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Wasp Larvae Feed on Zombie Roaches
TheUploader writes "The story leaves nothing to embellish: The wasp, Ampulex compressa, has evolved to inject a toxin into a specific part of a roach's brain, turning it into a zombie. The wasp then leads the zombie roach into the wasp's nest, lays eggs inside it, and waits for its young to hatch, who will then go on to do the same to more roaches."
of God's Intelligent Design on Earth
Now how do we get one into Bush/Gates/[insert your favorite villain here]?
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1. Enjoy your job
2. Make lots of money
3. Work within the law
Choose any two.
I have fuel for my nightmares now for several more years, thanks!
12:50 - press return.
Just think about it... we'd better eradicate this species before they become a threat to our planet.
Real_men_don't_need_spacebars.
Man, I think I've been on a date with that WASP. I woke up the next morning with no money, a splitting headache and size seven poopshoot.
Electric Monkey Pants
Somewhere there's a Romero zombie rolling over in its grave. Then crawling out. And eating someone's brains.
so I'd like to say...
SUCK IT YOU FUCKING ROACHES!
I feel better now.
Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Roaches have apparently been taken over -- 'conquered' if you will -- by a master race of giant space wasps. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the wasps will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground honey caves.
... who did the same sort of thing -- well, sorta :-)
Regards
John
Falling You - beautiful
If they'd just go around stinging the roaches, rather than being efficient enough to lead just one back to the nest to raise more of them for food, you might be able to get rid of roach problems with these wasps. Evacuate a building for a while and drop some of these wasps in there. After a certain length of time, fumigate it to kill the wasps - and voila, no more bug problem!
*Puts on karma-protection suit and helmet*
:P
*Turns on microphone - tweeeeeeet -*
*ahem ahem*
Ready?
Braaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiinnnsssssssss....
*Ducks*
Funny, I wasn't planning on keeping my lunch down anyways. (too much info)
Now, I need to steal some genes from this little wasp, inject them into prostitutes. Then, take over the minds of a few select politicians. Next thing you know, I've got one in the whitehouse...and..uh...
Wait a second...
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
When filling out your tax returns?
Seastead this.
"Anyone want to try to explain how THIS evolved? If evolution is a series of small mutations, how would an organism go from NOT having this ability to being able to control the roach in such a manner?"
Evolution involves random genetic mutations which build up over time. The individual bits of DNA (G,A,T,C) are jumbled and switched around. Thus it is, that this wasp's predecessor, Ampulex gompresst, through two such mutations, becomes Ampulex compressa. Any questions?
...isn't that what lobbyists do?
...Profit!!
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
ENOUGH with the ethnic slurs already!
http://outcampaign.org/
Now, if only I could do that to women, I might actually stand a chance of reproducing.
And then there's the sting. Ampulex does not want to kill cockroaches. It doesn't even want to paralyze them the way spiders and snakes do, since it is too small to drag a big paralyzed roach into its burrow. So instead it just delicately retools the roach's neural network to take away its motivation. Its venom does more than make roaches zombies. It also alters their metabolism, so that their intake of oxygen drops by a third.
This reminds me of a social dynamic between human employees and employers:
1. Employer doesn't want to kill the employee: check.
2. Employer doesn't want to paralize the employee: check.
3. Employer delicately takes away employee's self-motivation: check.
I bet the stuff about oxygen and metabolism is true as well.
Sounds vaguely like marriage.
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
This is just an early form of marriage.
...that WASP Larvae feed on custodial accounts!
Wasp (guy) injects neurotoxins (buys cocktails) into cockroach's brain (for a hot chick) turning it (her) into a zombie (an easy hot chick) and then leads it (her) back to it's nest (bachelor pad), lays eggs inside it (screws her without a rubber), and waits for eggs to hatch (shotgun wedding!).
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Same here.. too bad the server seems to be in a sortof zombie state as well.. its there, but not really..
The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.
Funny, I've found another example!
Wasp (girl) injects neurotoxins (possibility of sex) into cockroach's brain (single heterosexual male) turning it (him) into a zombie (a single heterosexual male who thinks he's going to get some) and then leads it (him) back to it's nest (parents house), lays eggs inside it (marriage), and waits for eggs to hatch (slow and painful death!).
i almost flipped a shit when i read in the newscientist article:
"To view a video of the parasite and grasshopper in action, which includes a brief interview, in French..."
An interview with a parasite-infected grasshopper moments before death? in FRENCH? Now THAT is journalism, my friends!
Note how the submitter carefully injected a story into the central nervous system of the blog site.
Using carefully crafted words, the readers were left with their ability to evaluate the value of the link paralyzed, but still completely capable of actually moving on the the site.
And once in the submitter's lair, the pitch is made and the book is pushed.
And although this tactic may be considered by some as proof of an intelligently designed marketing scheme, you can see how it may just as easily have evolved from more crude but similar methods. Previous book-pushers would simply welcome with delight the random web visitor. Then they would notice how "lucky" their friends were when popular blogs noted works and puched more "random visitors" to their book sites. And then finally to the inevitable proactive, nearly parasitic methods employed here.