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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.
Luckily, just like in the movies, scientists are completely fungible. Studying retroviruses one day, building robots the next, astrophysics the day after that... In fact, every entomologist was actually torn directly from a sick child's bedside, and is using equipment stolen from the World Cure for Cancer Project.
Aside from the obvious sarcasm of the above, ants are, even in the crudest economic terms, quite worth studying. Anything that spends its(quite plentiful) time gnawing on our infrastructure and food crops is.
Man I can hear that sweet tune now ..
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
... 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
Just want to remind everyone, that when the ant revolution does come, that Oxyclean(tm) DOES in fact kill ants.
When they saw the breadth of their domain, they wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.
I don't think PETA will be happy with that - can't you just ask them nicely to go away ?
Or female butts to investigate?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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.
Have you tried playing Slim Whitman songs to them?
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'm back. Whew! Plundering the depths of the internet is exhausting.
I didn't manage to learn much about ant colony differentiation, but I did learn that:
1. A leaf-cutter ant queen mates only once - just before establishing a new colony. She can then keep the sperm viable for up to 15 years and produce as many as 300 million offspring (Wow!).
2. The study of ants is called Myrmecology.
3. In heraldry the two-tailed mermaid is shown full face with the ends of her tails held in each hand. Both single-tailed and double-tailed varieties symbolize eloquence. If she has her comb and mirror with her then it means vanity.
4. You can buy cheap bathroom vanities from some site called vanities.pronto.com.
5. If you mispell "pronto" while googling with safesearch turned off, the results are um... interesting.
6. Adult chat tends to focus on certain subjects. And "LilMissHotty69" is actually a guy from Peoria, IL named Bob who is into fishing and fixing up GTOs. Who knew?
Maybe plundering the depths of the internet is not the best way to learn about an esoteric subject when hopped up on caffeine.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I've tried that, but they keep bugging me about killing the ants...
Two men claimed to have walked into a bar. Only one had the bruises to prove it.
Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
...signed up for the Mobile Infantry! Service Guarantees Citizenship!
Klendathu delenda est!
Would you like to know more?
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Oh, you've got it backwards. Ask the ants nicely, and pour the boiling water down the PETA hole.
I have tried something similar with hornets nests. It failed miserably.
How do you get the molten aluminum to keep from freezing in the tunnels and blocking the penetration of the rest of the aluminum?
How do you get it to flow up the tunnels that ascend from intersections?
Inquiring minds want to know. (And evil minds want to apply your techniques to subway tunnels.)
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
And "LilMissHotty69" is actually a guy from Peoria, IL named Bob who is into fishing and fixing up GTOs. Who knew?
But you can't tell me you didnt enjoy it ;)
Was the sick child with cancer ok? Why wouldn't the robots the entomologist built help him WHY
Adieu!
It's Aeiou. Not sure why you're signing off with a list of vowels, but "d" is not one of them.
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)
On a recent trip to Jamaica, we had some tiny little ants in a nest in the bathroom wall. I discovered that they wouldn't cross invisible Vaseline lines rubbed on the wall.
Well, after a few days, I had created complex Vaseline mazes for the ants with food smudges at strategic locations. Got them to spell out my name with their ant trails. Wife wasn't as impressed as you might imagine.
Beaches were nice too.
Synergies are basically awesome, and they're even better when you leverage them. -PA
Yeah, I have had some fun times with Jamaican Ganja too man.
what a coincidence, I too once was in D.C. in a big marble building and had the same thought about pouring molten aluminum into obnoxious holes atop caverns festering with evil and spewing forth pestilence. Those weren't ant holes, but a pair of a-holes.
I always ask PETA nicely to go away. But just in case, I also keep the boiling pot ready.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because "queen" when referring to ants has a completely different meaning than "queen" when referring to the ruler of a country? Not all people in the UK are biological children hatched from eggs laid by Queen Elizabeth, although it's been a while since I've cracked open a biology textbook.
Nobody really argues that cosmetic surgeons are evil for not doing heart surgery instead.
You mean the opposite, right? Most people don't argue heart surgeons are evil for not making bigger tits instead.
Yes, I meant the birds.
Got them to spell out my name with their ant trails. Wife wasn't as impressed as you might imagine.
That was your mistake, you should have got the ants to spell out your wife's name
Women love that romantic stuff!
Well, of coursethey aren't. Immigration.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
What did you do with the robe and the wizard's hat?
Those are mine.
Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
Return one hour later.
Who's happy to see you?
Sorry for double reply...
But obviously Google is superior to Bing.
On Google, my post is the #1 result for ant colony differentiation.
If you use quotes -- "ant colony differentiation" -- it is the only result.
By virtue of the fact that I consider myself to be the most important person in the world (to me), Google is therefore superior to Bing.
Case closed.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.