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Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

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Re: Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

#71

Post by meowface »

homedepotdave wrote: post #66
codeflo wrote: post #21

Not a biologist, but my impression is that in some of ways, individual ants behave more like cells in a multi-celled organism than individual animals. The hive is the organism. (The analogy is certainly not perfect.) Considering that, I don't find this paradoxical at all, still very fascinating. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong, but I think cancer also in some sense helps the individual cell at the cost…

In a way, don’t humans too?

And coming at it inversely, I've also seen some hypotheses that neurons are a bit more autonomous than many think, and that the brain could be seen as a complex colony of billions of single-celled organisms working together, with some analogies to aspects we see in large-scale human coordination problems and game theory.

Re: Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

#72

Post by samatman »

slver wrote: post #65
samatman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is true, eusociality is fairly distinctive. The part where most of the colony can't breed is what really stands out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality This does make individual hymenopterans less like individuals of other species, which are in competition with others of the same gametes for the privilege of breeding and the survival of their offspring. Hymenopterans are more individual than slime m…

But most of our cells can "breed". Inability to divide happens only where it's necessary, like blood cells. It's not a social feature on its own. So I'm unsure why this is important about ants. Is "can breed" the ultimate clue of individualism? But again, this makes most of our cells... "individuals".

This is incorrect on a fundamental level.

Breeding is sexual reproduction. Parthenogenic whiptail lizards lay eggs and reproduce themselves, but they don't breed.

Only our gametes can undergo meiosis and recombination, the necessary processes for breeding. Our other cells can engage in mitosis, duplication. There are only the two processes, which is why I say this is fundamentally incorrect.

The queen and drones are the gametes of hymenopterans in a very real sense. They have cells which can undergo meiosis and recombination, workers do not.

In fact, in some unusual species of ant, there are motile and fertile workers, in addition to and sometimes instead of the sessile queen. These are called... gamergates.

This is glossing over some of the weirdness found in various hymenopterans, it's an ancient and diverse clade.

Individual ants are animals, that's not controversial. Eusocial animals are less individual than any other animal, and their social groups are more like a single organism than the social groups of any other sort of animal. This, too, is not controversial.

Re: Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

#74

Post by psysharp »

samatman wrote: post #72
slver wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most of our cells can "breed". Inability to divide happens only where it's necessary, like blood cells. It's not a social feature on its own. So I'm unsure why this is important about ants. Is "can breed" the ultimate clue of individualism? But again, this makes most of our cells... "individuals".

This is incorrect on a fundamental level. Breeding is sexual reproduction. Parthenogenic whiptail lizards lay eggs and reproduce themselves, but they don't breed. Only our gametes can undergo meiosis and recombination, the necessary processes for breeding. Our other cells can engage in mitosis, duplication. There are only the two processes, which is why I say this is fundamentally incorrect. The queen and drones are…

It is not incorrect. In fact, your arguments aren't even mutually exclusive, depending on the context.

One is not an individual or a group inherently, it is solely based on the concepts you are using to create the context.

Re: Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

#75

Post by amarant »

krapp wrote: post #56
porkloin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have pretty devoutly hated celebrity my entire life, but in recent years I've come to realize that the real "job" of these kinds of "celebrity for celebrity's sake" types is pretty simple: 1. Be society's mirror 2. Be society's punching bag The Kardashians obviously fill both of these jobs. I don't think it's fair to say they're above reproach – in fact, I hear tons of criticism of them any time their names are bro…

The Kardashians have actual jobs, though. "Celebrity for celebrity's sake" is a role the American public assigned to them, as is the role of American societal scapegoat. That isn't a fundamental role they fill, Americans just enjoy hating rich women. You never see the same degree of contempt levied at rich men.

Elon Musk says hello? I hear a lot more hate towards him than I do the Kardashians.

Anyone who's ever used a Windows PC had probably joked about murdering Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos receives a fair bit of flack too.

Where I live, Karl XIV Gustav is similarly divisive as the above figures, some hate him and everything he represents, others love him for... I'm not exactly sure why actually, Google it.

There are oooh so many more examples too.. I'm not saying we live in an equal society, but men get hated on too,I promise

Re: Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

#76

Post by mewpmewp2 »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #68
slver wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most of our cells can "breed". Inability to divide happens only where it's necessary, like blood cells. It's not a social feature on its own. So I'm unsure why this is important about ants. Is "can breed" the ultimate clue of individualism? But again, this makes most of our cells... "individuals".

Our cells will die when we die. Most of our cells have no future, but the ones that become our children and recombine with somebody of the opposite sex do have a future. That doesn’t mean the rest of our cells don’t exist in a state of genetic indifference. They have evolutionary pressure to improve the fitness of the individual, otherwise it’s a dead end for all genes involved. Competition between reproductively cap…

To think of an analogy people could die when planet earth dies, or people could die if their tribe gets wiped out, as they can't any longer fence for the resources individually. Or people will die if a bad actor will launch nuclear bombs for their own selfish gain, pollute the earth etc.

I imagine some cells like cancer cells also act selfishly while damaging the host and reaping temporary rewards themselves.

So it seems like analogy of people and few bad actors makes even more sense in terms of cells as opposed to ants who all act only towards the greater good.

Tldr; In order to succeed and survive you need many working together, however it is possible to get ahead temporarily acting selfishly, not caring about the greater good, but having too many of those bad actors will end bad for everyone. Which happens with both, people and cells.

Re: Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

#77

Post by Doxin »

frogcoder wrote: post #61

I just watched a classic Star Trek episode. I'll try not to give any spoilers for those that have not watched it. Bunch of human were infected by some kind of plant, they became super healthy but content. The episode deemed the infected ones unproductive, but I think that's some life worth living.

Is that the episode with the plants that explode in a way that totally doesn't look naughty at all?

Re: Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

#78

Post by frogcoder »

Doxin wrote: post #77
frogcoder wrote: post #61

I just watched a classic Star Trek episode. I'll try not to give any spoilers for those that have not watched it. Bunch of human were infected by some kind of plant, they became super healthy but content. The episode deemed the infected ones unproductive, but I think that's some life worth living.

Is that the episode with the plants that explode in a way that totally doesn't look naughty at all ?

By totally doesn't look naughty at all is spewing white matter onto human faces, no, not naughty at all.

Yep, I think we are talking about the same episode where star fleet officers do naughty things.

Re: Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

#79

Post by hypertele-Xii »

slver wrote: post #33
codeflo wrote: post #21

Not a biologist, but my impression is that in some of ways, individual ants behave more like cells in a multi-celled organism than individual animals. The hive is the organism. (The analogy is certainly not perfect.) Considering that, I don't find this paradoxical at all, still very fascinating. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong, but I think cancer also in some sense helps the individual cell at the cost…

Most species have social behavior and live in groups, to different degrees. Individuals in a society and cells in an organism are also analogous. So while you're right to call them acting like cells in organism, I'm uncertain what "than individual animals" would mean.

There's some linguistic ambiguity here. We can talk about "individual things" as in individual grains of sand, etc. and we mean "one instance of multiple similar".

Then there's "individuality", which for social animals means that a member of society is largely self-sufficient. Take any human and besides a sexual mate, they can pretty much survive, even thrive, by themselves. But take an ant, unless it's a queen, and it'll run around confused and die. The ant is inseparable from its hive. It is not an individual. It's a physically separate body from other members of the hive, but unable to exist on its own.

Re: Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host

#80

Post by krapp »

amarant wrote: post #75
krapp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kardashians have actual jobs, though. "Celebrity for celebrity's sake" is a role the American public assigned to them, as is the role of American societal scapegoat. That isn't a fundamental role they fill, Americans just enjoy hating rich women. You never see the same degree of contempt levied at rich men.

Elon Musk says hello? I hear a lot more hate towards him than I do the Kardashians. Anyone who's ever used a Windows PC had probably joked about murdering Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos receives a fair bit of flack too. Where I live, Karl XIV Gustav is similarly divisive as the above figures, some hate him and everything he represents, others love him for... I'm not exactly sure why actually, Google it. There are oooh so man…

Sure, there are plenty of rich men who people dislike, but they aren't hated so much that hating them becomes a meme the way hating the Kardashians or Paris Hilton has. Even the FOSS community and the people who think Bill Gates wants to inject them with Illuminati roofies don't demean him personally, meanwhile "Kill the Kardashians" is a t-shirt.

Even the few male equivalents of "famous for being famous" that I could find (the lists are almost exclusively female for some reason) like Kevin Federline and the lesser known Baldwins seem to be given a greater degree of respect by popular culture.

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