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"Exploding" Termite Species Discovered
ananyo writes "A species of termite found in the rainforests of French Guiana takes altruism seriously: aged workers grow sacks of toxic blue liquid that they explode onto their enemies in an act of suicidal self-sacrifice to help their colonies. The 'explosive backpacks' of Neocapritermes taracua grow throughout the lifetimes of the worker termites, filling with blue crystals secreted by a pair of glands on the insects' abdomens. Older workers carry the largest and most toxic backpacks. Those individuals also, not coincidentally, are the least able to forage and tend for the colony: their mandibles become dull and worn as the termites age, because they cannot be sharpened by moulting (abstract)."
Banelings 1.0
Scientists have discovered small crystals embedded in the ants' palms that turn to a different color when the ant's maximum age has been reached. However, in one colony they observed two ants trying to escape this fate by running away from the colony and finding sanctuary. Other ants were tasks with hunting down the two runners and terminating them.
This feels like something Dr. Wondertainment would put in a nature documentary.
I was this close ( > ) to start mocking the submitter about misspelling Thermite. Luckily, for once I did read TFS.
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
They swell up, they dribble, explode? I never saw it in the example provided.
"We are the Judean People's Front crack suicide squad! "
Boom goes the termite.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Suicide bombers think they're being altruistic too.
Actually, it's the fucking fascist conservatives trying to eliminate social security so you can die in the street like a dog that you should be worried about.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
"and get off my #@!& lawn!" KABOOOM!
Table-ized A.I.
"Evolutionists" are considered dumb by people who have their heads buried so far up their ass that they don't even begin to have a clue what reality is. My suggestion is try using that brain you think God gave you for once in your life, and actually learn something other that what your preacher tells you while you're n your knees in front of him.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
This kind of suicidal defence using bodily fluids is not unheard of among certain termite species.
Indeed, not a new discovery. Exploding thermite has been well documented in the past.
No, they were made by an exploding god. Better not miss communion there. The last dude who did triggered the Big Bang.
You've been warned: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030630.html
Table-ized A.I.
ANOTHER HINT: Some of the greatest economic growth in this countries history (The USA) occurred when the top marginal tax rate was over 70%. Rich people accumulating money doesn't drive the economy to any great extent. Regular people with money to spend drives the US's economy which is 70% consumer spending.
Splice this into humans and it'll solve the social security's financial problems AND the war on terror! Bonus: the line at the post office will move faster.
Sounds like these little guys have been watching too much Breaking Bad....
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HINT: If we start confiscating wealth, then nobody will bother accumulating it in the first place. Your plan will work great for all of 6 months and then the entire world will be in the shitter rather than just large parts of it.
Purely as a matter of empirical psychology(I really cannot stomach another tedious " 'communists' vs. 'free marketeers' " flamefest), I have to wonder if that is true...
As you accumulate more of it, the marginal utility of money plummets. There are only so many luxuries one can actually find oneself capable of enjoying. For that reason, I have to speculate that people who end up accumulating enormous amounts of money(especially if they do so over a number of years, rather than becoming wealthy all at once and then quitting) must have a rather weird relationship with wealth. Unless your job is also the hobby you like most in the world(or unless wealth accumulation is essentially a game that you approach with the zeal of a Korean stereotype), what kind of nutjob are you to still be busting ass at work if you've already made a big pile of money?
Given the dubious rationality of accumulating significant wealth for its own sake, it just isn't obvious that a higher effective tax rate would necessarily change much(though, given the dubious rationality, it could also turn out that spite magnifies the effect compared to the hypothetical 'rational man' scenario).
we should expect that level of Altrusim from political leaders of all parties - ship em to Afghanistan
You don't want to go there. Among termites, the leader lies immobile, too bloated with the next generation of sterile workers to move, constantly licked and tended by fanatical servitors controlled by chemical signals.
Are there really any world leaders that you would want to imagine holed up in the basement of their respective governance structures, their bloated, naked, abdomen stuffed with fetuses to the size of a 747 fuselage, being fanatically tongue-bathed by their aides as they pour forth the next generation of citizens to serve the nation?
How could something like this come out of nothing? And people wonder why evolutionists are considered dumb.
The problem for 'natural theologians'(aside from, y'know, this crazy 'science' stuff that the kids are doing these days...) is that a look a nature suggests that its creator is kind of an awful person, if atypically clever by the standards of sociopathic sadists.
Regardless of whether you believe in one or not, you'll bloody well be hoping that the chap responsible for this world doesn't have control over your eternal afterlife after just a semester or so of a decent parasitiology class...
You are right. I don't want to imagine that.
However...
I can believe that some of them would find it appealing.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
In addition to the other replies, I found myself wondering who would stop accumulating wealth. I would go to the same job every day, so that wouldn't change. Most everyone I work with probably would, too. The janitors wouldn't quit.
The sociopaths who, despite the decreasing marginal utility of extra money, nevertheless find new ways to extract money, such as complex derivative trading, might find their efforts pointless. They may go into some more productive line of work. After all, some of the most brilliant programming minds are being lured into the high payday world of finance.
People might go back to creating something of value, instead of chasing the big payday. Kinda like when the top tax rate was a lot higher.
Bill Gates was not looking for the big payday, he was selling a product that he created. The business grew beyond a BASIC interpreter, and his fortune came as a result of owning stock in his company. As long term capital gains, that is only 15% tax rate, and the top tier wouldn't kick in. He would have no disincentive for doing exactly what he did The only way to "confiscate" rich peoples' money is to raise the capital gains rate. And then the average investor has no reason to get into the market, with a typical return being 4-6%, and taxes already eat almost 1 of those points. So then you fight over things like alternative minimum, and someone has to define what "rich" means, which differs wildly by locale.
I think the higher tax brackets can be raised without anyone bailing out due to the taxes. I also think there is a way to encourage altruism, we just haven't found the right way. As much money as he has given away, it seems to be a selected bunch of private industry who benefits, and some humanitarian work accidentally gets done along the way. In other words, it looks more like a tax dodge than altruism. As a people, we can do better.
The irony here is that it's the lowly workers sacrificing themselves. And the elderly at that. I notice that the termite queen isn't blowing herself up for anyone and, in fact, is hidden safely away in the colony while others do the hard work. So much for your arguments about the common good.
The problem I've found with those I've encountered who push communistic ideals, both personally and online, is that they tend to look down on the majority of the population as stupid. The masses are too dumb to appreciate the wonders communism will bestow on us all. They seem to maintain this attitude that they're one of the enlightened, one of the elites who will sit above the rest by virtue of pushing communism so fervently.
The sad fact is that the same scumbags screwing us right now would continue to be the ones screwing us if we switched to communism. Nothing changes except that you've institutionalized misery for the masses.
Why on Earth is this tagged "idle"? And why are most of the comments jokes? Well, most likely there's lots of jokes because it's "idle". Are there any actual nerds still here?
You're confusing tax rates with tax receipts. People didn't actually pay those higher rates. The high marginal rate was really nothing more than a subsidy for cities and counties. If you had money to invest you put it in double-tax-free muni bonds so you didn't have to pay any taxes on it. That was the real reason tax receipts went up when the tax rates were lowered - people moved their money out of munis because you could make more money even after taxes.
Not only that, but there were all sorts of ways to shelter your money from taxes that have since been eliminated. Everybody who made any kind of money had controlling interest in an money losing oil well or chinchilla farm or some other BS business. They wrote off the family car and half the house. Also, it was a hell of a lot easier to do cash business. Currency reporting requirements didn't happen until 1985, so a lot of people were completely off the IRS's radar.
In short, those high tax rates didn't hurt the economy because nobody paid them. The Economist had an article about this a few years back (behind a pay wall, unfortunately). It turns out wealthy people all over the world pay at most about 25% tax on their income, even in places with very high marginal rates like Japan and Sweden. As tax rates go higher they change their behavior. They take fewer risks and spend more time dealing with taxes and less time trying to make money. Worst case they move their money out of the country and invest it where tax rates are lower.
Look at corporate taxes. The US now has the highest corporate tax rates in the world. And yet, corporations pay almost nothing in taxes, because they've adjusted their operations to account for the tax code.
The original AC wasn't talking about taxes, he was talking about straight-up taking all of Bill Gates wealth. The two things are quite different.
And of course people accumulating money does drive capitalism (it is very difficult to have capitalism without capitalists). Many of those goods regular people buy wouldn't exist had it not been for the millions or billions of dollars corporations sank into research and development, courtesy of capitalism. Granted, people don't need to be multi-billionaires to do that, but they do need to have enough money that they can afford to sink a significant amount of it into business capital and not every-day needs.
I'm not arguing against high tax rates for the rich, just saying the OP is a bit of an idiot.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
I can tell by observing you and me of course, that we're not rich. All my rich friends doesn't concern themselves with luxuries because as you said, there's only so much you can snort. The short-term reasons as you listed out are also valid. Namely doing what you love and money just comes in by accident, and earning it as a number game because all their friends have the Mercedes and the only way to "win" is to have bigger numbers.
Most what I've seen though, is the idea of a rich lineage. This is for both the second gen (born rich) and first gen (made rich) dudes I know. They aren't just concerned with themselves, but with godlike generations after them. It doesn't mean they'll spoil their kids with crazy luxuries. It means that their kids will have a wider range of choices in what to do with their life versus us. And their grand-kids and so on. When your objective is that, you wouldn't mind "more" money really.
"disincentives to join the taxpaying economy." - yes but only when you are being offered starvation wages anything better is better than welfare.
Welfare has more than one purpose you know?
1. preventing starvation of useful people during depressions
2. suppressing starvation wages as standard
3. suppressing other(physically or sexually) abusive work practices,
4. preventing the formation of a slavery equivalent "indentured worker" class who have signed away their rights because it is (marginally) better than starvation.
5. reducing theft and violent crime, no steal or die situations, and allowing for stricter more punitive punishment as you can always say" you could have taken benefits instead to survive instead of crime"
5. allowing skilled workers to try for suitable jobs with reduced penalty to increase economic efficiency
6. catching people who should have other support but have been lost by the systems meant to protect them
To name just the ones I can think of right now, the indirect benefits are large so think about the knock-on affects before dismissing it
What was new about this discovery is that the termites stockpile crystals in their little backpacks that intensify the toxicity of the toxins they excrete from their glands when they detonate. In another article I read, it acknowledged that suicide bomber termites are old news. Using a crystal backpack to intensify the attack is what makes this significant.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Tax receipts (almost) always go up regardless of how you change tax rates because of growth in the economy and inflation. The exception being major recessions like 2008/2009.
One other thing business owners did was to leave the money in the business by investment and raises for workers. Wages and salary for workers tracked productivity very well from WW II up until the 1980s when Reagan dropped the top marginal tax rate from about 74% to under 40%. After that people started living on credit which got easier because all of those suddenly wealthier individuals had gobs of money to invest. That doesn't help the middle class much.
Exploding termites have been known about for quite a while. Check out wikipedia's page on the subject: the oldest reference cited is from 1974.
what hasnt been seen until now is that these termites are using a toxic bomb that mixes two seperate ingredients.
while the wiki link you provided does cite older references, they are only for the single ingredient toxic bombs.
the most recent references it contains are dated today, and show the dual ingredient bomb carrying termites.
the other interesting thing about these termites is that the secondary ingredient is a crystiline copper chemical that is accumulated over the workers life, resulting in older workers becoming the more deadly defenders
You shall know him by his Sig
Ah, be careful. There's a difference between a capitalist who takes their money and spends it on more expansion, workers and research to make more money, and one who guts companies for money to spend at the casino we call "high finance." One of these, idealized as the fabled "Captain of Industry," is an essential component in the success of a nation, the other is a parasite that brings about the destruction of nations.
The original Communists did a good job diagnosing the problems with Capitalism... too bad their cure is worse than the disease.
And a slight nitpick, it wouldn't be the same scumbags screwing us, those would be hanging from the gallows. New sociopathic scumbags-in-waiting from the proletariat fighting to take their place (Stalin vs Trotsky, anyone?) would be the ones screwing us.
>How has India managed to survive without Security Insecurity for the ~4,000 years prior to 1952?
By not caring if most of the people starve in the streets and being a 3rd world hell hole?
Seriously, if your go-to comparision is fucking India, maybe you ought to rethink your comparisions? Or your attitude.
I notice that the termite queen isn't blowing herself up for anyone and, in fact, is hidden safely away in the colony while others do the hard work. So much for your arguments about the common good.
The queen is queen in name only. She works all day laying eggs, and gives orders to nobody. "Sacrificing" the queen wouldn't help the "common good" of the colony because that'd kill the colony - she's the only one who can lay eggs, after all. 'sides, she's just too damn fat to be of any use for anything else.
The sad fact is that the same scumbags screwing us right now would continue to be the ones screwing us if we switched to communism.
Communism has no one ruling anyone...
GP, on the other hand, is quite funny. I like him:
the poor with curvilinear CRTs
Oh, the horror! Please tell me they at least have the latest iPhone!
THAT is how it should work
No, we should not have to rely on the whims of a mega-rich individual to do something about malaria. I'm not saying people shouldn't be allowed to become rich but there is a major difference in scale between a rich man and a billionaire. I don't think it's wise for society to collectively invest billions in a handfull of random individuals and then just hope they do the right thing with it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So basically what you're saying is, in order to create banelings, they ... require more minerals?
What the fuck does this have to do with exploding termites?
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Could you please explain in more detail what you're referring to? I don't fully understand - if a company could be "gutted" and its assets sold for MORE than the company's purchase price, then surely its previous owners wouldn't sell it at that price in the first place? Wouldn't that mean they were selling it as much less than its market value? And if they were, how would that be the fault of the purchaser?
I mean, say I own a company with $1 million in assets, and want to sell it. You seem to be claiming that a fabled Captain of Industry could buy my company for $ million and then "gut" it for, say, $1.2 million. But if said Captain could do that, surely I would sell it for $1.2 million in the first place, or else I would "gut" it myself, because surely I could stand to make far more that way?