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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 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.
There's one that always works for me:
boiling water, a whole pot, straight down the hole
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
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.
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 ?
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 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!!
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'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!
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 ----
I believe you'll find they are bugs, not buggers.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
City
On Amazon
Audio Book
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
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)
Sufficient pressure and flow rate. I would suggest using some termites to construct a small riser above your ant hole, so you get some pressure build up. Don't forget to heat your aluminum to it pouring temperature (~1380 F) rather than it's melting temperature. The decreased viscosity increases flow rate (compare pouring molasses and water down funnels) and well as allowing the aluminum to travel further before solidifying.
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.
Have you tried concrete?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQERRbU23bU
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.
We had a problem with earth wasps, which were settled below some bush.
I finally cut a 10cm hole in a piece of wood, put thin wires in two (perpendicular) layers over it, and then with two elkos and two diodes got about 600V with 1Ws on them ...
The first few wasps got lighted in the middle, and when the others tried to help they got roasted, too.
After a few minutes I turned the power off, shook the board over a bucket until it's clean again, and put it back.
Two hours later the wasps used another hole to take their eggs somewhere else.
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)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
I know you're joking but, being an ex-patternmaker and working for a foundry, I can tell you this:
You need to add runners and risers to the nest before pouring. The runners will feed the metal into the correct holes and the risers will store heat allowing the metal to flow without freezing too quickly. You also have to remember that the metal will freeze quicker on the outside of the tubes, leaving the middle potions free to flow. High yields aren't an option with too many runners though - it's a Fettler's nightmare too.
Yay! 4 years training, and 4 years practicing, just to explain this on Slashdot!
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
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.
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.