Mixed Thoughts
I saw this video and was thoroughly impressed.
But as I watched the scientists unearth the ant colony I started to feel kinda sad for the ants. Should anything that could create such an amazing structure be buried alive in cement?
Yeah, yeah, nine year old girl, “Go to hell kid.”, ant colony, “poor ants”.
But seriously isn’t this an amazing achievement for insects that basically have only one individual function and simply work in a collective hive?
Now I’m no lover of ants and I drop kick them in the face every chance I get but still …
I’m confused. Perhaps it’s because I woke up this Saturday morning at 7:08 am to the sound of a cat (Allegra) throwing up in the living room and when I went to stop her she did what she always does - RUNS!
If I can catch her before she starts that’s fine, I can usually herd her into a tiled area, but if not then I have cat puke strewn across the house. Not cool and tends to get the heart racing somewhat. This morning she had mostly finished and I was able to clean it up rather quickly. But still the damage was done - I’m up. (just an aside - having the sound of a cat puking in the house while asleep really messes with your dreams. I vaguely recall dreaming about Hilter throwing up on Tom Cruise and then it turned into a toaster puking on June Cleaver. Then I realized what it was and bolted out of bed. Odd stuff.)
Who’da thought she could be so pukey?
What? Why aren't you petting me?
Ok. Back to the colony. I’m curious how that cement doesn’t get stuck half way through and then block the other liquid from getting to the bottom? And why doesn’t it erode the sides of the tunnels?
Here’s a really interesting Fun Fact site about ants:
http://www.lingolex.com/ants.htm
Here’s wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant
Oh well. Since I’m up I might as well get some laundry done and prepare for the day.
The value humans place on life is an interesting quandry. Where did we get the idea that life had value? And how do we decide what life is more or less valuable?
I think we think that life has value because we think our own life has value. Or most people do at least.
To what degree we value I’m not sure and how we quantify the value of life (in any form) is a quandry indeed. Although I think on certain levels the decision is rather easy but it’s based purely on our own prejudices and biases.
Is the life of an entire rain forest worth the life of a single human being? What if that human had down-syndrome would the answer be different?
That’s why seeing the scientists completely destroy that amazing structure and know that millions of ants (who created it) were killed really put me off to the entire project. Yes, they are just ants, but did such a mass destruction need to occur to realize such beauty in nature? And yet if not for such destruction would we (could we) ever have known what lay beneath?
Amazing video- three things came to mind as I watched it.
One were the picnics my uncle and aunt took me on in the Catskills. My uncle always carried sugar cubes to place several feet away from our picnic. It kept the ants busy and away from our food. Hum- did he create sugar cravings in ants!?!
Second, I could not help but imagine an alien star ship landing and pouring glue over NYC as a science project!
Third this Native American saying came to mind- “All that moves is sacred. Only by understanding this can you realize the rhythm of Mother Earth, and there by know how to place your feet.”
I also had two cats who did a lot of throwing up. They were cured of it when the vet told me it might be an allergy to the food dye in the dry food. I switched from the colorful dry to blah looking and that worked. The food dyes are listed on the ingredients. If I remember, Meow Mix was one they could not tolerate.
Happy cats to you!