Avi Loeb, former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University and who chairs the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies, writing at Scientific American: It is presumptuous to assume that we are worthy of special attention from advanced species in the Milky Way. We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us;…
Tag: ants
Leaf-Cutter Ants Have Rocky Crystal Armor, Never Before Seen in Insects
Leaf-cutter ants are named for their Herculean feats: they chomp foliage and carry unwieldy pieces, like green flags many times their size, long distances to their colonies. There they chew up the leaves to feed underground fungus farms. Along the way, the insects brave all manner of predators — and regularly engage in wars with other ants. But these insects are…
The dazzling winners of the British Ecological Society’s photo awards
Images of the extraordinary, but endangered, Dalmatian pelican and weaver ants caring for their young are among those awarded in this year’s British Ecological Society’s “Capturing Ecology” photography competition Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261015-the-dazzling-winners-of-the-british-ecological-societys-photo-awards/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Leafcutter ants choose architecturally sound building materials
South American leafcutter ants (Acromyrmex fracticornis) construct turrets for their nests by carefully selecting materials that are suitable for the job Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2256983-leafcutter-ants-choose-architecturally-sound-building-materials/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Cockroach species found to live like ants with workers and a queen
Cockroaches were thought to be solitary insects, but a South American species bucks the trend – it lives in large groups and seems to have sterile workers led by a queen Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2256067-cockroach-species-found-to-live-like-ants-with-workers-and-a-queen/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Which insects have the worst stings?
Some of the most painful stings come from tarantula hawk wasps, warrior wasps, and bullet ants. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/which-insects-have-worst-painful-stings…
Scythelike jaws of Cretaceous ‘hell ant’ clutch a baby cockroach in an amber tomb
The death strike of a Cretaceous “hell ant” from 99 million years ago is preserved in amber, revealing how these demonic-looking ants hunted. Source: https://www.livescience.com/hell-ant-in-amber.html
Pliers smaller than an ant’s jaws are controlled by optical fibres
Microscopic filaments added to the end of optical fibres act as tiny pliers that can pick up objects just tens of microns in size Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2248589-pliers-smaller-than-an-ants-jaws-are-controlled-by-optical-fibres/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
People Try To Do Right By Each Other, No Matter the Motivation, Study Finds
People want to help each other, even when it costs them something, and even when the motivations to help don’t always align, a new study suggests. Phys.Org reports: In research published today in the journal Science Advances, sociologists found that people overwhelmingly chose to be generous to others — even to strangers, and even when it seems one motivation to help…
This desert ant can run at the equivalent of 600 kilometres per hour
Desert ants zigzag around the searing sand at high speed but they always manage to find their way home. A new book explains their amazing abilities Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532720-300-this-desert-ant-can-run-at-the-equivalent-of-600-kilometres-per-hour/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…