5 ms·

The wonderful world of insects

43 points by overwhelm 7y ago

low_code 7y ago
To borrow a line from Spock: 'Fascinating...'
proc0 7y ago
"The big question here is how the wasp mother can control the ladybug, transforming her into a zombie babysitter... The answer is that the wasp mother injects the ladybug not just with the egg but also with a virus. " This strengthens my belief that insects are like tiny little robots.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Maybe, but that just makes us bigger, more complicated robots because we too have our behavior influenced by parasites and viruses.
  - proc0 7y ago
    Imagine a virus that makes you switch careers, heh.
  - baxtr 7y ago
    I remember to have read somewhere that viruses make you sneeze so that they can proliferate. But maybe that's just BS....
- gwern 7y ago
  The really interesting question is why don't we see these amazingly detailed and precise parasitic mechanisms elsewhere, like in mammals? Are we just doing a terrible job of finding them, or is there something more interesting going on? Del Giudice recently published a paper arguing that the baroque complexity of non-insect nervous systems may in part be an anti-parasite mechanism, by making it too hard for a distributed group of small simple parasites to find hacks: "Invisible Designers: Brain Evolution Through the Lens of Parasite Manipulation" https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/selection/2019-delguidice.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/selection/2019-delguidic... , Del Giudice 2019 (discussion: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/08/19/maybe-your-zoloft-stopped-working-because-a-liver-fluke-tried-to-turn-your-nth-great-grandmother-into-a-zombie/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/08/19/maybe-your-zoloft-stop... ).
  - woliveirajr 7y ago
    Toxoplasmosis is (not) your friend here [0] [0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/toxoplasmosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20356249 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/toxoplasmosis...
    - gwern 7y ago
      Toxo is the exception that proves the rule here. Toxo is perhaps the best known example of any parasite having human behavioral effects, yet the causal role of toxo is still not accepted, and what it's postulated to affect is pretty random: schizophrenia, car accidents, that sort of thing. That doesn't look like any kind of planned behavioral control which might affect toxo reproduction. It just looks like a parasite causing some damage post-infection. It's unclear if it even manages to replicate the mouse effect of making humans more attracted to cats (since we contract it mostly from cats, obvious confound). You certainly cannot compare its capabilities, in rodents or primates, to the astonishingly precise and complicated behaviors that insect parasites can orchestrate. And it's not like humans in the wild don't host plenty of parasites!
  - samstave 7y ago
    What if Psychopathy is a Virus?
    - gwern 7y ago
      Unlikely. That would be inconsistent with the heritability, for one thing, for which no genetic correlations with immune-related things have ever been reported that I've seen, and with the best attempts at finding a physical cause landing on things like under-reactive amygdalas and other things one might describe as general brain damage (like toxo) rather than any kind of cunning plan to spread a particular virus/parasite. (How would psychopathy spread a virus? It'd have to be an STD, I guess, except symptoms of psychopathy often show up in childhood and long before individuals have ever had sex, which is also problematic.) Psychopaths do seem fairly fertile, though, which is why theories sometimes invoke an evolutionary life-history explanation: it's a hawk-dove kind of strategy (adaptive if there are enough suckers around, and weak enough social constraints on psychopathic behavior, which would explain why it seems rarer in traditional rural environments and more common in modern urban environments).
videogreg93 7y ago
Has anyone read this book? I've been having a craving these days for books on animals, having just finished "The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs", and this looks pretty good.
11235813213455 7y ago
Some tiny wasps are used for pest control in farms, natural and clean way
jcims 7y ago
Lots of underrated beauty in the insect world as well. Check out the last series of images in this video about manual focus stacking for short dof shots - https://youtu.be/2GmQ2Hj9WOs?t=198 https://youtu.be/2GmQ2Hj9WOs?t=198 Another one from the same guy, have to poke around - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmMcCjEU68Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmMcCjEU68Y Lots more of these kinds of vids on youtube of course...

43 points by overwhelm 7y ago

To borrow a line from Spock: 'Fascinating...'

"The big question here is how the wasp mother can control the ladybug, transforming her into a zombie babysitter... The answer is that the wasp mother injects the ladybug not just with the egg but also with a virus. " This strengthens my belief that insects are like tiny little robots.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Maybe, but that just makes us bigger, more complicated robots because we too have our behavior influenced by parasites and viruses.
- proc0 7y ago
  Imagine a virus that makes you switch careers, heh.
- baxtr 7y ago
  I remember to have read somewhere that viruses make you sneeze so that they can proliferate. But maybe that's just BS....
gwern 7y ago
The really interesting question is why don't we see these amazingly detailed and precise parasitic mechanisms elsewhere, like in mammals? Are we just doing a terrible job of finding them, or is there something more interesting going on? Del Giudice recently published a paper arguing that the baroque complexity of non-insect nervous systems may in part be an anti-parasite mechanism, by making it too hard for a distributed group of small simple parasites to find hacks: "Invisible Designers: Brain Evolution Through the Lens of Parasite Manipulation" https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/selection/2019-delguidice.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/selection/2019-delguidic... , Del Giudice 2019 (discussion: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/08/19/maybe-your-zoloft-stopped-working-because-a-liver-fluke-tried-to-turn-your-nth-great-grandmother-into-a-zombie/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/08/19/maybe-your-zoloft-stop... ).
- woliveirajr 7y ago
  Toxoplasmosis is (not) your friend here [0] [0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/toxoplasmosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20356249 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/toxoplasmosis...
  - gwern 7y ago
    Toxo is the exception that proves the rule here. Toxo is perhaps the best known example of any parasite having human behavioral effects, yet the causal role of toxo is still not accepted, and what it's postulated to affect is pretty random: schizophrenia, car accidents, that sort of thing. That doesn't look like any kind of planned behavioral control which might affect toxo reproduction. It just looks like a parasite causing some damage post-infection. It's unclear if it even manages to replicate the mouse effect of making humans more attracted to cats (since we contract it mostly from cats, obvious confound). You certainly cannot compare its capabilities, in rodents or primates, to the astonishingly precise and complicated behaviors that insect parasites can orchestrate. And it's not like humans in the wild don't host plenty of parasites!
- samstave 7y ago
  What if Psychopathy is a Virus?
  - gwern 7y ago
    Unlikely. That would be inconsistent with the heritability, for one thing, for which no genetic correlations with immune-related things have ever been reported that I've seen, and with the best attempts at finding a physical cause landing on things like under-reactive amygdalas and other things one might describe as general brain damage (like toxo) rather than any kind of cunning plan to spread a particular virus/parasite. (How would psychopathy spread a virus? It'd have to be an STD, I guess, except symptoms of psychopathy often show up in childhood and long before individuals have ever had sex, which is also problematic.) Psychopaths do seem fairly fertile, though, which is why theories sometimes invoke an evolutionary life-history explanation: it's a hawk-dove kind of strategy (adaptive if there are enough suckers around, and weak enough social constraints on psychopathic behavior, which would explain why it seems rarer in traditional rural environments and more common in modern urban environments).

videogreg93 7y ago

Has anyone read this book? I've been having a craving these days for books on animals, having just finished "The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs", and this looks pretty good.

11235813213455 7y ago

Some tiny wasps are used for pest control in farms, natural and clean way

jcims 7y ago

Lots of underrated beauty in the insect world as well. Check out the last series of images in this video about manual focus stacking for short dof shots - https://youtu.be/2GmQ2Hj9WOs?t=198 https://youtu.be/2GmQ2Hj9WOs?t=198 Another one from the same guy, have to poke around - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmMcCjEU68Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmMcCjEU68Y Lots more of these kinds of vids on youtube of course...