io9 
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San Francisco, 10:45 AM
Sun Dec 6
13 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/13/09
08/12/09
Sorry. Last time. Maybe.
...er... I mean, the fungus made me do it.
08/12/09
As for real-world ones – there's a worm that infests a certain type of snail, making it crawl on the top of the leaves instead of the bottom, so it's more likely to be eaten by birds, thus providing an essential part of the worm's lifecycle (a trip through the avian digestive tract)
Saw something similiar on the Science Channel. A parasite spore that, when ingested by an ant, becomes a larva that travels to the brain. There it controls the ant and forces it to climb to the end of a stalk of grass and hang there.
The ant is eaten by a passing rabbit where it travels to the liver (I think), matures and begins releasing spores that are "passed" by the rabbit.
These spores are then breathed in by snails. The lungs of the snail coat the spore with mucus until it is of a size that it is eventually coughed up and out.
This "snail snot" seems to be a favorite food of ants who eat it, releasing the spore to start the whole process again.
Speaks more of "Rube Goldburg" then "Intelligent Design".
08/12/09
08/12/09
"Oh my god...What else don't I know about planet Earth?" >_>
08/12/09
08/12/09
08/12/09
Romero-cillium?
08/12/09
. . . I wish I know how to italicise things.
08/12/09
08/13/09
08/13/09
08/12/09
08/12/09
07/03/09
07/03/09
Saul Bass's Phase IV as has been noted by earlier commenters is way cool too. But for pure formic fun you can't beat THEM:
07/02/09
They don't attack each other and essentially work together; given that I live in the *eastern* United States, I think our best bet is to capture/train/breed our own, rival strains to fight the other ones.
Lets face it: Europe, Japan, and the west coast of the United States are basically a write-off at this point.
We have to focus on the regions that CAN be saved: the eastern United States, Britain, Australia, China, South America, etc.
07/02/09
And any ant that would be able to overthrow them would be even more powerful. Snakes, gorillas, etc.
They also haven't studied everywhere. It's probably many other places already.
07/02/09
07/02/09
07/02/09
To hell with ecology, they all need to die. It's not like we'd be losing much diversity since they're all basically the same ant.
07/02/09
07/03/09
But now the mofos are attracting black widows, and I'm not gonna stand for that in my house, especially when one of my cats loves to eat spiders.
07/02/09
Maybe it's a good plan, ya know. Maybe they want to be our friends.
07/02/09