"Exploding" Termite Species Discovered 158
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)."
I propose we name them... (Score:5, Funny)
Banelings 1.0
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How about blast-ended scroots?
Irfuckingstan Termites? (Score:1)
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Re:Exploding ants (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Exploding ants (Score:5, Funny)
So basically what you're saying is, in order to create banelings, they ... require more minerals?
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Yep, minerals that come from blue crystals.
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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.
It acknowledges it in the linked story here too:
" Defensive suicidal rupturing — termed autothysis — has evolved independently in a number of termite species, suggesting that the behaviour is highly adaptive."
Then the story goes on to say:
'N. taracua has added a yet another step, by using a reaction to make its defensive chemical even more toxic. The pouches holding the copper-containing blue crystals are located near to the salivary glands. When the termites are attacked, their enemies bites ca
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Aha! Now he can write in the shade!
maximum age crystals (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:maximum age crystals (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no sanctuary
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There is no sanctuary
But there is a wonderful older ant with a snow white beard who loves kisses and tickling and little girl ants that look like cats and....
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Re:maximum age crystals (Score:4, Funny)
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.
I heard they termitted them, eventually.
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Heh (Score:3)
This close... (Score:2, Funny)
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If you where a chemist [wikipedia.org] you would have to read.
They don't explode in the video (Score:4, Informative)
They swell up, they dribble, explode? I never saw it in the example provided.
Re:They don't explode in the video (Score:5, Funny)
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A) Does it cure cancer
B) Does it get me high
All other answers will bore me to tears.
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If B is true, then the value of A doesn't matter
I believe (Score:1)
we should expect that level of Altrusim from political leaders of all parties - ship em to Afghanistan
Re:I believe (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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However...
I can believe that some of them would find it appealing.
Obligatory: (Score:5, Funny)
"We are the Judean People's Front crack suicide squad! "
Annnnd... (Score:5, Funny)
Zerg Banelings FTW (Score:2)
That's pretty damn cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DyqPzmox4U [youtube.com]
The suicide bombers of the insect world. (Score:3)
Suicide bombers think they're being altruistic too.
Re:The suicide bombers of the insect world. (Score:5, Funny)
no, they just want the pleasures of 72 maggots.
Re:The suicide bombers of the insect world. (Score:5, Informative)
I laughed.
But my pedantic amateur entomologist self says that maggots are for flies. Termites have nymphs which sounds a whole lot more appealing anyway ;)
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A little cross-ethnic hanky panky is a dandy thing
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If they strapped the vest onto some 75 year old imam, then I'd say 'Yes'. But they find the younger and potentially more valuable members to society. Or the skilled (engineers, pilots, etc.) and sent them in.
Cowards.
Re:The suicide bombers of the insect world. (Score:5, Insightful)
Suicide bombers think they're being altruistic too.
Are they incorrect? Suicide bombing is rather... downmarket... in these days of advanced robotic munitions(and so tends to be done against, rather than for us in particular); but if accepting a mission with a near-100% fatality rate in order to advance your in-group's objectives doesn't qualify as 'altruism', it's hard to imagine what would... Nothing about the definition of 'altruism' requires that your in-group be especially large, or not a bunch of raging assholes.
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Certainly. The incompetent and/or unlucky get subdued and taken into custody before they can detonate from time to time, and suicide-vest munitions are no more immune to the occasional dud or unexpectedly low yield than are more conventional ordnance. It's reasonably rare; because executing a suicide bombing isn't exactly rocket surgery; but some quick googling will pull up a decent number of news items(substantially more if you wish to include the caught-in-the-planning-stages ones; but those are sort of i
You knew this was coming... (Score:2)
Not to be confused with (Score:2)
Agism in the Workplace? (Score:5, Funny)
"and get off my #@!& lawn!" KABOOOM!
And this news because? (Score:5, Informative)
This kind of suicidal defence using bodily fluids is not unheard of among certain termite species [wikipedia.org].
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For the termites, this energy expenditure explains
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heh you joke but if the gays always trot out the "but the animals do it!", now you have seen the justification for both suicide bombers and chemical warfare.
Funny world.
Great Idea! (Score:3)
Suicide bombing by the elderly? Blue crystals? (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like these little guys have been watching too much Breaking Bad....
Not news (Score:1)
Exploding termites have been known about for quite a while. Check out wikipedia [wikipedia.org]'s page on the subject: the oldest reference cited is from 1974.
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Exploding termites have been known about for quite a while. Check out wikipedia [wikipedia.org]'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 wo
ZERG RUSH!!! (Score:1)
Another reason /. now sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Obligoatory Monty Python Quote. (Score:2)
Suicide squad of the Neocapritermes taracua liberation army, ATTACK!
Behold (Score:1)
Wow (Score:2)
The most underwhelming use of the word explode ever.
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I know you're trolling, but some people who read your inane ranting might not know that Bill Gates has given away almost half his net work since 2007. In fact, the amount he's donated is more than the 8th richest man in the world (I think that's the number, Google it) is worth in total.
THAT is how it should work.
Re:We can learn from the termites how to fix Socie (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The money that (honest) rich people have isn't a "collective investment" "by society". Someone like, say, Stephen King is rich, but not because any of "invested" our money in him, but because people bought his books. When you "invest" the money is yours and you "own" the asset. When you buy Stephen King's books, you hand over your money and the money becomes his. Are you suggesting we own rich people? If so, wouldn't that be akin to slavery?
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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 apprecia
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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.
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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!
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Successful troll is successful.
I thought this was blatantly obvious, but others apparently did not... or maybe people really do just come to this site for political yelling matches these days.
I find it quite boring. Once you've read one of these threads, you've read them all.
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No, the majority of readers here... (Score:1)
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"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 s
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>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.
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And this right here is the problem. Your "Entitlement" attitude. Why should some be forced to pay for the stupidity of others? Yeah, let's rob from Paul to pay for Peter -- except that Paul eventually goes broke from supporting all the free-loader / leeches on society.
Only an idiot would ignore the elephant in the room: "Social Security is *broke*"
We must come up with a *better* system.
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Only on /. do you get down-voted for stating the obvious facts:
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
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In case you didn't notice, the GP isn't a communist, the GP is a troll.
Re:We can learn from the termites how to fix Socie (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:We can learn from the termites how to fix Socie (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:We can learn from the termites how to fix Socie (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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And yet from the late 1940's until Kennedy/Johnson changed it in the 1960's the top marginal tax rate was over 90% on income equivalent to several million dollars today. Then until Reagan changed it in the 1980's it was 74%. The economy managed to survive just fine.
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I'm not anti-tax, I live in the UK and pay plenty thanks and that's fine. I just want to make sure that discussions about tax pol
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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
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Yes, the OP was out there a bit.
What drives capitalism is demand. Sometimes you can use your capital to create a new product that people didn't have demand for before but that presumes the people you're going to sell it to have enough money to buy it. The health of an economy has more to do with the rate at which money is moving through it than it does with how much wealth any individual accumulates. Right now the vast "consumer" class is holding on to their money or paying down debt if the can or is jus
Errata (Score:2)
Argh...
s/if the can/if they can/
s\($30 billion/300,000\$30 billion/300 million people\
Re:We can learn from the termites how to fix Socie (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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 th
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I love how you can just say something really fuzzy like "some of the greatest economic growth" and pretend to conclude facts from it ... another actual fact is that some of the greatest economic growth in this country's history occurred before there was income tax AT ALL. Fact. And another fun fact: Some of the country's worst economic times, like the most recent recession, occurred when taxes were far, far higher than before there was any income tax at all. Your "theory" needs a little refining. You're not
Re:We can learn from the termites how to fix Socie (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Re:We can learn from the termites how to fix Socie (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:We can learn from the termites how to fix Socie (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not exactly "wealth for its own sake". For a lot of this people, it's what they do for sport. The money isn't about buying things, it's just how they keep score.
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Given the dubious rationality of accumulating significant wealth for its own sake
People accumulate vast wealth (and continue to work) as a measure of success.
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As you accumulate more of it, the marginal utility of money plummets.
That may just mean you end up working harder. The more cocaine you do, the less effectual a given dose becomes. That doesn't mean you give it up. You do more.
Furthermore, you need to account for the fact that as you accumulate more wealth, while each additional dollar gives less of a kick, it also becomes easier to earn. Finally, because wealth distribution is a bell curve, as wealth increases, so does the distance between you and the next guys up on the totem pole. The richer you are, the poorer you are re
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It doesn't matter how much the tax changes for the psychologically 'strange' people who accumulate money, it matters what it change for all others.
And there are relatively few people who just accumulate money without altering lifestyle. All others when they get money, switch from a circle to another circle who spends more. Money is never enough, the circles of the very powerful can take today's megalottery winner and return it a beggar in 5 years.
Having said that, in my personal model of reality, money is m
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Abitions continually expand. Just because you and I can't fathom having hundreds of millions sitting around doesn't mean that someone used to spending wads of money doesn't have plans for it. Some stockpile for their family heritage and want to create a perpetual income for their safety net. Others plan to satisfy past ambitions long given up on, which can be seen in examples like SpaceX and other ambitious frontier companies. Others burn it on major construction projects as their childhood dream of des
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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 br
bull (Score:2)
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Using whose definition of "excess?"
Bad rhetorical question.
Whose definition of "murder" do we use in murder trials? Does this mean that we should legalize murder?
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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 [nasa.gov]
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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...
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I think this speaks volumes about the amazing power of evolutionary processes, especially on a big planet over millions of years.
If you're impressed, I'd say credit God with setting up such an amazing system.