Slashdot Mirror
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]?
-------
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.
What wonderful breakfast conversation.
Anyway, I think I detect an IgNobile prize winner here.
I don't get it.
Just think about it... we'd better eradicate this species before they become a threat to our planet.
Real_men_don't_need_spacebars.
Looks like Slashdot already turned their server into
a zombie.
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.
... so it must be real, is what a friend of mine - a theater-play director - used to say.
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
Now if we can just get them to start biting humans we'll be one step closer to the dreaded human-animal hybrids. But, it seems like bugs are smarter than humans. They realized the cockroaches will be around a lot longer than us humans, so why waste their time with us.
http://loom.corante.com.nyud.net:8090/archives/200 6/02/02/the_wisdom_of_parasites.php
Well the site appears to have been well and truly Slashdotted already. However, zombifying a creature for your own benefit isn't anything new.
I seem to recall there exists a paracite who's lifecycle consists of:
Be born in sheep shit.
Get eaten by an ant.
Zombify ant to cause it to climb grass, where it will be eaten by a sheep.
Reproduce inside digestive system of sheep.
If anyone who actually payed attention in biology classes cares to elaborate, please do!
http://loom.corante.com.nyud.net:8090/archives/200 6/02/02/the_wisdom_of_parasites.php
I spent a summer in Ecuador in a field study class. We learned about one fungus that makes its living this way: Spores enter the body of an insect where they mature into the adult fungus. This adult fungus affects the mind of the bug so that it climbs to the tippy-top of whatever tree it's on. Then, when it's at the top it just sits there while the fungus consumes its innards. Finally, when the fungus is done growing, the body of the bug breaks open, and millions of spores go floating about on the wind.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
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!
here, hope this can handle slashdot. http://www.palmpowerups.com/priv/mirror.pdf
-------
1. Enjoy your job
2. Make lots of money
3. Work within the law
Choose any two.
*Puts on karma-protection suit and helmet*
:P
*Turns on microphone - tweeeeeeet -*
*ahem ahem*
Ready?
Braaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiinnnsssssssss....
*Ducks*
It seems that it would be more efficient to guide the roach into its nest, where there are presumably more roaches, than to take the roach away.
That might be dangerous, though.
"To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable."
I actually read about this yesterday through a friend's blog. Although the main link has been ./ he posted a nice summary.
http://lifewithoutfries.blogspot.com/here.
Yes, there are ads, but I couldn't find a summary of the story anywhere else and the main site is down.
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!
I just sat down at my computer with a yoghurt, go to slashdot, and this is the first thing I see. Thanks, slashdot, for making my breakfast just that much more inedible.
When filling out your tax returns?
Seastead this.
THE LOOM
February 02, 2006 The Wisdom of Parasites
Posted by Carl Zimmer
I collect tales of parasites the way some people collect Star Trek plates. And having filled an entire book with them, I thought I had pretty much collected the whole set. But until now I had somehow missed the gruesome glory that is a wasp named Ampulex compressa.
As an adult, Ampulex compressa seems like your normal wasp, buzzing about and mating. But things get weird when it's time for a female to lay an egg. She finds a cockroach to make her egg's host, and proceeds to deliver two precise stings. The first she delivers to the roach's mid-section, causing its front legs buckle. The brief paralysis caused by the first sting gives the wasp the luxury of time to deliver a more precise sting to the head.
The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use ssensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.
From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.
The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp's burrow. The roach creeps obediently into the burrow and sits there quietly, while the wasp plugs up the burrow with pebbles. Now the wasp turns to the roach once more and lays an egg on its underside. The roach does not resist. The egg hatches, and the larva chews a hole in the side of the roach. In it goes.
The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days. It is then ready to weave itself a cocoon--which it makes within the roach as well. After four more weeks, the wasp grows to an adult. It breaks out of its cocoon, and out of the roach as well. Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative.
I find this wasp fascinating for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it represents an evolutionary transition. Over and over again, free-living organisms have become parasites, adapting to hosts with exquisite precision. If you consider a full-blown parasite, it can be hard to conceive of how it could have evolved from anything else. Ampulex offers some clues, because it exists in between the free-living and parasitic worlds.
Amuplex is not technically a parasite, but something known as an exoparasitoid. In other words, a free-living adult lays an egg outside a host, and then the larva crawls into the host. One could easily imagine the ancestors of Ampulex as wasps that laid their eggs near dead insects--as some species do today. These corpse-feeding ancestors then evolved into wasps that attacked living hosts. Likewise, it's not hard to envision an Ampulex-like wasp evolving into full-blown parasitoids that inject their eggs directly into their hosts, as many species do today.
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. The Israeli researchers found that they could also drop oxygen consumption in cockroaches by injecting paralyzing drugs or by removing the neurons that the wasps disable with the
Many insects and arachnids paralyze or kill their prey with poison and lay eggs in, on, or near them. This is simply an interesting variation on that.
Conclusion: the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Accept it.
That's the same question I keep asking about Cheney!
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
There is a group of crabs called Sacculinae, which do the same to the crabs they are parasiting on.
The sacculina is a barnacle which grows on (or rather below) other crabs, squeezing and growing its so called rhizocephalae into the body of the host crab and trying to reach the brain of the crab. After the brain is reached, the host crab turns into a zombie, reacting on each command from the sacculina, even searching for a mate for the sacculina.
The only problem is, sometimes the neurotoxin stops working and the zombie roaches wander off with my eggs. Usually into the mouth of the neighbor's cat, cause even though the neurotoxin has worn off slightly, the roach remains a bit slow and easily confused.
Also my husband sometimes forgets why the zombie roach is there and eats it. This may be funny in retrospect, but at the time it is very disheartening. What's a wasp to do?
"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?
I should point out that the fungus in question might actually be a species of Cordyceps rather than Entomophthorales. There's a cool photo of a beetle that was killed by a parasitic fungus at bugguide.net.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/03/wasp_perform
I'm all for comedy on Slashdot, but these evolution "debates" make us all look stupid.
May the Maths Be with you!
Are you actually a biologist and/or have spent years studying evolution theory? What makes you think you are qualified to even understand this stuff? Would you expect a layman to be able to understand the nuances of your chosen proffesion?
the roach genus is quite prolific and well distributed with only 2 or 3 considered pests. The same goes for wasps, and only a few specieses of the genus are considered pests. A whole lot more wasp species are grown as biological crop protection: the locate the caterpillar, lay an egg in it and watch while the new wasp eats its way out of the still living caterpillar. Nothing new here, except that this particular species has found a way to use the roaches power to move the body to a premade burrow instead of digging the burrow on the spot.
Unless Slashdot has a very high percentage of entymologists, I don't think it is that newsworthy for slashdot readers. BTW the submitter was flogging his own book it seems?
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Leucochloridium paradoxum is a worm which infects snails and turns them into zombies as well. The zombie snail crawls up vegitation where it can be seen by birds and the parasite causes the snails eye stalks to extend and pulsate to atract birds.
d oxum.htm
The birds then eat the eye stalks and become infected themselves. The worms lay eggs in the bird's digestive system and they are then spread by the birds excrement which the snails eat thus repeating the cycle of life for the parasite.
Rather creepy stuff.
http://people.smu.edu/eheise/Leucochloridium_para
burnin
We would do well to follow its lead, and gain the wisdom of parasites There are already human parasites. They are called paparazzi.
Brittany Spears, Ashlee Simpson, Mariah Carey and J-Lo pretty much prove this exists in the dominate species as well.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Would you expect a layman to be able to understand the nuances of your chosen proffesion?
I would be curteous to a layman who asks about my profession rather than looking down upon his Puny Mortal Self.
FTA:
Amuplex is not technically a parasite, but something known as an exoparasitoid. In other words, a free-living adult lays an egg outside a host, and then the larva crawls into the host. One could easily imagine the ancestors of Ampulex as wasps that laid their eggs near dead insects--as some species do today. These corpse-feeding ancestors then evolved into wasps that attacked living hosts. Likewise, it's not hard to envision an Ampulex-like wasp evolving into full-blown parasitoids that inject their eggs directly into their hosts, as many species do today.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
This is the most sophisticated parasitic routine I have ever heard of, AFAICR. But I was reminded of David Attenborough's BBC TV series "Life in the Undergrowth", which I recently watched - it's available on DVD in the UK, and according to Amazon will be released in the USA at the beginning of May. That contains a few similar examples, including a small wasp whose grub parasitizes living spiders - the biter bit. Strongly recommended, like everything by "Whispering Dave".
Until he explained it, I did not know that wasps were among the oldest of insects, and that both ants and bees were descended from primitive wasps. That set me thinking about cockroaches, which also go back to the dawn of land life. I wondered whether they were, unlike most other bugs, immune to attack by wasps. I guess this article answers that question pretty decisively.
Ever wonder how you would cope with wasps the size of a human being? I know it should be physically impossible, but it's too good a scary idea to give up. "The Furies", by Keith Roberts, is a very good SF novel on that theme, which - unlike many such books - hasn't dated since the 1960s. To quote a review on amazon.co.uk, the Furies are "wasps with a 2 meter wingspan and mandibles like bolt-cutters". And, of course, they hunt in packs...
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Read the article:
Amuplex is not technically a parasite, but something known as an exoparasitoid. In other words, a free-living adult lays an egg outside a host, and then the larva crawls into the host. One could easily imagine the ancestors of Ampulex as wasps that laid their eggs near dead insects--as some species do today. These corpse-feeding ancestors then evolved into wasps that attacked living hosts. Likewise, it's not hard to envision an Ampulex-like wasp evolving into full-blown parasitoids that inject their eggs directly into their hosts, as many species do today.
Once the wasps started attacking the roach hosts, there some selection pressure for the wasps to keep the roaches alive as long as possible. Ultimately, evolution favored the ones who stung the roaches in the brain in this manner.
how many evolutionary failures must there have been before the first momma wasp hit those particular neurons?
No need to assume "evolutionary failure" in not stinging the right spot. For a handwaving just-so story, just assume the head sting started as a way to kill a roach to ensure a very fresh, plump corpse for the larvae. Then, a slightly less violent sting would sometimes paralyze - but not outright kill - the host, making for even better conditions. And so, gradually, improvements in accuracy and specificity of the venom would make for better and better conditions for the larvae.
I for one welcome our new Voodoo Wasp overlords.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
that reminded me of an article by Sapolsky in the Scientific American of March 2003 called "bugs in the brain". a pdf version is here. which then led me to read "a primates memoire". haven't looked at other animals/organisms the same since.
If MyLongNickName is genuinely interested in evolution, then I apologize profusely for jumping down his throat. Unfortunately, it sounded to me like another creationist pretending they understand evolution and has just found another great example by which it couldn't possibly work. I don't think I'm being jumpy to feel that way.
Hmmm, snips of their antennae and uses the stubs to lead them around? That sounds familiar...
Remote controlled roaches
Although I think that roaches will eventually rise up and rebel using their roach controlled robots.
The original paper can be found here. It actually dates from 2003. Despite my weak biology background, I found it very readable.
They also describe an interesting middle phase of the wasp attack which was not mentioned in the summary: after the brain injection, the roach furiously "grooms" itself for 30 minutes. They also note that the zombie behavior takes about 30 mins to take hold. Thus there's a possibility that the intense "itch" in the cockroach keeps it in the same place until its escape reflex has been fried.
Normally I would be courteous in such a case too. However I have a feeling MyLongNickName is not interested in the particular workings of evolution. In a time when creationists are constantly looking for every silly and remote and ill-informed reason to bash evolution, it is not unreasonable to react dubiously.
ENOUGH with the ethnic slurs already!
http://outcampaign.org/
Works on Boing Boing
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Now, if only I could do that to women, I might actually stand a chance of reproducing.
from one of my favorite authors, Peter Watts. He writes hard as hell sf, which includes behavioral modification in this manner. His first two novels are schedluled to be reprinted soon, but until then he has made them available for free in basic tect or pdf form, all downloadable, on his website http://rifters.com/ red the right hand column on the newscrawl section too, it's very much like /. in topics.
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
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.
Since when does somebody have to have an alternative to ask how the prevailing paradigm accounts for a phenomenon? Isn't that a reasonable first step in formulating an hypothesis?
"Mum, how does Aristotle explain the apple falling from the tree?"
"Do you have anything better Isaac? No? Then STFU!"
Cogito, ergo sig.
are very informative and readable. I just finished "At the Waters Edge" and I must say that as a layman it really expanded my knowledge about evolution. The whole "no transitional fossils" line from creationists is just so much crap and it doesn't take much exposure to paleontology to see that. I read that the book that Zimmer wrote as a companion to the PBS series "Evolution" is going to be re-released with some additions and updated information. If you are looking for a good starter book on evolution I recommend it.
Karl Rove can do the same thing with a few choice images in the background of a political ad...
By definition, the paprazzi want to photograph celebs. Any ressemblence between a celeb and a human is purely coincidental.
... Sony Corporation denies it has been using the knowledge to develop a "cerebral root kit" in an attempt to "attract" new customers to its music division..
Off to play some StarCraft...
Looks like someone was reading JWZ@LJ...
http://jwz.livejournal.com/
-bZj
.sig
then I apologize profusely for jumping down his throat
Well, so long as you didn't lay eggs in his stomach and guide him to your nest waiting for them to hatch.
[quote]She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears. From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.[/quote]
I wonder how many governments are funding research on this now?
[quote]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. The Israeli researchers found that they could also drop oxygen consumption in cockroaches by injecting paralyzing drugs or by removing the neurons that the wasps disable with their sting. But they can manage only a crude imitation; the manipulated cockroaches quickly dehydrated and were dead within six days.[/quote]
Maybe NASA should study them also?
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I, for one, welcome our new wasp larvae overlords.
swanker than you
There are already human parasites.
They are also called "children".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
turns out it was just the eggs hatching !
"Toxoplasma is one of a number of parasites which require alteration of host's behaviour for their life cycle[1]. The changes observed are likely due to the presence of cysts in the brain, which produce or induce production of a neurotransmitter, possibly dopamine[2], therefore acting similarly to dopamine reuptake inhibitor type antidepressants. A slightly increased car accident rate, and reaction time slowed by a few percent have been observed (specifically, the infected lose concentration more quickly than the controls in the second and third minute)[3]. "If our data are true then about a million people a year die just because they are infected with toxoplasma," the researcher Jaroslav Flegr told The Guardian[4]. The data shows that the risk decreases with time after infection, however all older drivers are generally able to compensate for longer reaction time[5]. Ruth Gilbert, medical coordinator of the European Multicentre Study on Congenital Toxoplasmosis, told BBC News Online these findings could be due to chance, or due to social and cultural factors associated with toxoplasma infection[6]. Studies argue about the influence of the parasite on personality. There are claims of toxoplasma causing antisocial attitude in men and promiscuity[7] (or even signs of higher intelligence[8]) in women, and greater susceptibility to schizophrenia and manic depression[9] in all infected persons. A review of research focused on the schizophrenia connection confirms an association but does not confirm a causal relationship [10]."
Maybe women like cats because their toxoplasmosis infections make them smarter! Or maybe it's just because women can identify with creatures that are obsessed with their appearance, are impossible to understand, predict, or order around, and look down their nose in scorn at all of the huffing and panting and howling and slobbering we direct at them...
A-Bomb
I wonder what the street value of the wasp toxin would be. I bet that shit would fuck you up.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!
plus a little more at the end
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
http://www.mjt.org/exhibits/stinkant.html
real?
unreal?
Charles Fort would have been proud.
I for one welcome our new wasp overlords.
"And the heathens with their ways of trickery and deceit shall not prevail over the will of the righteous"
GP made a good point, but missed the detail that it isn't that it's provable, it's that it's falsifible. That's what science does. How can you disprove intelligent design when no matter what happens you can always say "God^H^H^HThe Intelligent Designer wanted it that way"?
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
My apologies, the opriginal brief is located at http://www.bgu.ac.il/life/Faculty/Libersat/pdf/JCP .2003.pdf
"And the heathens with their ways of trickery and deceit shall not prevail over the will of the righteous"
dont forget the x-wives
Evolution works both ways. Just de-optimize them. Run a breeding program where the wasps that have a high failure rate of getting the roaches back to the nest are allowed to live while you kill off the wasps that are efficient.
Seastead this.
I will buy Microsoft. I will buy Microsoft. I will buy Microsoft....
Table-ized A.I.
This is just an early form of marriage.
Continually approaching intelligent design with a strategy of "proving it wrong" or "showing them they're wrong" is blindly missing the mark.
I need to agree with the other poster, where the heck this you pull this out of?
The problem is that ID believers are trying to prove evolution wrong, using the same crap statements as the original poster in this thread. We're not trying to prove ID wrong, we're trying to make them shut up and leave evolution alone since they don't even have the most basic knowledge of it.
...that WASP Larvae feed on custodial accounts!
Here's some more ....
Dermatobia hominis, or Torsalo, or Human Botfly is a type of moth whose larvae live inside human flesh. The female doesn't lay her eggs directly on a human host by herself. Instead, she "captures" a female mosquito, places some eggs on the mosquito and then releases her. As soon as the mosquito reaches a mammal and starts feeding, the heat from the host activates the eggs which hatch and then burrow into the wound that the mosquito just created. Since the larvae needs to breath, it will maintain a small airhole leading to the surface of the skin.
Removal of the larvae is performed in several ways: (1) Just let it grow until it falls out, (2) surgical removal, or (3) suffocate it out - By using camphor or superglue, it is possible to block the airhole, which will drive the larvae to the surface. Then with the appropriate application of pressure, the larvae can be forced out of the host (usually shooting 6-10 feet in the process).
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Thanks. I got lots of good ideas for the nanobot lab in my basement. You'll be hearing about some of my creations real soon now. (You might want to wear a helmet for the next, say, 250 years.)
I am not an IDer. Intelligent Design is not science.
That being the case, you, along with the other people who have jumped to this conclusion about me have revealed something about yourself. You are hypersensitive about criticism, or even questioning of your beliefs. You are no better than the people who assume to world was created 6,000 years ago and want to ban any other kind of teaching.
Though I am not an IDer, there are many things that occur in nature that make you go 'hmmmmm'. When you need to take baby steps to evolve, but you see something in nature that appears not to be reachaable through baby steps (individual steps seem to create a disadvantage to the organism). In fact, alternate scientifc theories have tried to account for this by arguing that there are periods of "hyper evolution"... periods were extreme mutation rates occured, giving the opportunity to make multiple mutations in short periods. Not sure how scientifically sound the theory is, but it does show it is not just IDers who think the theory needs some refinement, or better understanding.
Yet, if someone questions current theory, they are shouted down.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
He was clearly suggesting that there is no possible way this evolved and that his magic, invisible pasta monster is the only reasonable explanation
Damn. I must have had a seizure when I was typing the original post. I don't remember typing any of those keys.
You have said more about yourself than about me, AC.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
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.
You really think that Biologists have all the answers on evolution? You are no better that Joe Churchgoer who believes whatever his priest tells him.
Not only do biologists not have all the answers... they don't always even agree with each other.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
There's a rather good episode of Dr. Who (with Tom Baker) about The Wirran, in which aliens lay their eggs in a human(+/oid) host. He mentions the appropriate genus of wasp. Alien was ripped from this IMHO. As was The Matrix - a disgraceful rip of a different Dr. Who series, again starring Tom Baker. But, that's another thread.
shin phantomflanflinger
Which other comments would that be? At the time you posted I only had one other comment which had nothing to do with evolution?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Take a look at this skinworm infecting people in Mafikeng. FTFA:
"People come to clinics complaining that their body is itching. Within three days small sores develop. A yellow spot then develops from each sore as it gets ripe. Once the sore is expressed a worm comes out of it."
Ripe sores. Now thats entertainment.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
The issue is not about poking holes in the current theory. The issue is taking a lack of evidence as being evidence of a non-theory. ID is just a "God of holes" philosophy. 500 years ago ID would have argued that physics is too mysterious to have come about naturally. Today they rightfully stay the fuck away from physics because our explanations are too good and getting too close to a unified theory. The remaining 'holes' in physics while certainly there, are small counter intuitive ones.
Evolution his its issues. Much like physics of a few hundred years ago there are some gaping holes where things do not add up. Thankfully, most scientists do not throw their hands up and say, "Fuck it, this shit is hard. Lets just say god did it and call it a day".
Honestly, ID wouldn't even make the news if it didn't try and shove itself into a class room. The people who advocated the big bang before it was fashionable never went to court to stuff it into a school system. They diligently took criticism of their theory, conducted experiments, and over time developed a body of evidence to show that they were correct. Over time people began to accept the big bang theory. Finally, once it was an accepted theory it was naturally integrated into school teaching. This is the way it should work. This crap where a few religious zealots try and stuff a philosophy into the science class room that has not a single piece of peer reviewed material on it is just religiously minded bull shit, pure and simple.
Hell, ID isn't even a theory. A theory has the ability to make predictions. ID has no such power. ID is a religious philosophy and nothing more.
"He was clearly suggesting that there is no possible way this evolved and that his magic, invisible pasta monster is the only reasonable explanation."
No, he didn't. If that's how you're going to respond to a reasonable question, then how would you expect to have any more respect than the pasta monster believers?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Here's to hopeing i evolve soon. It would make getting laid so much easier. "Excuse me... is that your car on fire" Then she turns around... I inject my toxin into her brain... take her home...
Zombie baby... Sweet sweet zombie sexy time.
here in nyc
Wl, the first phase is obvious. It's the second phase that seems damn improbable.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's ass. No effect.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's leg. No effect.
(a hundred more variations till the wasp injects neurotoxin into the brain)
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain. Roach dies.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach dies.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach dies.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach goes on a wild rampage and kills the wasp.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach flips and goes numb.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, other area. Roach breaks into spasms.
(a thousand more variations till the wasp gets to the right point of the roach brain, with invariable repeatablity)
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then lays eggs and a bird eats the roach.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then rides the roach around in random direction.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then rides the roach towards the Sun.
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then rides the roach out in the open.
(another several thousands of variations where the wasp rides the roach in random unprofitable direction)
A wasp mutates to inject neurotoxin into roach's brain, changing roach into a zombie. Then rides the roach towards he nest. The roach dies halfway to the nest.
(and a new wasp must evolve life-sustaining additions to the neurotoxin and injecting them in the right place of roach brain)
All the above are pointless from evolutionary point of view, and (as we know) evolution doesn't take long strides through unprofitable behaviours until it reaches some "higher plan", a profitable sophisticated behaviour. There's no evolutionary advancement from a wasp that doesn't inject any neurotoxin and one that injects the neurotoxin and drives the roach in a circle. Only fully developed set of behaviors, from the initial paralysing to settling the roach in the nest and laying the egg is evolutionarily profitable for the species. And the combinatory explosion resulting from all the possible UNPROFITABLE behaviours between plain "kills with poison" and "drives to nest" make me sometimes really doubt plain evolution (though I discard ID as explaination. I just assume "unexplained".) It's just that the change wouldn't be evolutionary but revolutionary - the difference between one and the other behaviour is TOO big and anything inbetween doesn't make sense, so how did the jump happen?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
There was a previous discussion about this one on my message board.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
And to think people get so worked up about Jesus being born in a stable.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
... for now.
Of Code And Men
...jumping up and telling us all that this behaviour can be seen in human beings too, in social democrats and other parasitic creatures who paralyze the brains of the worthy through the toxic sting of public education and/or quaint concepts of "morality" so that they can be led like a dog in a leash away from their fundamental right of participation in a free market!
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
Actually, I remember thinking the same thing. Of course, asking whether or not an observation fits with the currently accepted theory is tantamount to heresy, and anyone who wants to be considered half intelligent would do well to accept this fact.
Oops.
Then again, I don't want to be considered only half intelligent.
Cogito, ergo sig.
As a biologist (molecular genetics), I would say that this is the side of evolution people in the field don't talk about. I don't think I've ever read any papers (doesn't mean it doesn't exist) in which a serious study has been taken to answer the question of how evolution can be a CREATIVE process. Here's what I mean:
Microevolution (the DNA mutations and their inheritance by the progeny) occurs all the time, I think we can all agree on this. Macroevolution and speciation on the other hand, is a very hand wavy thing. In macroevolution, new structures or functions are derived from an ancestor. All the widely cited example of evolution, may it be Darwin's finches or the peppered moths are variation of existing structures. In terms of DNA mutations, this may only take a few changes in the actual DNA sequences which regulate the expression (or the turning on) of certain genes. The probability of these mutation events is already pretty low, but one can imagine this happening.
However, the question in the original post of how single base-pair (bp) mutations can lead to an organism not having a given ability at all to having an ability to control the roaches involves invoking evolution as having a CREATIVE force. As an excercise, let's just imagine that we are trying to create a brand new smallish 100 amino acid neuro-peptide that can control the roach by evolution. If you start with some random DNA sequence and try to evolve a 300 bps (3 bps/aa). You will end up with a probability of 1/4^300 = 2.4x10^-181 chance of evolving that (ok it'll be a little higher because 1/4 of the DNA will already be the one you want). That's a pretty small probability in anyone's book. You also have to account for the fact that while you are trying create this protein, other things are getting mutated in your genome and probably killing off the larvae before they have a chance to pass down their genes. Since you have not created a fully functional gene yet, there is no selective advantage for this specific gene locus, and the half-evolved gene is just being carried along in the population at a very low frequency. This means that it is very easily lost in the population and you have to start over trying to create your gene again.
This is just for evolving the neuro-peptide. For the gene to function properly, you NEED regulatory DNA sequences that control the protein to be expressed in the right place (ie. the stinger). There are also a lot of other things that the protein needs to be delivered to the roaches' brain (like the entire secretory pathway). But let's not go into that.
So I hope one can see, that the probability for all these events to occur is very very low, I would say a mathematical improbablity. And this is just for ONE protein to function properly!
Don't get me wrong, I stare a lot at DNA sequence data, and some things make a convincing case for evolution. But again, it's just microevolution. For creation of new structures and functions, and speciation, a lot more is needed. Speciation is not an observable event, and neither is the formation of new structures. Before we go and hail evolution as the new dogma of the modern man, we need to take this into consideration. And teach it like it is: if the enterprise of science is the search for "the truth" we need to be open and admit the assumptions and the caveats in our hypothesis. And that's what macro-evolution is: an hypothesis.
There are, literally, in any given generation of wasps and roaches anywhere from 10^5 to 10^7 individuals. You could easily cover all of those individual variations in a single generation. The ones that were not successful would be gone in another 2 generations, tops, which would explain why we don't see all of these unsuccessful versions swarming around. Like you said, evolution wouldn't follow through on those unsuccessful variations, but that one that was successful is going to reproduce and pass that particular trait on.
my pet machine
won't someone think of the roach children?!!?
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!).
The story leaves nothing to embellish: The wasp, Americanus Conservatoris, has evolved to inject a toxin into a specific part of a Republicans
brain, turning it into a zombie. The wasp then leads the Republican into the wasp's nest, lays Prophecy inside it, and waits for its young to
hatch, who will then go on to do the same to more Republicans.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Likewise, the grandparent's argument implies there IS a reason for suffering. Western religions are populated by such a bunch of crybaby four year olds.
Suffering just is. There's always something. The buddha noticed it two hundred years BC and noticed it's inescapable. But in the east, they don't assume some single creature is doing it deliberately; after all, it's not like it really matters.
He also noticed WE make the suffering worse but sitting there bitching about how wrong and unfair it all is, and going "Why? Why? Why?".
Thirdly he noticed we can make it quite a bit better.
Last he said the way to make it better is to quit wishing for things to be different. Once we give up these desires, suffering vanishes.
Westerners should think about these ideas more. At least it would be quieter.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Isn't this just similar to how people recruit an audience for an infomercial?
tone
tone
before wasp ( . )
after wasp ( o )
same detection
before wasp ( . )
after wasp ( O )
I could almost swear the (leader of the) east is ruled by wasps; isn't there a similar movie about it ?
oh my, Here come these "I bow to our (alien) wasp masters" jokes again ... ;)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I had a dream that I was a cockroach, and that wasp Ann Coulter stuck me with her stinger, zombified my brain, led me by pulling my antenna into her nest at Fox News, and laid her Neocon eggs on me. Soon a fresh baby College Republican hatched out, burrowed into my body, and devoured me from the inside. Ann Coulter's designs may be intelligent, but she's one cruel god.
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Except the wasp, FTFA, doesn't lay the eggs inside. It lays an egg outside, and the lava eats its way into the roach.
Hmmm... The guy's seed is "layed" only somewhat inside, and works its way further in?
Almost works...
Here is a very good illustration of how ID proponents arrive at their conclusive examples.
While the story was simply a brief description of the process and far from a scientific description of the activities, the writer actually speculates how this behavior may have evolved.
Now note the ID point of view. Not only do they jump at whatever complex quirk of nature they come across as proof of ID, they do not even bother to learn the science they question (i.e. RTFA and have their doubts answered).
And why not? After all, that's precisely how people "study" the Bible.
1) Find one or two verses that could in some way promote your opinion du joir (The Universe revolves around the earth, Anyone who doesn't worship like I do has no right to live in what I consider to be my promise land and must be cast out with a series of Crusades and other six-day wars, God wants you to hate fags and vote Republican)
2) Cite those instances as complete, unquestionable proof of far more complex and grandeous theologies.
First zombie dogs, now zombie cockroaches! Now that my pets AND my pests have been zombified, I await for my own impending zombie future.
My college voodoology teacher would be proud
When life is viewed as a test for an afterlife, disease, paracitism and all kinds of worldly horrors can be explained away just fine. Life itself is not precious for a God who has power over life and death.
Not that such beliefs need logical explanations. Just bend over when the priest asks you to.
Dicrocoelium dendriticum (a type of liver fluke) has been known to do this for a long time. One of its life stages is ingested by an ant and at some point causes the ant to climb up onto the tips of grasses and grab on (with its mandibles) to the tip of the grass blade. Then when certain grazing animals (such as sheep) come by they inadvertently consume the ant and the grazer can then become infected. There are lots of other freak-stories in any parasitology book -- check one out at your local library!
I never said that I do, I don't see how you could even come up with that from my post. I simply said that explaining evolution, and in general this would require explaining all the background, is pointless in a forum post to someone who will not listen. A book or website written by someone else is a much better teacher, and if someone cared they would have read one already. For example, I don't argue about the meaning of things in the bible for example because I don't have a good enough understanding of the bible. I wouldn't expect people on a Christian site to explain every little thing to me, and likewise I won't myself explain every little thing to creationists and IDers.
As for your statement on Biology, your point being? That is science, we build up answers over time, and the general ideas are fairly well agreed on. Physics for example has multiple theories in certain areas, and most people don't say it is all wrong and then claim god's will is doing it and there is no need for physics. Unlike creationists and IDers scientists don't simply agree with whatever the priest tells them; conflicts will exist and the point is that with time and experiments some agreement is reached. Biology is a very active field, as such there is a lot of such conflict right now and with time it will even out.
Fugus attacking insects is pretty common actually. Cordyceps spp do this. We get some fine [herbal chinese] meds from a few such as C. senensis. Another that is really interesting is C. subsessilis which is also known as Tolypocladium inflatum from which we get cyclosporin.
This is a whole new field actually - fungal control of insects. There are a few patents out and undoubtably this will be a nice growth area. Perhaps we can even get rid of the nasty pesticides we have used in the past under the mis-idea that chemistry will pave the way to a brave new world devoid of human pathogens. Our hospitals have been busy breeding a whole raft of really nasty critters by following this mantra.
You don't need an account to read the website, which is all I'm plugging.
Conclusion: the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Accept it.
Oh... right then. That TOTALLY EXPLAINS how evolution works, thanks for that. Um not, let's hope thats not the best defense evolution has.p. It's not meant to explain how evolution works. I assumed you already knew the theory. I'm just saying the evolutionary leap is not as far as it may appear.
Conclusion: the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Accept it.
> The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days.
The wasp then dies, painfully, of food poisoning.
Max.
I don't know why people assume that intelligent design means a supreme being. Can anyone suggest any good books with the hypothesis of aliens meddling with earth's ecology?
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
I'll begin with the most important part, if you wish to question evolution for whatever reason and with whatever alternative theories I expect you to:
a) Understand biology and evolution, I don't mean be an expert but I do mean understand. I'll happily explain or concede specific points but don't expect me to lecture you on the whole theory of evolution and genetics.
b) Already know the counter arguments to your alternate theory, and explanations for why it may be wrong. If 5 minutes and google can dismiss what you said then why are you bothering me at all?
c) Make it clear in your post that the above two hold, this shouldn't be anything special. Either provide a link or explain your ideas in such a way that the points from b) do not apply.
d) Show a desire to think logically and accept that you may be wrong, otherwise why are you bothering us?
If these don't hold for you then don't complain when I tell you to STFU or simply ignore you (the later takes less time and I'm only replying here to back up someone else). Questions of "how did X evolve" are usually quite stupid, since most of the time it's either on google (if the organism in question has been the subject of major debates in the past) or any answer you get can be reached using simple logic (and understanding of biology). If you still feel like asking at least indicate in your post that you have used some of your brain on the problem already.
That being the case, you, along with the other people who have jumped to this conclusion about me have revealed something about yourself. You are hypersensitive about criticism, or even questioning of your beliefs. You are no better than the people who assume to world was created 6,000 years ago and want to ban any other kind of teaching.
Have I now? I never said I don't accept criticism, I accept intelligent criticism quite well sometimes too much for my own good. I'm the type of person who will explain to 9/11 conspiracy nuts why they're being morons using evidence instead of simply telling them they're morons. That said; I understand why other people would not and why I myself have simply stopped caring. You can only hear and explain the exact same thing so many times before saying "screw it" and realizing there is no point. If I think there is a point or potential use for a discussion then I will happily join in, but I'm not going to waste my time on explaining all of biology to some moron who will ignore it all anyway (and yes that is 99% of IDers and those who "question evolution", most of the others would be much better of reading a book). A book would explain things better, and furthermore I'm not getting paid to explain all this crap to you (nor am I qualified to really).
When you need to take baby steps to evolve, but you see something in nature that appears not to be reachaable through baby steps (individual steps seem to create a disadvantage to the organism).
That most likely means you're either not looking at it right or are not understanding what types of baby steps are involved and how they are beneficial. What we see is a stone arch, and wonder how such a thing could have ever been made by ancient people. Unless you realize that they used scaffolding when putting it together you may think it was impossible. I've heard many argument made by people before, and almost all were quickly dismissed by a google search (see above).
In fact, alternate scientifc theories have tried to account for this by arguing that there are periods of "hyper evolution"... periods were extreme mutation rates occured, giving the opportunity to make multiple mutations in short periods.
Everything in science needs refinement; your posts were neither refinement nor an indication of a specific area in question. If you wish to know how things could evolve, then pick up a book on evolution and learn to think logically.
Not sure how scientifically sound the theory is, but it does show it is not just IDers who think the theory needs some refinement, or better understanding.
IDers think the theory is wrong, not that it needs some refinement. There is a difference.
This is the exact same mechanism used in art schools to keep attendance up:
"Wow, you're a great artist, kid."
"How would you know?"
"I'm an art teacher."
"Wow, really? And you think I'm good?"
"Yes, good enough to be an art teacher one day."
Then they lead them into the art school... it's shockingly ugly.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
I for one, welcome our Wasp/Zombie overlords.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
A practical way for slashdoters to reproduce.
I suggest you actually look at the rest of the site and see the blurring of the line between the real and unreal. That was Charles Fort's whole point... never trust the adherents to any priesthood, no matter how polished their presentation. The Museum of Jurassic Technology is an exploration and physical manifestation of that concept.
Yes. A single Sacculina. And several Sacculinae.
That suffering is somehow always evil and to be avoided.
I beg to differ with you... at least in the Judeo-Christian mythology, suffering is a quality of the good. If you didn't suffer, you would likely be evil, (though, in the much rarer cases, blessed).
The Admin and the Engineer
Science doesn't need all the answers, and it isn't a problem to change your mind. When a theory outlives its usefulness, it's replaced with a better one. Science is based on understanding; unlike dogma, it doesn't crumble if the mask of infallibility slips.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
It's soooo obvious....The insects (Wasps in this case) simply copied the behavior of space aliens who landed on this planet some hundreds of thousands - or millions - of years ago. Anybody else would have done the same.......
This is exactly why I rejected both established science and established religion, because of their dogmas and circular arguments to support their dogmas.
What you are saying is that something (intelligence and reason) came out of nothing. Well then what is this nothing, that everything evolved from?
A circular argument that science ignores is: they have their "big bang" theory, it was all one big ball of s**t, that went boom, and wow we have galaxies, stars, planets, and life. The question still is where did the big ball of s**t come from? The scientific sleight of hand again, explaining a process and pretending that it is a cause. If you make the process explanation big enough, and put it far enough back in time, maybe no one will notice that the essential question still has not been answered. What caused this, and if part of this process outcome resulted in intelligence, then what is the supporting evidence, that no part of the cause was intelligent?
If you are truly scientific you will have imperial evidence for this claim, or else there is no basis for the statement that there is no intelligence behind the evolutionary process.
What I see here is no difference between the Grand Pubahs or Big Kunahs of the scientific world today, and the Grand Pubahs or Big Kunahs of religion in the 1500s. They each had / have dogmas and if you contradict their dogmas then you will be burned at the stake. Dogma of course is a position that is not supported by empirical evidence and reason.
Most recent case of burning at the stake that I remember was Pons and Fleischman. A classic case of today's scientific closed mindedness, because they could not reproduce the same results, instead of asking themselves, what is different about our set-up that may be an unanticipated causal factor, it was easier to call Pons and Fleischman frauds and liars. This is scientific?
Because science still cannot answer the big question, by producing imperial evidence that supports either it is so, or it is not so, they resort to dogma, it is not so because we say so. Apart from being dogmatic, the only other similarity that I see between today's science and religion, is they both seem to agree that order came out of chaos, and something came out of nothing, neither seems to dispute this, but also neither one gives a satisfactory explanation for how this happened.
I know, why don't we just ignore it, or pretend that we already know the answer, even we have no evidence to support that position. Is this is science, or is this dogma? There was a man from Persia about 150 years ago who said "Religion without science is superstition, and science without religion is dead materialism", I believe Albert Einstein said something similar, "I think that science without religion is lame and, conversely, that religion without science is blind."
Well, 10^5 or 10^7 is very little considering that a (any) mutation happens once in 1000 specimens or so.
Therefore two unrelated mutations in one individual in about 1,000,000, three in 10^9 etc... Here we're getting a combination of of about 6-7 totally unrelated and completely unprofitable when taken alone mutations. So the chance of a single random wasp mutating into a zombie driver wasp would be like 10^20 or so. Add to that the element of dumb luck (zombie driver wasp isn't killed by a bird or doesn't freeze on a cold day before giving offspring), and you suddenly see how amazingly rare this is.
Building the first cell-like organism basing on DNA that was randomly assembled in the ancient "life soup" was even less likely, but back then you had whole planet covered with oceans filled with this soup and a thousands of random DNA strings assembling inside every single drop of water from these oceans. Wasps certainly outnumber humans on Earth, but still the population size, even when multiplied by several millions of years doesn't really make it close to the probability figure. Unless of course my "spherical cow" approximations are way off.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2