposed President Bush's attempt to enact a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Like many Americans including Presidents Obama and Clinton, Sen. Carper's views on this issue have evolved, and continue to evolve. He continues to give this issue a great deal of consideration."

Bookmark Ariane's "Standing" Explainer - Who knows what Supreme Court Justices will decide in June on same-sex marriage.

They could go in a lot of different directions - from recognizing a fundamental right to gay marriage to dismissing the Prop case because supporters of California's same sex marriage ban aren't the right people to be arguing the case. That'd be a way around the whole issue and could lead to gay marriages in California.

Ariane de Vogue was all over this potential back door before arguments got under way today - http://abcn.ws/16g0ELO

'DIG' It - Another note from Ariane on a potential way justices could rule - She reports: While most people are taking in the momentous occasion of the gay rights arguments, some lawyers and journalists who cover the court are wondering what Kennedy meant when he said :" I just wonder if this case was properly granted. "

The proper term for that is "dismissed as improvidently granted" or DIG.

He would need 4 other Justices to join him, and the opinion released would never explain exactly WHY the Justices dismissed.

If the Court doesn't reach the merits, we knew there was a possibility that the Court could rule the proponents don't have standing ….but "dismiss as improvidently granted" wasn't really on the radar before today.

If they DIG, it is as if the court never granted cert and the 9 th circuit opinion (which was narrow) would hold.

Dale Carpenter of the University of Minnesota law school thinks that while Kennedy could have been referring to a DIG, "he might simply have been saying we should dismiss this on standing grounds. It's hard to know, he may not have even been sure how he is going to rule."

SCOTUS Playbill: Meet the cast of characters taking part in the SCOTUS drama. They include a daughter, a widow, a two couples, a GOP operative and traditional marriage activists http://abcn.ws/WU4O9z (Sarah Parnass)

Janet Napolitano Says Border-Security Trigger Unworkable-The U.S. border is as "secure as it's ever been," which is evidence enough that comprehensive immigration overhaul should start immediately, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said today. http://abcn.ws/13tEGaw (Serena Marshall)

GOP Senators Threaten Filibuster on Guns-In the latest roadblock to passing gun legislation, three Republican senators have threatened to filibuster next month's proceedings on the gun debate. http://abcn.ws/14lHs0V (Arlette Saenz)

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