Mildly interesting

The bullet ant (Paraponera clavata) is a tropical rainforest ant named for its powerfully painful sting, which is said to be comparable to being shot with a bullet.

Entomologist Dr. Justin Schmidt describes the sting from this venomous ant as ‘pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over a flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail embedded in your heel.’

When one ant stings, it releases chemicals that signal other ants in the vicinity to sting repeatedly. The bullet ant has the most painful sting of any insect, according to the Schmidt Pain Index. The pain is described as blinding, electric pain, comparable to being shot with a gun. Bullet ant stings produce waves of agony that last 12 to 24 hours.

Habitat: Tropical forests of Central and South America.

Nerdy Stuff: The primary toxin in bullet ant venom is poneratoxin. Poneratoxin is a small neurotoxic peptide that inactivates voltage-gated sodium ion channels in skeletal muscle to block synapse transmission in the central nervous system. In addition to excruciating pain, the venom produces temporary paralysis and uncontrollable shaking. Other symptoms include nausea, vomiting, fever, and cardiac arrhythmia.

The Sateré-Mawé people of Brazil use ant stings as part of a traditional rite of passage. To complete the initiation rite, boys first gather the ants. The ants are sedated by immersion in an herbal preparation and placed into gloves woven of leaves with all their stingers facing inward. The boy must wear the mitt a total of 20 times before he is considered to be a warrior.

bachophile · wrote on 20 Aug 2022, 10:56

https://www.delawarenaturesociety.org/blog/rare-american-chestnut-dna-discovered-at-coverdale-farm-preserve/

I didn’t know that a blight wiped out all the American chestnut trees in the late 19th century.

George K · wrote on 20 Aug 2022, 11:22

jon-nyc · 2 Sept 2022, 12:20

Catseye3 · 22 Aug 2022, 17:37

From Foreign Affairs magazine:

"We stand at the beginning of history. For every person alive today, ten have lived and died in the past. But if human beings survive as long as the average mammal species, then for every person alive today, a thousand people will live in the future. We are the ancients. On the scale of a typical human life, humanity today is barely an infant struggling to walk."

Horace · wrote on 22 Aug 2022, 17:37

@Catseye3 said in Mildly interesting:

From Foreign Affairs magazine:

"We stand at the beginning of history. For every person alive today, ten have lived and died in the past. But if human beings survive as long as the average mammal species, then for every person alive today, a thousand people will live in the future. We are the ancients. On the scale of a typical human life, humanity today is barely an infant struggling to walk."

That’s the foundation of what is known as the doomsday principle. Basically a statistical argument for the notion that we are likely to destroy ourselves as a species well before we have a normal span of time on this planet, to say nothing of a future on other planets.

George K · 24 Aug 2022, 12:34

Catseye3 · wrote on 24 Aug 2022, 12:34

@George-K
Wow, isn't this kind of deliciously eerie. Here's more:

The cougar can only be seen during the third week of March and the third week in September. The last 30 minutes before official sunset is prime time for viewing.

Dang, I was hoping to find out more abut the why and the how, but couldn't. Anyway, below is a time lapse photography of the cougar forming.

Link to video

Catseye3 · wrote on 25 Aug 2022, 00:45

Anna Comnena born in 1083, the eldest daughter of Alexius Comnenus, Emperor of Byzantine.

Several portraits of her survive. There's the one up top, who Jon would hit, and there's the one who in a depressed fit wrote, “Time in it’s irresistible and careless flow carries along on its floor all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity.”

Except she probably didn't write it's right there.

Anna Komnena (which can also be spelled Comnena) was considered the world’s first secular female historian, who wrote the biography of her father, as well as documented the political history of her era.

Anna was promised her father’s throne up until her brother John was born, having the rug totally pulled out from under her.

What was one of the most interesting things about Anna was her reaction to her brother taking their father’s throne away from her. Anna felt extremely cheated out of her “birthright.” She didn’t just sit back like “oh, well, that’s okay I’m sure things will be fine.” No, she wanted to go full Game of Thrones, and she probably would have if her plan had gone through.

When he father grew sick, Anna and her mother Irene tried to persuade her father to disinherit the throne to her brother. She even started to plot how to “dispose” of her brother. However, her husband did not support her plot, so it was discovered. It cost Anna her property and she had to retire from the court life. It was after her husband’s death that she joined a convent founded by her mother and started writing her first piece, Alexiad, a 15-volume history catalog of her family. It’s arguable whether Anna chose to join the convent herself or if her brother the Emperor forced her to go.

Emperor John being no fool.

George K · wrote on 2 Sept 2022, 12:11

The New Coffee Room

Mildly interesting