Will Ants Stop The Next Pandemic?

[@diremike]

bravo! thanks for the insights!

[@Tactical_Turtwig]

I love how insects are way more complex than given credit, hell they developed agruculture way before us. I hope that insects will do for medicine in the 21th Century that plants did in the 20th century. Also metaanalysis of previous research should applauded more, they might not discover something "novel" but they are integral to long term research.

[@EntoExplorer]

These sorts of reviews are extremely useful even without analysis because of the rate at which research slips into a sort of "black hole" and is never seen again. A lot of papers get published and are never read or referenced. Papers which are read and referenced end up being considered "too old to look at or use" after 5 or 10 years. The end result is an enormous amount of literature which is functionally lost because new people being brought up in the academic system have never seen any of it and are actively encouraged to not go diving into the old literature. This style of review breathes life back into work which otherwise gets forgotten and allows for easy reference.

[@baneverything5580]

Leaf Cutter Ants lived behind our home in central Louisiana. They really liked a tree my mom called a China Berry. It was fun to watch them clear pathways to carry the leaves and berries back to their nests.

[@EntoExplorer]

That's super cool. I should have looked for them more when I was living down there.

[@baneverything5580]

@@EntoExplorer I saw a couple of other nests in the region over the years but they were rare. I haven`t seen one in a very long time.

[@baneverything5580]

@@EntoExplorer I went to visit my sister years ago east of Dallas and saw what looked like the same kind of large red ants except they were more uniform in size. I was near the entrance looking at them and a couple of them crawled up my leg and stung me and they were incredibly painful like wasps. They had warned me about the "red fire ants" and I thought they were talking about normal fire ants.

[@myrmepropagandist]

You're so lucky.

[@EntoExplorer]

@@baneverything5580 Fire ants were the bane of my existence in Texas. Unfortunately they tend to drive out other ant species because of how freaking aggressive they are.

[@aquavitae3824]

They changed the definition of "pandemic".

[@georgeau2523]

So ants developed vending machines before us?

[@EntoExplorer]

Vending Machines and Electric Scooters

[@Nikanoru]

Would be funny if we steal antibiotics from the ants and accidentally make everything resistant to them too and the ants end up getting wiped out because of it. Not really realistic I think because of the diversity involved but still.