Undead Zombie Ants

[CptStern]

Finally, after much sifting and mixing, Ed discovered that oleic acid ? just a teeny drop of it ? was all the ants had to sniff to think "DEAD!" And, because he could ? Ed had a colony parked in his Harvard lab so he could watch them endlessly ? one day he took a drop of the chemical and gently deposited it on an ant that had the misfortune of walking by.

That poor ant is the main subject of our radio story. Ed describes how as soon as he dabbed the ant, the next ant that came near grabbed his ant, slung it on its back, hiked over to the graveyard and though the ant was very much alive ? "kicking, you know," says Ed ? flung it onto the refuse pile.

Dead is what you smell ? not what you see ? if you are an ant. So, though it tried to clean itself over and over, the minute it returned to the colony, it was grabbed, carried and slung back on the pile.

"Didn't you take pity?" I asked Ed. "You started it! Didn't you give it a shower or something?"

"No, I was trying to see if I could create the 'Living Dead,'" he says, while making zombie motions with his head and hands.

this guy is awesome. fascinating read

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102601823

 

[SimpleAssassin]

i'll admit im dissapointed but still quite interesting

 

[Raziaar]

Yeah, pretty disappointing. But still relatively interesting that ants are going by their instincts to deposit their dead based on certain chemical elements rather than mere lack of motion and life.

I wonder what would happen if you covered an entire colony in the stuff. Would they all try to take each other to the graveyard, and end up all being in the graveyard as a result, constantly putting each other on the pile?

 

[MJ12]

Hmm, that is pretty neat, but that would be terrible if the chemical ended up affecting an entire colony.

 

[Omnomnick]

This thread is a big let down

Damn you once again, Stern!!

 

[SimpleAssassin]

to be honest i don't think anything would have lived up to the first thing that came into my mind when i read the thread title

 

[Tyguy]

how is this a let down? that, in my opinion, is extremely cool. So they lack the ability to understand their surroundings, so what?

 

[CptStern]

the letdown is in the fact that this is real ..it's as close to the living dead as anyone would care to attempt

plus this made me howl:

""No, I was trying to see if I could create the 'Living Dead,'" he says, while making zombie motions with his head and hands."

 

[Raziaar]

I demand that he douse the entire colony with the stuff and research what they do. I want to see video of live ants carrying live ants, which in turn are carrying live ants, so forth and so on into the graveyard.

 

[Jintor]

It's like some sort of horrific programming error.

Actually it sounds kind of like something you could maybe mod into Dwarf Fortress...