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Electronics-Loving 'Crazy Ants' Invading Southern US
From an article at the Houston Chronicle (not The Onion) comes a report of concern to anyone in a warm climate with, well, electronics. From the article:
"According to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, invasive 'crazy ants' are slowly displacing fire ants in the southeastern United States. These 'Tawny Crazy Ants' have a peculiar predilection toward electronics as well.
'They nest in electronics and create short circuits, as they create a contact bridge between two points when they get electrocuted they release an alarm pheromone,' says UT research assistant Edward LeBrun.
'The other ants are attracted to the chemicals that other ants give off,' he adds. At this point, more ants arrive and create a larger nest."
The L.A. Times also has a report, which says "Thus far, the crazy ants are not falling for the traditional poisons used to eliminate fire ant mounds. And when local mounds are destroyed manually, they are quickly regenerated.
'They don't sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests,' LeBrun said. 'There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It's very expensive.'"
Try putting a router in your house. It might keep ants away too.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The problem really relies on the chemical trail ants leave to alert others where to go. If you have an ant problem you need to not only kill the ones present but you need to eliminate the trails they leave. Indoors bleaching the hell out of the surfaces they walk across regularly helps a lot. Out doors you really are screwed unless you want to start digging stuff up.
That is my first concern. If they eat wood, its bad news... really bad news. If they eat other bugs, I am gonna leave them alone.
If they like termites, where can I get some?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I've long noticed that ants seem to have a predilection for electricity. They crawl all over electrical conduits, enter homes at electrical outlets, etc.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Wasn't this already a Rudy Rucker novel?
Dale's dead bug will get rid of them
Even the ants want to travel the electronic highway.. :)
Use those old Cisco routers from 10 yrs ago... as ant baits! :)
I know a couple people in Austin who've paid for air-conditioning techs to "fix" their AC. It turns out that a relays in the compressor boxes outside their homes are caked with dead ant bodies, creating an insulating layer. Kinda pisses people off that nothing is actually broken but the service bill is tendered, just the same. ...and, of course, it's 100-degrees outside so it does need to be dealt with promptly.
Seems like having a predilection for something that kills you is not an instinct that should be selected for. If they are electrocuted by the electronics shouldn't this problem take care of itself sooner or later?
Does no one remember that game?
Terribly difficult.
http://www.emuparadise.me/GameBase%20Amiga/Screenshots/I/It_Came_from_the_Desert_2.png
Aha. Maybe you should start to design your electronics differently, so ants can either not get close to the higher voltage circuits or use better insulation.
BTW: When there would be a biblical apocalypse, it would affect the whole planet. Or. If it is only in the US. Well, I will watch it on TV.
And another thing: Those ants already existed prior to those incidents (which might be triggered by globalized transportation and or the climate change). They lived in other countries for millions of years (or at least the last 6000 years in your time frame),
Yeah, half the time the Bible is talking about Man (as in mankind, sorry ladies). Some people want to make the earth gentler for humans, some people miss the trees that used to be a part of their neighborhoods growing up. There's also a set of (seemingly) contradictory 'orders': subdue nature (terraform the earth) and at the same time, do not destroy the earth. I imagine that makes four groups: some people leaning towards the former, some leaning towards the latter, some preferring a course of moderation, and people who do not ascribe to the Bible.
But in this case, I highly doubt these ants pose a challenge. Remember, the human race, when ant-agonized (lol) enough to see something as a problem, tends to go nuclear on it...which means either bringing back DDT if the ants suddenly start eating people, or having scientists formulate something in labs that will probably make DDT look like a fire-cracker in comparison (and result in substantial loss of wildlife...). Thankfully, we aren't anywhere near that point. Removal methods are purely mechanical, and someone will probably start spraying the normal ant-removal chemicals with, I don't know, sugar, which will have them start working again.
Still, humanity....curious what happened here to breed such psychopaths. You'd think that the Earth had gone to great lengths to make the angriest, most genocidal species it could breed...
I am John Hurt.
Just put suitable simulated circuits near the ants.
When a short circuit appears, over voltage the hell out of the bus bar (20KV should do) and vaporize the short.
Now that the circuit is restored, resume waiting for another.
You could even be cute and have a delay before applying the over voltage so that the pheromones released have time to sucker a lot more in.
Hey - this counts as patent prior art - this ones mine.
We just sold a home in Remlap, Alabama. The entire mountain that the house was on was owned by fire ants -- they built underground interconnected cities, so there was no point in spraying a mound. They were aggressive and bit you without provocation. When I got bit, my blood pressure dropped and I felt very ill for a few hours. The fire ants interbreed with local species, so they came in a large variety of appearances. The ones we had were very small and dark crimson, almost black. Their bite was all out of proportion to their size, though. We think they may have interbred with crazy ants because they liked to walk crazy zigzag paths.
Amazing that the ants are given a funeral service by those techs.
Fat chance, these ants seem pretty harmless. More like annoy all over the earth.
"...as they create a contact bridge between two points when they get electrocuted they release an alarm pheromone," says UT research assistant Edward LeBrun. "The other ants are attracted to the chemicals that other ants give off," he adds.
What kind of survival mechanism is that? "Oh! There's danger over there. Let's all go check it out..."
Sevin dust kills bees. You shouldn't use it, especially on anything a bee might try to pollinate.
It sounds like all one needs is a large electric bug zapper since they are already attracted to it.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
So the good news is Fire Ants won't sting you to death because Crazy Ants are replacing them. The bad news is that Crazy Ants sting your gizmos to death.
What about putting some mild chemical in electronic coatings that ants don't like? They would then be less likely to hang out on gizmos.
Unlike pesticides on fruits, there is no "incentive" to become immune to such chemicals because there is no benefit to hanging out on electronics to begin with.
Table-ized A.I.
Oh those H1B ants!
Table-ized A.I.
You got to eat it with gloves or your hands will turn green.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
My router is a CISCO, should i worry too? any advice from you the computers people?
I know most of /. will scoff at this assertion, but we may be witnessing a Biblical prophecy come true: "And there shall be destruction and darkness come upon creation, and the beasts shall reign over the earth."
By mass, beasts have always reigned over the earth... A mixture of applied landscaping, chemical warfare, and rifles have allowed humans to carve out an enclave free of large mammals we don't approve of, and some of the nastier bugs and microbes(wealthy areas of the Northern Hemisphere, at least. Your mileage may vary. Offer void where restricted by law or subverted by rapid evolution of antibiotic resistant microbes. Terms and conditions may apply); but we've never been close to having the upper hand against things too small to shoot and too resilient to just habitat-destroy into submission.
You had me at "They don't sting like fire ants do...".
The more I hear about things like this and other interesting "wildlife" problems in the warmer parts of the country, the more I'm glad I live where it snows.
We used to sprinkle instant grits around red and and fire and nests. They'd eat the grits, their stomachs would rupture, and they would die.
Does anyone know whether this might also work on killing nests of crazy ants?
Finding God in a Dog
Reminds me of the Grid Bugs of NetHack!
So you're worried about bees pollinating water pump pressure switches now?
Or was that just a word allergy?
I'd expect wallstreet, a typical googleplex or amazon data center to be prime crazy ant targets. How are they dealing with this stuff?
Try psychotherapy... or Thorazine.
As long as the fucking soldier ants stay outside i'm fine.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
if only there were some organism in nature that was a natural foe of invading ant armies.
They'll short the instruments!
...ever invade other parts of the world and cause problems? I seems that this must happen, but I never read about it.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Diatomaceous earth
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
It's obvious - Our friends the ants are trying to save mankind from the machines !!!
Sounds like something that's been imported. If I had to guess, I'd say India. Firstly because of the amount of times I've had to throw electronics away (hard-drives are especially painful) due to ants and secondly because places like Houston have large populations of Indian immigrants, many of whom probably shuffle back and forth once a year to visit family, so it's entirely possible there might be an ant or two in a suitcase.
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_IV
[This sig space for sale. Cheap]
I lived in the South for nearly four years, and returning to the North was like entering paradise. Sure, it's cold during the winter, but spring through fall is fantastic and we have a nearly non-existent bug problem.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.