Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Happy Hump Day: The Itchy Edition

Ah--the perfect Wednesday video...

Feel a phantom ant crawling on the back of your neck? Me, too. It's called an ant death spiral or a circular mill: a circle of army ants, each one following the ant in front via the evolutionary drive of pheremones until they are locked in a swirling vortex. They will continue to circle each other until they all tire, starve and die. How crazy is that? One of the largest circular mills witnessed occured in Guyana. It measured 1200 feet in circumference and had a 2.5 hour circuit time per ant. The mill persisted for two days, "with ever increasing numbers of dead bodies littering the route as exhaustion took its toll, but eventually a few workers straggled from the trail thus breaking the cycle, and the raid marched off into the forest."

Many people liken the ant death spiral to Corporate America, religion, emergent properties and ever increasing complex systems. It is a cautionary tale of following blank, the blank not a typo at all, but of just because.

Now you will excuse me but I have some work to go do. Because I need to pay the rent and do some errands. (We need bread, nutella and some of that almond-scented floor cleanser that I just can't live without.)

3 comments:

Gini said...

Method makes an almond-scented wood floor cleaner that I love love LOVE.

Petunia Face said...

That's the one I'm talking about! I could bathe in that cleanser it's so delish!

krista said...

try mrs. meyer's basil scented dish soap. thank me later.