Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What are locusts and what happened to them?

explosion-scratch.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 80 posts

Re: What are locusts and what happened to them?

#41

Post by FarmerPotato »

themgt wrote: post #9
daoboy wrote: post #8

My earliest introduction to locusts was as a biblical plague. These Sunday school lessons did not include pictures. I always imagined some twisted diminutive demonic swarm of insects, and was disappointed to finally discover they were just grasshoppers.

> I always imagined some twisted diminutive demonic swarm of insects Behavioral ecologist Stephen Simpson has proposed the cannibalistic forced march hypothesis[36], that is, the forward motion of a locust swarm is essentially sustained by each individual’s imperative to avoid being eaten by the locust behind it: 1) Align their body axis with neighbors (parallel) to minimize the chances of a side-on attack and presen…

Also, there’s the stimulus causing nymphs to not be solitarious slow green grass-nibbles, but instead transform into armored, black and yellow, upright marching machines that mature into stronger-winged battle bugs. With soft tasty abdomens exposed to the soldier behind them…

Re: What are locusts and what happened to them?

#44

Post by krackers »

FarmerPotato wrote: post #41
themgt wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always imagined some twisted diminutive demonic swarm of insects Behavioral ecologist Stephen Simpson has proposed the cannibalistic forced march hypothesis[36], that is, the forward motion of a locust swarm is essentially sustained by each individual’s imperative to avoid being eaten by the locust behind it: 1) Align their body axis with neighbors (parallel) to minimize the chances of a side-on attack and presen…

Also, there’s the stimulus causing nymphs to not be solitarious slow green grass-nibbles, but instead transform into armored, black and yellow, upright marching machines that mature into stronger-winged battle bugs. With soft tasty abdomens exposed to the soldier behind them…

Woah up until now I was thinking locusts were a different but related species, but indeed they are the exact same species as grasshopper, just with a different end-product of metamorphosis. And the trigger is just contact with other grasshopper/locusts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uURqcI08IC4

Re: What are locusts and what happened to them?

#45

Post by code_duck »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #31
swiftcoder wrote: post #18

> All of these triggers cause a release of serotonin. This serotonin release triggers the physical transformation Locusts are just grasshoppers on prozac?

Prozac is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. It is not serotonin, and it does not cause the release of serotonin.

The uptake inhibition means it leaves serotonin in a place where it can be active. So, it increases the amount of serotonin available in the brain.

Re: What are locusts and what happened to them?

#46

Post by awesome_dude »

brikym wrote: post #37
pimlottc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This answers the title question but the most interesting part about the article is the fascinating way in which the locust’s behavior is triggered by crowding. An amazing biological adaption. It’s well-worth reading the whole thing.

I couldn't help but think office politics is a bit like that. Over populate a company or starve employees of opportunities and thy will be less helpful to each other and more focused on self-promotion politics.

It's this that always makes me laugh - right wing people demanding people act like teams, and work for the common good...

Re: What are locusts and what happened to them?

#47

Post by gwern »

hankbond wrote: post #38

Love the UI design. To OP: I have a very lateral thinking process during writing and I have been experimenting with how to format that in my personal site https://hankdoes.ai/posts/we-have-the-model-why-do-we-need-y... Lots of Jank still at this point in its life but the hover to popover extra context has been really helpful to keep the main post body more focused than it would otherwise be. I'm not that good at stru…

If you're interested in popups/popovers and sidenotes (https://gwern.net/sidenotes), be sure to check out my website. Did you notice OP also does inflation adjustments (https://gwern.net/static/build/Inflation.hs)? I do them inline, because I think that requiring effort like OP does just leads to the same pervasive lack of numerosity that providing no adjustments at all does, because no one is going to bother to hover over most of them.

Re: What are locusts and what happened to them?

#50

Post by hankbond »

gwern wrote: post #47
hankbond wrote: post #38

Love the UI design. To OP: I have a very lateral thinking process during writing and I have been experimenting with how to format that in my personal site https://hankdoes.ai/posts/we-have-the-model-why-do-we-need-y... Lots of Jank still at this point in its life but the hover to popover extra context has been really helpful to keep the main post body more focused than it would otherwise be. I'm not that good at stru…

If you're interested in popups/popovers and sidenotes ( https://gwern.net/sidenotes ), be sure to check out my website. Did you notice OP also does inflation adjustments ( https://gwern.net/static/build/Inflation.hs )? I do them inline, because I think that requiring effort like OP does just leads to the same pervasive lack of numerosity that providing no adjustments at all does, because no one is going to bother to…

Your website is wild. I am going to explore it a lot more later because there are a few more concepts that have overlap with what I am working on (like a personal kind-of wiki that I use to organize information I come across). I wanted to have a thing that grows alongside me over time and it seems very much like your website is that, but in your clearly unique way.

Are your about personal and about website pages the best place to get introduced to (what feels like) your Gwerniverse?

I also agree that the adjusted value should be displayed and if you wanted to you could popover the original value.

Post reply on HN