Super soldier ants, Offensive rabbits and the Perils of anti-bullying laws

Science
Some ants can grow up to be “super-soldiers” if they are exposed to a certain hormone at the right time in their development:

Dr Abouheif and his team studied Pheidole ants – a large group of more than 1,000 related species. Of those, there are just eight that have a so-called supersoldiers, which help protect the colony by blocking the entrance from invaders using their oversized heads.

The idea of attempting to “programme” developing ants to become these giant soldiers was triggered when Dr Abouheif noticed that another common Pheidole ant species, which does not have any supersoldiers in its colony, had a few strangely big-headed colony members.

“We were collecting [the ants] on Long Island, New York, and we noticed some monstrous-looking soldiers,” Dr Abouheif said.

The apparently mutant ants looked just like the rare supersoldier caste of related species, so the scientists set out to find out what had caused them to take that form.

“We understand a lot about how these different castes are produced during development of the ant larvae,” said Dr Abouheif.

When a queen lays eggs, he explained, each egg can develop into a different caste depending on the environment it is in – the temperature it develops at and the nutrition it receives. But the key to “switching” into a specific cast is controlled to a large extent by one chemical inside the eggs, which is called juvenile hormone.

“So if you treat any species at the right time in development, just with a hormone, you can induce the development of the supersoldier,” explained Dr Abouheif.

“The fact that you can induce it in all these different species [that don't naturally have that caste], means that one common ancestor of all these species had [supersoldiers].”

Surf to the link to see the photos; they are remarkable.

Frogs
The smallest known vertebrate is now a newly discovered species of frog:

Click on the thumbnail to see a full size photo and to read the article at Conservation Report.

Offensive Rabbits:

Mano Singham reports that this cartoon was censored from a Cleveland newspaper.

I see this as a humorous take on perspective and not anything racist.

Anti-Bullying Laws
Of course, young kids shouldn’t get picked on. But when we try to make laws, we must be careful not to trample on free speech, as we see here (note: this is the UK and not the United States).

The issue:

University College London’s Atheist, Secularist and Humanist society posted the title page from a comic book, Jesus and Mo, Volume 2: Transubstantiated, by a pseudonymous British cartoonist called Mohammed Jones, on Facebook last week. On Tuesday the society was advised by University College London’s student union that it would be “prudent” to take it down, following complaints from other students, the identity of whom remains confidential, a spokesman said. The union’s advice prompted an online petition to “Defend freedom of expression at University College London”, criticising “attempts to censor” the society.

UPDATE 13th Jan: UCL Union has acknowledged that it made mistakes in its handling of this issue and is no longer calling on the Atheist, Secular and Humanist Society to withdraw the Jesus & Mo image. However, it is now threatening the society with disciplinary action on the basis that ‘posting the image might have constituted an act of bullying, prejudice, harassment or discrimination.’ Read Alex Gabriel’s update on this story here.

This is the cartoon:

This was the complaint: it showed Mohammed with alcohol. How in the world is this “bullying?”

This is why one must be very careful when one tries to outlaw bullying. Of course, physical threats are bad. But there is a difference between being offended by an opinion and being harassed.

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