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Ant Mega-Colony Covers the World
Deag writes "A mega colony of one family of ants has spread all over the world. Previous mega colonies in California, Europe and Japan have been shown to be in fact one global colony.
Ants from the smaller super-colonies were always aggressive to one another. So ants from the west coast of Japan fought their rivals from Kobe, while ants from the European super-colony didn't get on with those from the Iberian colony.
But whenever ants from the main European and Californian super-colonies and those from the largest colony in Japan came into contact, they acted as if they were old friends."
One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants 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 could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
Well, this reporter was...possibly a little hasty earlier and would like to...reaffirm his allegiance to this country and its human president. May not be perfect, but it's still the best government we have. For now.
don't tread on an ant he's done nothing to you
there might come a day
when he's treading on you
you'll end up black and blue
you cut off his head
legs come looking for you
so unplug the jukebox
and do us all a favour
that music's lost its taste
so try another flavour -
antmusic
I, for one, welcome our new insect Overlords!
I wonder how long it would take for the geographically isolated colonies (who share the same mega-colony ancestry) to drift enough that they lose their association with the parent mega-colony, and cease to treat other sub-colonies as friends.
How much variation in the cuticle hydrocarbons is acceptable? Are there specific 'marker' hydrocarbons that help differentiate between colonies? Genetically, is it a matter of different intron expression, or is it variation within a single intron? How many base pairs are involved if that's the case?
Damn, I knew I shouldn't have coffee this late.
Well, I'm off to plunder the depths of the internet in hopes of learning more about ant colony differentiation. Adieu!
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
... I've seen this movie. It was about 20 years ago. All I can say is - we're in a LOT of trouble guys.
BTW if any of you are currently working in a research facility in the middle of the desert, I'd advise you to get out now.
#DeleteChrome
In the case of Argentine ants, boric acid powder (cheap at the hw store) plus syrup has worked fairly well for me.
Sometimes they want fat instead of sugar, use peanut butter instead of syrup. Don't overdo the boric acid or they won't bite.
Just goog for recipes.
Interesting article on NYT recently http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/operator-can-you-put-me-through-to-ant-nest-251/?ref=science
I'm perfect in every way, except for my humility.
One supercolony makes it sound like they have organization (of the ant-ish variety) that spans the globe. This is just a bunch of small colonies whose scents are so similar that members of the other colonies are unable to discern that they are, in fact, not from their own colony.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
Just want to remind everyone, that when the ant revolution does come, that Oxyclean(tm) DOES in fact kill ants.
...the New World Order everyone has been talking about.
Have gnu, will travel.
Them!
Sig this!
When they saw the breadth of their domain, they wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.
This is very bad news for Hopper and the rest of his gang.
-David
That's alright. Here in the South we have our fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) to defend us.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Listen, and understand. Those ants are out there. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
the mole with the hair on the cheek, the kiss on the nose with the bad breath, the completely lame christmas presents, the drunk hysterical laughter at the adult table
everywhere, everywhere on the globe
(shudder)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I had these ants in my old house. Seal up one path and they find another. Put a pesticide on the baseboards and they run across the ceiling. The liquid ant bait/poison kills them, but they keep coming. I used a whole lot of the stuff and there was a 1/4" layer of dead ants in the room and they kept coming. It turns out that the anthills are all connected and they will even add a local hill if they find something that seems like a good source of food.
I finally sold the house.... Sucker!!
I for one welcome our... ah never mind.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
I remember seeing this on the Discovery channel a few years ago, it was really cool seeing how these ants recognized one another as family and acted as such. On the other hand they were extremely violent to ants of different colonies and if I remember right the Discovery channel's pitch was that they are bent on world domination (of ants).
Some years back (1952), Clifford Simak wrote a book that, among other things, described the earth as being overrun by ants. I'm not sure if it's in print any more, but you may be able to find it in a used book store. Well worth a read.
Oh, the name of the book is "City".
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
It's clean, dries up disinfects AND kills ants on contact within seconds. It's also cheap. Trust me...it works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IbyWxEq-0c
The Evil Ant Overlords have positioned themselves to strike in a similar manner to the way that the aliens in Independence Day 4 did. Note that it's July 1st with the strike coming July 4th, the traditional day for alien attacks due to the large demographic in the USA being drunk. Run for the hills... oh, they are full of ants... don't run for the hills... run for the city... oh, they are full of ants.... sigh.... raid! raid! raid! run to Wallmart and buy all the Raid!!!
Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Here in Massachusetts they're so common and they're pretty much the first ant I ever saw in my back yard as a child in the 70's that I figured they were native.(They're all over the place. Hell, I only found out they're an invasive species last year. That's how completely settled in these little guys are.) Also unlike fire ants they don't bite but man do they breed like crazy.(I know I should get rid of them from my yard but most of the time they don't actually do anything to annoy me. When I see them it's pretty much "Who cares?" which is not my response when I see carpenter ants or yellow jackets.) They're definitely doing something right.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
...signed up for the Mobile Infantry! Service Guarantees Citizenship!
Klendathu delenda est!
Would you like to know more?
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
A mega-colony of ants...now imagine if all the uncles joined them...
*Ducks all the flying objects headed his way*
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Do they communicate philoticly?
"Come and go mad" could get nicely updated in the light of this discovery.
I still remember a story about this, so vividly, from when I was a kid. I must have seen the movie too, whatever.
The point is that the ants are just waiting until we can't fire up the moats anymore. As soon as you give up your SUV, with it's 35 gallon gas tank, you are toast (not the ants)!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
You looking for the local chapter and got lost?
It had six tiny swastika armbands on its legs.
We are being invaded by Nazi ants.
You welcome our insect overlords; I will be finding someplace to hide.
As Bill Bailey said, we're human slaves in an Insect Nation (AHAAAAAHAAAAAAA!)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
... at least according to Fredric Brown's Sci-Fi short story, "Come and Go Mad". This story is about a man, "Nappy", living in modern times. He once believed he was Napoleon, but has been cured of this belief when the story starts. Through a series of eerie events we discover he really is Napoleon. He has been body-swapped by red and black ants who have secretly controled all of human activity and are the true rulers of our world.
Worldwide!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Living in a country neighbor to Argentina, I completely agreed with that sentence, until I realized they were talking about the ants! :-)
Shameless rip from Wikipedia:
Golgafrincham is a red semi-desert planet that is home of the Great Circling Poets of Arium and a species of particularly inspiring lichen. Its people decided it was time to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population, and so the descendants of the Circling Poets concocted a story that their planet would shortly be destroyed in a great catastrophe. (It was apparently under threat from a "mutant star goat"). The useless third of the population (consisting of hairdressers, tired TV producers*, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, management consultants, telephone sanitizers and the like) were packed into the B-Ark, one of three giant Ark spaceships, and told that everyone else would follow shortly in the other two. The other two thirds of the population, of course, did not follow and "led full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Places_in_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
In related news, scientists determined that frogs from around the world actually form one huge super-duper-mega-colony. They were able to know by finding out that frogs from different parts of the world, when introduced to each other, didn't fight.
Seriously, isn't this definition of a "colony" a bit useless? Of course if you apply it, you really DO have a mega-colony, but it doesn't match what anyone would normally expect to constitute a "colony".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070531/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_IV
You can kill all the ants in a few ways
a) Follow them back to find the colony. Boil 4-8 gallons of water i a big stock pot, kick the top off of the ant hill, and dump it down. The boiling water will rapidly travel along all of the tunnels and it should reach the queen, taking out the whole colony at once.
b) Bait the places where they enter your house with a liquid borax/sugar mixture. These ant mixtures are available at any store. The ants take the food and bing it back to the colony, where they all eat it - and the borax eventually kills all of them.
When I clicked on this article, I was 99.9% sure that the first comment would welcome ants overlords...
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." (Oscar Wilde)
IIRC, was the title of a sci-fi short story I read long ago. Though bringing it up in this thread just spoiled it for everyone who hadn't read it yet.
So, it sounds to me like these "researchers" just got some foldin' grant money and flew around trying to get bugs to fight.
How do I become an entomologist -- or a scam artist like these guys?
the humans or the ants?
xkcd
The ants here
--
"Kann man Herzen brechen
kÃnnen Herzen sprechen
kann man Herzen quÃlen
kann man Herzen stehlen
Sie wollen mein Herz am rechten Fleck
doch seh ich dann nach unten weg
da schlaegt es links
KÃnnen Herzen singen
kann ein Herz zerspringen
kÃnnen Herzen rein sein
kann ein Herz aus Stein sein
Sie wollen mein Herz am rechten Fleck
doch seh ich dann nach unten weg
da schlÃgt es links
links zwo drei vier
Kann man Herzen fragen
ein Kind darunter tragen
kann man es verschenken
mit dem Herzen denken
Sie wollen mein Herz am rechten Fleck
doch seh ich dann nach unten weg
da schlÃgt es in der linken Brust
der Neider hat es schlecht gewusst"
Ich mÃchte zu Rammstein danken sagen.
See EVEN Rammstein saw this coming years ago...
Time to get to lizard breath and get the 5 bits of evidence we need to call in the national guard .
Watch out round there the Hell cats are a nasty bunch
At least when the ants do 'get you' you wake up to a pretty nurse.
That's because the meetings are held in California, the California ants know where the medical marijuana is grown, and hold the meetings at the Grateful Dead ranch. Peace brother.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
http://www.vdare.com/images/091706_ss_WelcomeOurNew.jpg
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I for one welcome our new Argentinian Ant overlords!
Obligatory fulfilled.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
The article talks about how ants from different super colonies in the same region react aggressively to each other and how ants from the largest super colonies on separate continents react as if they are from the same colony. What it doesn't mention is the reaction of ants from the largest super colony in California to ants from the smaller super colony in Japan (or the smaller super colony in Europe). If ants of this species from California get along with ants from either of the colonies in Europe or Japan, then this interaction is much more complicated than the article reports. The only way the scientists conclusion is supported is if the ants from California get a similar reaction from ants from the smaller colonies as the ants from the larger colony in the region do.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Find the cure a Bing.com.
Your post is the second link on the resuls page :)
Mmmm.. Donuts
So the Ants are globalizing as well ... do you think they same the same things about us we say about them? "Damn humans- they're taking over the planet! I've tried to get rid of them but they're so persistent!"
... SAY the same things about us ...
Or Phase IV (1974)
Trailer
Wanna know where Gene Roddenberry got his inspiration for the Borg? Look no further than the Argentine ants in California. These critters ARE the Borg. They won't need to build spaceships to own the stars... we'll build them and they'll stow away on them. Next stop, the Gamma Quadrant.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_speed_for_a_black_ant
I for one welcome our supercolonized borg ant overlords.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
What you do is find two mounds of differing species and drop some sweet morsels equidistant inbetween them. Then you wait for both colonies to find it. I like watching the big red ants vs. the little red ants (piss-ants?). You'd think the big ants would have the advantage over the little ants 1/4 of their size, but as it turns out the little ants are able produce a decent dose of formic acid. Which in ant terms, appears to have the same effect as a person being nailed with pepper spray. So then you get these battles where the big ants get all nervous and occasionally try to tear the small ants in half, only to get nailed with the chemicals from the little ones and run off to the sidelines to recover. Also the little ants tend to be nasty adversaries, quickly grabbing onto the antennae of their opponents and fighting dirty. And amongst this struggle, you'll ocassionally see a large black carpenter ant try to cross the ongoing frenzy and act like "WTF did I just run into?" The carpenter ants usually like the rotten wood and leaf litter stuff, and don't want anything at all to do with the other ants they cross.
If not for wars, we'd probably still be in the Stone Age.
Duct tape? Commissioned by the military. Jet planes? First made by the Luftwaffe. Electronic computers? First made for codebreaking. Nuclear energy? Manhattan project. First man in space? Cold War. The Internet.
Like it or not, wars have driven at least a significant portion of technological advancement. Ironic that you're complaining on a computer, over the Internet.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
You know what's awesome about slashdot? That I could laugh at this post ... before I clicked the story.
That's the great thing about the Standard Joke Set: Jokes from the Standard Joke Set can be used and enjoyed with minimal related context, and only the simplest of introductions. Because the audience already knows and likes the joke, jokes from the Standard Joke Set never fail to amuse.
Of course, using Standard Jokes in this way is somewhat suboptimal from a bandwidth utilization standpoint. The joke is shared knowledge, so really all that is needed is some unique way of identifying the joke. One method coming into common use is to simply use the order of the jokes on the Standard Joke List as a numeric identifier. The grandparent post, for instance, could be more optimally represented as simply "#24!" - though unfortunately this compact representation would be disallowed by Slashdot's post filters. (These obsolete rules are therefore in need of revision. As a provisional measure it may be worth introducing the SJS into the "gzip" compression algorithm as globally recognized patterns - that way, the site can stream out a gzip-compressed version of the page and network traffic, at least, will be optimized.)
It's important to note, however, that the Standard Joke Set is no substitute for being funny. You can't just say "#18!" and expect people to laugh. You need to know how to tell it right.
(This concludes my presentation of standardized joke #303. You may commence laughter at your convenience.)
Bow-ties are cool.
Well, don't forget, the expression (ant.weight *) evaluates to a function which multiplies things by ant.weight. So ((ant.weight *) (50 + ant_comfort_factor)) is still a valid way of expressing the same basic computation.
Bow-ties are cool.
Arm children in the areas with the most problem with magnifying glasses. Battle commences on all sunny days.
Problem solved.
You're actually reinforcing Absolut's point. Why should we need war to develop all that cool stuff? Why can't we fund their development on their own merits, rather than as an avenue for killing more people?
Because we're dumber than ants.
And the jet engine was actually patented first in England, almost ten years before WW2 began. The Germans were the first to put it into a production aircraft.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Covering the world? Shouldn't we call it a teracolony?
The whole head-line is of course indicative of the way you "people" see the world: "Mega-colony". It's "world peace", for queen's sake!
I, for one, not only welcome our new insect overlords, but want to assure you that I have been on your side all along.
Oh just wait, they'll start fighting too... just give them the time to go through their natural resources without anywhere left to spread to (and it seems they are approaching that point). Unless of course they hitch a ride to Mars and have it terraformed before we do, then I'll agree with you.
I am a v1ral sig. Plse c0py me and h3lp me spread. Thank y0u?
"Duct tape" is any of a number of tapes intended for stopping HVAC leaks or joining sections. The best kind is made of aluminum metal, the lamest kind is the silvery plastic stuff with thin straight fibers, in the middle is what most people call "duct tape" or "duck tape" - silvery plastic with thicker, loosely laid fibers in a thick, waterproof adhesive base.
"Duck tape" is US Army issued tape made from green or black duck cloth, with various thicknesses of cloth and various types of adhesives. The best kind is "five hundred mile an hour tape", the lamest kind has water-soluble adhesive (but is impossible to tell from waterproof tape without sticking it in water).
"Duck brand duct tape" is some guys who think they are funny.
On the contrary, wars and competition have fueled human innovation. The need to become more technologically advanced than the country next door fueled science for much of history. Religion (which I personally don't like) helped inspire early mathematics and physics, as astronomy was the the root of much early mathematics (here, religion played the role of the false hypothesis that was proved wrong by rigorous inquiry).
But as much as war sucks, the drive to dominate through war has probably speeded up human development. The Chinese considered themselves as the Middle Kingdom, with only culturally and scientifically inferior countries surrounding them. They invented gunpowder and the trebuchet, and used them as toys as entertainment, for what need did they have to go on conquering inferior kingdoms? Noone to fear, and thus no pressing need to invest resources into perfecting new weapons to upset the status quo. Once the Arabs got a look at these Chinese toys, they figured out fairly quickly they could be used to knock walls down. Once they started tinkering around and knocking walls down, the Europeans had to figure out how to A) build better walls B) knock walls down better.
On the other hand, Europe and the Arab world were constantly in an arms race. The Renaissance may not have occurred had the fall of Constantinople not kicked all those Greek scholars out of (former) Byzantium. DARPA wouldn't have gotten the funding needed for the internet without the Cold War; indeed, space exploration was initially a pissing contest between the US and USSR.
ants hate soap. if you make a solution of dish detergent and water and spread the liquid across an ant trail, even just a damp paper towel's worth, they will not cross it.
Ask Me About... The 80's!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070531/
Oh no! Sounds like ant globalizaton..
The "H-Word" has died for me.
Ah yes, the war, world's only hygiene. You're one of those who get tasks from the military as I normally don't expect computer enthusiasts to read Marinetti or Kurt Eggers.
What you guys tend to forget is the scientific boost we get from genocides.
I never caught any of you praising the holocaust for IBM or Unit 731 for the advances in pharmacology.
Nevertheless you guys creep me out.
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