Comments on: Terminally ill ants choose to die alone

By: Ambush ants capture giant prey using Velcro principles | Not Exactly Rocket Science | News

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:15:39 +0000

[...] Terminally ill ants choose to die alone [...]

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:29:42 +0000

@monkeysharpie – In your complaint about the grammar in this blog, you incorrectly used the word “amount”. It should read: “the sheer number of grammatical errors”. Just FYI if you ever feel the need to complain about the number of grammatical errors again.
@NERS – I enjoyed this article and it leaves me itching to learn someday what mechanisms cause this response. Thanks for another good read!

By: Nathan Myers

Nathan Myers — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:48:05 +0000

Ed’s grammatical errors are so rare as makes no never-mind. What the quibblers are quibbling over are spelling errors. Of course spelling has only the most glancing acquaintance with grammar, and to complain about the one after noticing the other is the height of … well, something unpleasant I wouldn’t care to mention here.
About legends of the Scott expedition… Most of the fabrications were performed by Scott’s widow and expedition sponsor. His actual log was not released until many decades later. I don’t know if this particular story was fabricated by them. If it appears in Scott’s actual log, it still might have been made up by Scott himself to make Oates look better. Scott should have felt he owed that to Oates, considering he was personally responsible for Oates’s farcically unneccessary death.

By: wons

wons — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:39:30 +0000

I like your article. well presented and interesting. keep up with the good work. Thanks.

By: Veda

Veda — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:38:43 +0000

Um – I’m sorry, but what grammatical errors?

By: yogi-one

yogi-one — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:25:00 +0000

The thread has kind of split three ways it seems like, so here’s my 3-in-1 comment:
1. Ants – they are an endless source of amazement. How they seem to know exactly what to do in complex situations when you know they have the brain of..well, an ant – is a fascinating area to study (I would imagine), and certainly fascinating to read about. There’s probably some real transformative lessons about systems and information dispersal via networks that could greatly benefit society waiting to be discovered.
2. Your choice of stuff to write about – always fascinating. You get really high marks in this area as others have noticed. You seem to have a talent for identifying that magical area of intersection between your work and what the public will actually be interested in reading.
3. Your grammar – spellcheckers don’t catch everything, even if they have grammar function built in. It seems to me that you have to decide how formalized you want your blogging to be. If you have time (5 minutes) to make one final scan through your posts just looking for grammar errors, that would be an effective patch measure – but after all, it’s blogging, not publishing in a journal.

By: Christina

Christina — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:04:26 +0000

@Gray Gaffer #6 Cats do it too. And since they hide ailments until they are terminal (or close to) one has little if any warning
Actually, in that case I think it’s simply because cats are modified from solitary animals. They don’t actively avoid contact when ill, they simply don’t show signs. And the reason for that is simply that there wouldn’t've been any need to show such signs in their wild ancestors. Social animals like humans have evolved instincts to let our companions know when we are ill or injured, in order to receive assistance. A wild cat would have no need to show signs of injury or illness. In fact, it might even be advantageous to hide such signs – a rival who noted that he or she was becoming weak would surely take advantage of that weakness. Feigning health might allow an injured cat to bluff his way out of confrontations until he’s healthy again.

By: bioephemera

bioephemera — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:53:29 +0000

Ed, don’t bother trying to explain to people like monkeysharpie that we blog on our spare time and don’t have editors. They’ve apparently got nothing better to do than nitpick. I infer that the 4th circle must be a pretty boring place.

By: Reviewer 3

Reviewer 3 — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:44:07 +0000

Ed,
re your grammatical errors: I have never noticed, probably because schools stopped teaching English grammar 50 or 60 years ago where I live. To me, your posts are well-written, thought-provoking, and use vivid language to translate complex ideas from dry academic papers with great clarity. Your posts capture the wonder of science and nature and express the excitement and enthusiasm that (I assume) the researchers feel.
I’m going to ask a couple of questions about 2 recent posts, if you have time to answer them, then hibernate back into my usual lurking form.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:46:19 +0000

I’m puzzled. Seeing as how all members of the expedition died, how could the legend of Oates’ heroism appear after the fact? I thought the evidence of it came from the journals of the other members, who did not survive much longer. Hard to believe that they would fabricate the story. Are you suggesting that they murdered him, and agreed on a cover story? Sorry for the OT, BTW. Great story. Loved the footage of infected ants in Planet Earth-anyone else catch it?