Myrmecology Dies in Darkness
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!
We all know how ants forage for food. A bunch of workers are sent out randomly, then, upon finding some delicious munchie, each worker lays a chemical trail back to her nest in the hopes that other workers will follow suit. Whether or not nest mates do in fact reinforce a given trail is dictated largely by an emergent, semi-random selection process involving factors like the evaporation rate of trail pheromones, distance of a food source from the nest, and the size of the food source. So, that’s how all ants forage for food. Except it’s NOT!
The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the twenty-first contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Lauren Ashwell.
Dispositions and Ant-idotes
Dispositions have seemed to some philosophers to be too spooky and other-worldly to be properties in their own right. Instead, these philosophers have tried to analyze dispositions away in terms they found more ontologically palatable. Dispositional ascriptions, it was once thought, are really just assertions of counterfactuals connecting stimulus conditions to manifestation conditions: to say that something is soluble in water is just to say that it would dissolve if it were placed in water, to say that something is flammable is just to say that it would burn if an ignition source were applied, and to say that something is poisonous is just to say that it would harm you if you were exposed to it [i].
Liu Xiaobo once wrote that “life is priceless, even to an ant.” We are thus very sad to learn that the life of Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who was imprisoned in China up until his medical release a few weeks ago, came to an end on Thursday, July 13th, at the age of 61. For a spirited obituary by The New York Times editorial board, see here.
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:
Ants are all kinds of smelly, and a recent study in PNAS advances our understanding of the molecular and genetic bases of these smells. See here for Vanderbilt University’s coverage of the study, and enjoy the below video produced in concert with the study’s publication. Thanks to Coffee Correspondant Ciara Reyes for bringing our attention to this study!
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 any rating site worth its salt.
Remember, dear readers, to stay vigilant against mainstream vertebrate bias, which takes many forms (really!). Pedagogical Correspondant Anna Cox shared with us yet another example of sneaky anti-ant writing featured in a practice test, in the form of the New York Times highlighting an invasive ant species in 2013. Invasive ants give the rest of the 10,000’s of species of ants a bad name – never judge the many based on the few!
Comic Correspondant Matt Hernandez recently brought to our attention an interesting investigation of ant strength by Poorly Drawn Lines. Take a look:
This is not the first time that Poorly Drawn Lines has incorporated ants into their excellent work, and in fact they have a couple other pieces using ants that we have yet to feature here. Correspondant Hernandez reached out to PDL to request the incorporation of The Daily Ant into a new comic, but we have not yet heard back. Stay tuned!
In case you’ve been living in an abandoned ant colony and missed it — floral patterned fabrics are on trend for 2017. Everyone, from Dries Van Noten to the ants in your garden, has their own take on the look. Unsurprisingly, here at The Daily Ant, our take puts a formicid-friendly spin on the trend, for ultra-cool, funky, feminine style. Florals and ants? That’s a match so perfect, it might as well have been made in a lab.
A floral print tank functions as the base of this look — the blues and purples coordinate with turquoise sandals and a peony (and ant!) print phone case. Note: coordinating is not the same as matching, and that’s okay. You want the different elements of your look to blend, but they don’t need to come together like a bunch of drones to work. Myrmecologically-themed jewelry lets you wear something that sparkles without feeling like a pupa. Without that balance, jewelry on top of florals can be overwhelming. Formicid fashion is in bloom!
The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the twentieth contribution in the series and the first coauthored piece, jointly submitted by Eddy Chen (陈科名) and Isaac Wilhelm. Edited on Sunday, July 9, 2017.
From Ants to Quantum Non-Locality
Though much has been said about the amazing insects known as ants, their capacity to illustrate the novel and mysterious phenomenon of quantum non-locality is under-discussed. We hope to fill in the gap on this Philosophy Phriday.
Thanks to a heads up from an avid reader who recently contacted us with the news, The Daily Ant has learned that this year’s Wimbledon tournament just received a great blessing. What blessing? Why, ants, of course!
On Wednesday local time, millions of winged ants emerged to participate in a special nuptial flight the Brits call Flying Ant Day. While this should have been a cause for international celebration at this international Grand Slam tournament, the mainstream vertebrate media predictably responded with shock and horror. “Annoying” writes The New York Times. “Plague” and “menace” cries Deadspin. “Distraction” blathers The Guardian. “Anguish” and “irritation” whines The Telegraph. “Disruption” grumbles ESPN. “Bugs”, “pests”, and “irritants” vomits Reuters.
Yet the ants have emerged victorious, flying (and mating) above the slanderous fray. We here at The Daily Ant are not ashamed to voice our full-throated endorsement of these wondrous reproductives. As the world’s first publication dedicated to producing premier ant content, we also call on our vertebrate peers to retire their hateful anti-ant rhetoric. The formicid future is upon us!
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