Free Republic

Researchers studying the social behavior of ants have found that a single gene underlies both the aggressive behavior of the ant colony’s soldiers and the food gathering behavior of its foraging caste. The gene is active in soldier ants, particularly in five neurons in the front of their brain, where it generates large amounts of its product, a protein known as PKG. The exact amount of the protein in the ants’ brains is critical to their behavior. Low levels of PKG predispose both castes of ant to foraging; high levels make the soldiers fight and the foraging caste less interested...

Welcome to the 2006 thread of the Merry Band of Patriots! Our grassroots, volunteer group of troop supporters has been sending care packages to servicemen and women in war zones since the summer of 2001 when we began by sending VHS movies and Snickers candy bars to the 101st Airborne and then later the 10th Mountain at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. This last year we sent a couple hundred care packages to troops at Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul and Tal Afar in Iraq, at Bagram in Afghanistan, at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and to our wounded at Landstuhl Regional Hospital in...

I've got a bunch of Christmas cards ("proudly MADE in the U.S.A.") that will be going with the last Christmas care packages for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with candy canes and other goodies, and I need some fun jokes to go in them! Please both post your joke here and then send a copy to me by FReepmail with your first name, town and State at the bottom. I'll print them up and tuck them in the last 4 or 5 dozen cards going out tomorrow and Tuesday.