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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: April 29th, 2025

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  • Well, all your arguments can be summarized in “projection of human behavior” onto those ants and pupae.

    Okay, let’s go down this rabbit hole.

    Do you really think anyone would express her/himself by avoiding this “projectionism”? I don’t think it is even possible. You see this projection in every aspect of our life.

    “Time/Computer/etc. is running” “The train is coming” “The wind is blowing” “The storm is raging” “The city never sleeps” “The phone died” “Time flies” “The night wrapped its arms”

    And many, many more. You find those projections everywhere. And you know why? Yes, exactly! They help you understand the situation better. So what’s wrong with using then here too?


  • No, this article is not “unscientific bullshit” as you say. It is actually pretty accurate. Let me just repeat the main scientific and accurate aspects for you: The producing of smell was already known. Dr. Dawson used this finding to research behavior. And she found out, the smell is the cause of this killing behavior: They put the smell onto a non-infected pupae, but workers still killed it. Another funding is, isolated pupae do not produce this smell. They produce it only when workers are nearby, making the assumption it is costly to b produce and most effective when workers are near. So you could say “young ants beg for death when sick”

    Nothing wrong for me.

    The only pseudoscience I see here, is your unproven assumptions your comment.


  • Did you read the source? I guess no.

    "Our data suggest the evolution of a finely-tuned signalling system in which it is not the induction of an individual’s immune response, but rather its failure to overcome the infection, that triggers pupal signalling for sacrifice. "

    And as for sciencealert, their goal is to make science accessible to anyone. I think there is nothing wrong with also engaging it in an entertaining way. They also link the sources, so they are much better than other clickbaiters and you can read through original article to verify their writings.