RDF TV – Ants that farm, compost and weed – Nebraska Vignettes #4 – Richard Dawkins
September 1, 2010 by admin
Filed under Gardening Videos
Richard Dawkins explains how fungus-farming ants from Central and South USA make their living. Download Quicktime version (720p HD): cdn.cloudfiles.mosso.com Get the RDF television podcast through iTunes! itunes.apple.com If you enjoy the video, and would like to help us make more videos like this, please think about donating $1 (or any other amount you’d like) to The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science: richarddawkinsfoundation.org During Richard Dawkins’ 2009 American tour, we visited Judy Diamond’s “Explore Evolution” exhibit at the University of Nebraska Say Museum in Lincoln. This exhibit has now been replicated in six museums around the country. While visiting we filmed a collection of short unrehearsed and unscripted videos—just inspired by the “Explore Evolution” exhibit. See the “Explore Evolution” web page here: explore-evolution.unl.edu Special Thanks to: Dr. Judy Diamond The University of Nebraska Say Museum www.friendsofthemuseum.org Camera & Music by Josh Timonen See more at: RichardDawkins.net
@Entropy56 Are you joking?
24 people couldn’t find this in their bibles.
extraordinary
Evolution? I didn’t see any Evolution. Why is the word “Evolution” on the display?
Wow that’s amazing. A four way symbiotic relationship between five different species. Remove any one species, and another would die of starvation.
1.Leafcutter ant
2.Compost plants
3.Food fungus
4.Pest fungus
5.Fungicidal Bacteria.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if the pest fungus released some kind of nutrient that the compost plants needed to grow? Circle complete =j
Hey nice video, the true is you can buy USA iTunes gift cards at this store iTunesgiftScards at COM
I love ants. I mean, I don’t like them in my kitchen, but they’re fascinating to study. Such complex behavior from such simple parts. The chemical signals between ants, the flow of the nest… an individual ant is really, really dumb. It can basically only follow a few simple instructions. But because of the number of them and the way those signals and instructions interact… it’s just beautiful.
… Until it ends in ants in my cereal. That’s not so pretty.
amzing how complicated the little overlooked life forms can be. ★★★★★
Fascinating
I saw many of these colonies in Costa Rica. A truly beautiful place.
You’re right, it *is* offensive.
And they’re willing to just put their heads in the sand, cover their ears so as to drown out the booming evidence– shrieking “ahlllalalalalalaal” while scientests dig up real truth.
@celebrationofreason
but its easy for them isnt it
I mean to just say
god made them
how offendingly simple answer
for such a complex nature.
How awesome was that
are you kidding me,
the nature is amazing
isnt it,
Always tries to find new ways for survival.
you just blew my mind! haha
gotta love weed-talk.
@fluentinsound and that’s why weed is so awesome. It helps people think in ways they are not accustomed to thinking.
@fluentinsound
There is one significant hole in that theory. Our universe is bound by laws of gravity which make the movement of planets predictable with a mathematical equation. Quantum physics (which is what you are refering to) is completely unpredictable therefore it’s not similar. However our universe could be a nucleus or a proton in an atom… anything is possible.
@fluentinsound .
You tube “bill connolly gets angry with audience”
He says the same but he thinks we are all part of a tea cup or the leg of a chair.
I bet it did once.
@Hugh7777 – RE “gawd” – “mis”spelt to show disrespect.” EXACTLY !!! I frequently spell it that way myself, for precisely that reason.
And here is a definition from encarta online:
Gawd [ gawd ] or gawd [ gawd ]
interjection, noun
Definition:
God: God, used to suggest irony or rustic pronunciation in oaths ( slang ).
So There! Encarta agrees with Hugh7777 (and me).
And I particularly like the reference to “rustic”… it is quite consistent with ignorant, Bronze Age religious screeds.
so we could be part of a ‘solid’ mass in a bigger world. we could be part of a ‘solid’ living organism in the marco world.
okay thats enough weed-fuelled theology from me. pizza time
according to physicists, in the subatomic world, nothing is solid. that means nothing IS actually solid. in the particles that make up a rock, in relative size to one particle, like, if a particle was a football, the next particle along would be another football lying miles and miles away. yet they still bind together, so our universe could be the same, even though the universe is nealry ALL space and a tiny fraction is mass, the universe could still be ‘Solid’ on a bigger scale
that seems like evidence for a size/scale-paradox. maybe our entire universe is but a single cell in the cellular make-up in a giant lifeform in the macro world. maybe a giant duck billed platypus, who knows. on the other side of the coin, maybe there is an advanced micro civilisation, smaller beyond anything we can see, yet. im jus kidding of course but there is kinda a reason to believe that. the largest things to human knowledge are just TOO similar in pattern to the smallest things
electrons do orbit a nucleus, whether electromagnetic energy drives it or not is irrelevant, its already too much of a uncanny comparison. both in the macro world and the micro world we see a cornerstone pattern of objects orbiting a centre, one way or another. even if the driving force is different, it doenst matter, its undeniable that there is a overwhelming connection between the largest and smallest things we can see
if atoms behaved like our solar system (i.e. orbital particals of wildly different masses, and universal gravitational attraction, rather than polarized electro magnetic attraction) then the laws of physics would be so unbelievably different i can’t even imagine what the consequences would be.
“so youre saying that the solar system doenst look lie a giant atom
Well, it doesn’t.
“there is no doubt about it that were part of ‘something’ bigger”
Yup. The universe is plenty big, alright.