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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."
There's one that always works for me: boiling water, a whole pot, straight down the hole
If you pour molten aluminum down the hole you can get rid of the ants and get a keen casting of the whole nest. You could keep it as a trophy like a stuffed moose head.
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
I'm not sure why people make the complaint that some scientific research (like this) is a waste of time.
I know some scientists who are very human focused. They research something, say cancer, because they really want to help some of the victims they know. If they aren't focused on particularly immediate human scale problems, still they try to watch for ways whatever they are doing can contribute to human happiness or sheer survival. I know others who are mostly value neutral. To one of them, you could talk about breakthroughs in cloning, and he'd ask if they had any uses for fruit-fly studies and if it didn't, he really wouldn't care one way or another. That's pretty much distanced from a 'normal human focus', but the worst thing this guy could possibly do to anyone would be to maybe convince congress to spend a little too much on fruit-fly research. Why is this a big deal in evaluating a scientist?
I mean, I know some businessmen who give away extra shoes to needy children. I know a lot more who are focused on the bottom line. Almost never do I hear the ones who are focused on their own profits accused of wasting their lives or the time or money of everyone else. Some people may accuse them of greed, but not of being out of touch with human concerns. For lots of professions, having a focus on the bigger picture, thinking about the long term consequences of what you are doing is totally optional, and nobody expects to hear a phrase such as 'for the good of the whole human race'. Nobody criticizes a lawyer for focusing on inter-business contract law instead of becoming a crusading DA and putting more criminals away. Nobody really argues that cosmetic surgeons are evil for not doing heart surgery instead. It's just something in the way they think about science.
I know some politicians who, when they first heard about cloning, jumped to the idea of building clone armies to conquer the world thirty seconds later. I have never met a biologist who thought that way. If some people slam any scientist who isn't focused on local, immediate, human issues, why do those same people so seldom worry about some politicians who sound like movie cliche mad scientists?
I usually argue that research such as this example will probably feed back into the whole institution that is science, and benefit humanity in the long run anyway. I still think that's true, but let's assume I'm totally wrong on that point, and it and things like it will totally waste 0.0002% of the world's budgets, and accomplish nothing of significant interest to the bulk of humanity, ever. That makes it about like model trains. Who goes around bemoaning the vast, inhumane waste that is model train hobbydom?
Who is John Cabal?
Have you tried concrete?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQERRbU23bU
You'll think I'm kidding, but I'm not: chalk a thick blue line across your dooropening. Ants don't like blue, it's something with their sensory system, and they are very hesitant to cross a blue area.
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."