[HN Gopher] Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host
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Ant parasites that prolong the life of their host
Author : Vaslo
Score : 75 points
Date : 2021-05-19 14:25 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| andyxor wrote:
| Reminds me of parasites in Stargate giving their host longer
| lifespan and superpowers
| axiomdata316 wrote:
| >"The tapeworm-laden ants didn't just outlive their siblings, the
| team found. They were coddled while they did it. They spent their
| days lounging in their nest, performing none of the tasks
| expected of workers. They were groomed, fed, and carried by their
| siblings, often receiving more attention than even the queen--
| unheard of in a typical ant society--and gave absolutely nothing
| in return."
|
| I wonder if there is a human equivalent tapeworm that the
| Kardashians have ingested?
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Let people enjoy things.
|
| If you don't like the Kardashians, fine. I don't either. But
| clearly some folks do and are willing to help propel them to
| fame (or notoriety).
|
| I know your comment is being glib, but it's emblematic of HN
| crowds saying, "I don't like this thing, therefore this thing
| is funny/bad." It costs you nothing to post your comment and
| just let people like the things they like.
| proxyon wrote:
| Let people criticize things. I doubt you'd apply your comment
| toward your favorite political pet causes. Why are the
| Kardashians the one thing in our society that is not allowed
| to be criticized? This whole "let people enjoy things" is
| cynical, usually coming from the types of people who don't
| let anyone enjoy anything unless it is degenerate and mind-
| rotting.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| > Why are the Kardashians the one thing in our society that
| is not allowed to be criticized?
|
| They aren't, and I didn't say that. You can criticize the
| Kardashians all you want. Saying, effectively, "Kardashians
| are like these ant parasites, amirite guys?" isn't
| critique.
|
| > I doubt you'd apply your comment toward your favorite
| political pet causes.
|
| I think you dramatically underestimate how much I enjoy
| being critical of things I support, in fact much, much more
| so than things I oppose. Things I oppose I find easy to not
| discuss and write off/move past, generally.
|
| > This whole "let people enjoy things" is cynical, usually
| coming from the types of people who don't let anyone enjoy
| anything unless it is degenerate and mind-rotting.
|
| Let people enjoy things comes from a space of "We're all
| from different backgrounds, who are you to be the arbiter
| of what's fun?" Whether you are a furry or a larper or a
| reality tv show junkie or a gun nut.... who the fuck am I
| to tell you that you can't enjoy that? Obviously, there are
| limits when other people are involved (like, no, it's not
| an endorsement of enjoying murdering people), but I'm not
| out here trying to say that only lowest common denominator
| things are allowed.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Plot twist. What if wealthy humans are infected with these?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Like "meths," from Altered Carbon?
| shagie wrote:
| There's a bit of a story there...
| http://thequackdoctor.com/index.php/eat-eat-eat-those-notori...
| iamcurious wrote:
| Interesting. If that were true, you would see a sudden
| youthfulness in CEOs, like regaining lost hair.
| djrogers wrote:
| But they will be basically stoned, and won't care about
| working anymore, so they'll be ex-CEOs.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Unless the people around them behave like the uninfected
| ants and just worship them 24/7.
| felipemnoa wrote:
| I know a guy who elicits this sort of worship here in the
| USA.
| DFHippie wrote:
| I think I know the guy. He could hold a lot of tapeworms.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Well, we already use botox.
| vmception wrote:
| Not really pointing at wealthy humans but I would wager that
| there are a variety of probable microbe combinations that
| predictably influence human behavior
|
| Between toxoplasmosis from cats that give us more affinity to
| them at the expense of human relationships, and other unknown
| gut microbes, its very likely that even selfish behaviors or
| perhaps empathy are driven by these things
|
| Adds another dimension to the "nature" part of the nature vs
| nurture observation
| wonminute wrote:
| It reminds me of this story. Basically, a healthy host is in the
| parasite's best interest...
| https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/magazine/the-parasite-und...
| dham wrote:
| Same with a virus. A virus doesn't want to kill the host. A
| deadly virus is an unsuccessful virus
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Viruses are a little different, though. Retroviruses aside,
| viruses spread as much and as fast as possible; any mutation
| that makes them spread more slowly is crowded out, evolution
| style.
|
| So long as it can spread between hosts well enough, a deadly
| virus is a _very successful_ virus - up until it 's driven
| its host species to local extinction.
| DFHippie wrote:
| The deadliness of a virus doesn't assist its spread. The
| deadliness doesn't make it more or less successful,
| everything else being equal, but usually dead hosts are
| hosts that don't continue to spread the virus, so things
| aren't equal. In most cases deadliness in viruses is
| selected out precisely in order to increase their spread.
| seppin wrote:
| Not unless it spread to other hosts first.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| I'd love to read a follow-up of those folks, now that it's been
| some years. Does anyone know of such an article?
| [deleted]
| mrfusion wrote:
| Have they tried introducing these worms into drosophila or even
| mice? I'd be curious what the effect would be.
|
| Also what effect does it have in the birds that carry it?
| iamcurious wrote:
| On the first question, my guess is that it activates queen like
| behavior on a default ant. So it's not actually giving it
| powers beyond its species, just reconfiguring the particular
| setup.
| amelius wrote:
| What if it's a male ant?
| usefulcat wrote:
| According to Wikipedia, in larger colonies most ants are
| sterile, wingless females:
|
| "Larger colonies consist of various castes of sterile,
| wingless females, most of which are workers (ergates), as
| well as soldiers (dinergates) and other specialised
| groups."
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Yes, the parent poster understood that, and was asking
| about the males specifically _because_ they are
| relatively rare.
| DFHippie wrote:
| There's a Futurama episode that anticipated this. Fry eats an egg
| salad sandwich from a truck stop restroom vending machine and
| acquires a parasitic worm infection that gives him super powers.
| Haga wrote:
| Simpsons did it.
|
| Futurama foretold it.
| gumby wrote:
| The word "parasite" seemed odd to me: at first blush they seem
| symbiotic: the ant gets the tapeworm; what it eats feeds the
| tapeworm too, and the ant gets a long and pampered existence.
| This, truly, is a symbiotic, not parasitic relationship.
|
| However, it may be good for a single ant, but if you view the
| entire colony as an organism, what the tapeworm does is transform
| its host into a parasite upon the colony (this is mentioned in
| the article too). Thus, by transitivity, one might consider the
| tapeworm a parasite, not upon its host organism itself but upon
| the colony. Quite interesting.
|
| BTW parasite was an actual job in Roman times, though a non-
| medical one.
| huachimingo wrote:
| Like in Metal Gear Solid!
| gaoshan wrote:
| Some interesting parallels to us. Sounds like the infected ants
| could be described as their colony's "job creators".
| codeflo wrote:
| Not a biologist, but my impression is that in some of ways,
| individual ants behave more like cells in a multi-celled organism
| than individual animals. The hive is the organism. (The analogy
| is certainly not perfect.)
|
| Considering that, I don't find this paradoxical at all, still
| very fascinating. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong,
| but I think cancer also in some sense helps the individual cell
| at the cost of the organism. For example, cancers induce the
| formation of cappilaries to get more nutrients -- not so
| dissimilar from these infected ants inducing other ants to feed
| them.
| minxomat wrote:
| > The hive is the organism.
|
| Literally part of the article.
| lisper wrote:
| > The analogy is certainly not perfect
|
| Why not? Because this is exactly right.
|
| Note that all sexually reproducing organisms are like this: a
| single individual cannot reproduce. And for social animals like
| humans, a single mating pair cannot reproduce in the wild. (If
| you doubt this, watch a couple of episodes of "Naked and
| Afraid.) The minimal viable reproductive unit for humans is a
| tribe or village of a few dozen individuals.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Yes this is basically cancer, minus the "middle class" ants
| being infertile. There are virus-induced cancers too, which we
| should probably reconsider as a form of selfish mutualism in
| light of this.
| slver wrote:
| Most species have social behavior and live in groups, to
| different degrees. Individuals in a society and cells in an
| organism are also analogous.
|
| So while you're right to call them acting like cells in
| organism, I'm uncertain what "than individual animals" would
| mean.
| samatman wrote:
| While this is true, eusociality is fairly distinctive. The
| part where most of the colony _can 't_ breed is what really
| stands out.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality
|
| This does make individual hymenopterans less like individuals
| of other species, which are in competition with others of the
| same gametes for the privilege of breeding and the survival
| of their offspring.
|
| Hymenopterans are more individual than slime molds: they're
| multicellular, have their own organs, and so on. But less
| individual than any other form of multicellular animal life.
| It isn't altruistic, in a Darwinian sense, for a drone to
| give its life for the colony, because it isn't able to breed,
| the only way it can pass on its genome is by protecting the
| queen.
|
| I'm pretty confident what was meant is "than more
| individualistic animals".
| tuxie_ wrote:
| Do they play the holophonor too?
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| https://archive.is/VdYyq
| korse wrote:
| And this is how you get Goa'uld...
| billytetrud wrote:
| Aren't they symbiotic if they're doing this rather than
| parasites?
| bencollier49 wrote:
| It's weird. Symbiotic to the ant; parasitic to the hive.
|
| But then the ant isn't the reproductive unit.
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