The Daily Ant
Myrmecology Dies in Darkness
Category: Art & Media
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Poet John Ashbery died late Sunday, at the age of 90. In honor of the polarizing poet, we present his 1979 poem, “Late Echo”: Alone with our madness and favorite flower We see that there really is nothing left to write about. Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things In…
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The Daily Ant is thrilled to report that the American Museum of Natural History is poised to truly live up to its name. Although announced on January 11, 2017, we were previously unaware of this historic development: AMNH will soon house an insectarium! Marvel at the gorgeous artistic rendering of the plans: The renovations are…
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Ant Colony Optimization is an excellent example of ant biology directly improving human affairs (in this case, planning delivery routes and other uses). Thus, we were excited to learn that University of Illinois at Chicago graduate student Anika Hazra created an interesting antfographic that introduces the Ant Colony Optimization algorithm and explains its utility! Hazra…
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Yesterday, in addition to breaking a news story about ants and the solar eclipse, The Daily Ant was also informed by Thinker Correspondant Jordan MacKenzie that the cartoon sitcom Rick and Morty recently featured a new character, Million Ants. He apparently developed a relationship with another character in the show, Supernova – as the fan…
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I’m on the road this week, so today’s Style Saturday will be brief but (formicid) fabulous! Here at The Daily Ant we received a request to look at more myrmecologically-themed menswear. The truth is, while ants may have relatively strict gender roles, creativity, rule-breaking, and self-expression are part and parcel of true human style. To…
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My antrepid readers will have noticed that Style Saturdays took a brief summer hiatus; I took a break for my brother’s wedding and some summer travel. In the meantime, I’ve heard from some formicid fashion fans that becoming a fashion-ant-sa is surprisingly expensive. Taking your lab look from drab to fab is probably always going…
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Yesterday we observed a less-than-honest photographer on display. Today, we were happy to learn about a nice, short profile of renowned (and honest) photographer of ants (and other small critters), Alex Wild. The article, appearing in Wired, is worth a read – check it out!
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Coding Correspondant Nathan Daly brought to our attention a remarkable photograph that went viral on Twitter last week. https://twitter.com/SimonNRicketts/status/887804157427675136
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The Daily Ant hosts an intermittent ant film series, Theatre Thursdays. This is the second installment, by our Film Correspondant Derek Langston. Enjoy! Six-legged Celluloid Presents… A review of Ants on a Plane: “I’m tired of these mother formic ants on this mother formic plane!” When I decided to watch and review this film, I chose the rental option…
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Avid readers will remember our article “Feeling Blue? So is This Ant“, in which we featured a beautiful blue ant. Today, we add another ant to our color wheel: This queen is not green with envy, but green with being Oecophylla smaragdina, a widespread species of weaver ant. Why is it green? Who knows!
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Sometimes, The New York Times is depressingly anti-ant. Other times, it produces excellent ant-friendly content such as this video recently sent to The Daily Ant by Comic Correspondant Matt Hernandez and Field Correspondant Ana Rita:
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Some time ago, Tube Correspondant Katerina Theodossiou let us know about a remarkable scene from Jane the Virgin, a show that Rotten Tomatoes justifiably rates as 100% fresh: The inclusion of ants in the third season (and this is not the only occurrence!) virtually guarantees that this season, like the first two, will receive perfect marks from…
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