i thought it said 'autistic ants' and was trying to figure out what that could mean - still cool though. I particulary liked the need for a 'the disease does not turn the ants into zombies' control experiment. its a little weird that the ants run away when they are dying, and not when they are sick. It's be cool if ants went wandering in the woods for a week when they had a cold and then came back.
Hmm interesting misread. I've wondered before where our "autistic" genes come from. I don't think those mutations are necessarily deleterious (if in fact they are mutations -- maybe instead of being an accident that originated in homo sapiens, perhaps we got them through selection from hyper-focused, extremely repetitious pre-ants! but probably not. I wonder if apes can be socially mal-adept like autistic people). It seems to me it might be advantageous to an entire population to have some autistic individuals (same with OCD, depressive, etc.) to bring their own strengths to the community.
i thought it said 'autistic ants' and was trying to figure out what that could mean - still cool though. I particulary liked the need for a 'the disease does not turn the ants into zombies' control experiment. its a little weird that the ants run away when they are dying, and not when they are sick. It's be cool if ants went wandering in the woods for a week when they had a cold and then came back.
ReplyDeleteHmm interesting misread. I've wondered before where our "autistic" genes come from. I don't think those mutations are necessarily deleterious (if in fact they are mutations -- maybe instead of being an accident that originated in homo sapiens, perhaps we got them through selection from hyper-focused, extremely repetitious pre-ants! but probably not. I wonder if apes can be socially mal-adept like autistic people). It seems to me it might be advantageous to an entire population to have some autistic individuals (same with OCD, depressive, etc.) to bring their own strengths to the community.
ReplyDeleteAnd...... I loved the zombie control, too!