scinerds:

Ant Zombie Tale: Mind-Controlling Fungus Loses to Lethal Foe

A fungus that invades the brains of ants, turning them into zombies on a death march, may have met its match. Another parasitic fungus, it turns out, effectively castrates the zombie-ant fungus so it can’t spread its spores, a new study finds.

The finding explains how an ant colony can survive infestations by the zombie-ant fungus.

“In a case where biology is stranger than fiction, the parasite of the zombie-ant fungus is itself a fungus, a hyperparasitic fungus that specializes in attacking the parasite that turns the ants into zombies,” said study leader David Hughes of Penn State University in a statement.

take that fungus!

nevver:

Shark Week

spime:

Pollution has never been so fashionable: A pair of NYU grad students have created a high-tech sweatshirt emblazoned with pink lungs that suddenly show blue veins when exposed to dirty air. (via Grad students create color-changing clothes that detect air pollution)

(via spime)

This image shows the biomass of popularly-eaten fish in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1900 and in 2000. Popularly eaten fish include: bluefin tuna, cod, haddock, hake, halibut, herring, mackerel, pollock, salmon, sea trout, striped bass, sturgeon, turbot. Many of which are now vulnerable or endangered. (via Information is Beautiful: Plenty More Fish In The Sea? | News | guardian.co.uk)

(via robot-heart-politics)

ahmedsalman:

Replace ‘Nature’ with ‘Humanity’ and then evaluate.

(Source: inthenoosphere)

A remote expedition to the deepest layer of the Earth’s oceanic crust has revealed a new ecosystem living over a kilometre beneath our feet. It is the first time that life has been found in the crust’s deepest layer, and an analysis of the new biosphere suggests life could exist lower still.

‘Coalition of the Willing’ is a collaborative animated film and web-based event about an online war against global warming in a ‘post Copenhagen’ world. Through analyses of swarm activity and social revolution, ‘Coalition of the Willing’ endeavors to present a compelling case for the new online activism and explains how to hand the fight against global warming to the people.

mohandasgandhi:

Workers Hold Key to Power in Nature’s Oldest Societies, Ant Study Shows

A new study analysing how complex, highly-evolved societies are organised in nature has found that it is workers that play a pivotal role in creating well-ordered societies where conflict is minimised. For when it comes to determining who reproduces in ants, University of Leicester biologists have found the humble worker is queenmaker — it is they who choose their queen.

This information is key to understanding the evolution of complex interdependent societies — over 100 millions years old — that have evolved mechanisms ensuring stable cohabitation and conflict resolution.

What the Leicester team discovered surprised them: While Spanish worker ants were ruthless in determining who became their queen — and hence acquired the right to reproduce — the same species of ants in France, Germany and the UK are known to be more ‘apathetic’.

While Spanish workers bullied or even killed rival queens in order to choose their queen, UK workers are not aggressive at all and were loyal subjects to any number of queens.

(Read more)

This is an absolutely astonishing find and some magnificent science at work. 

This is amazing.

Eating The Earth: How Your Diet Affects The Planet 

Hat Tip: WWF

findinfographics:

The Percentage of the World’s Water that’s Safe for Drinking

(Source: )

Here’s an interesting (though not necessarily good) idea: The Saudi Biome is a project that endeavors to “bring the rainforest to the desert” of Saudi Arabia. The massive domed city will contain a hotel, residential units and retail space and will employ water management and heat regulation systems. In addition, the project will include hundreds of different species of trees and plants, water features, an aquarium and a range renewable energy technologies.

Hat Tip: Inhabitat

A new study says that 22% of all plant species everywhere in the world are under threat of extinction.

Very alarming.

Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines investigates The other debt crisis: Climate debt

The climate crisis in Bolivia is not a headline or an abstraction - it is playing out in people’s lives in real time.

Melting glaciers are threatening the water supply of the country’s two biggest cities. Increasing droughts and floods are playing havoc with agriculture.

So it is no surprise that in climate negotiations, Bolivia is emerging as a leader in the global south - advancing both radical solutions and analysis that make rich countries distinctly nervous.

This episode travels to Bolivia to explore the country’s climate crusade from the inside.

Hat Tip: Al Jazeera

Two same-age salmon, one a genetically modified salmon (rear), the other a non-genetically modified salmon (foreground) appear in this photo provided by AquaBounty Technologies. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recently been studying whether to approve marketing a genetically engineered animal as safe for people to eat. (AP Photo/AquaBounty Technologies)

Hat Tip: The Big Picture