Posted on 08/10/2017 12:45:23 PM PDT by Red Badger
Despite what you might've seen in 1950s monster movies, it's difficult to raise mutant ants. For years biologists have altered the genetics of organisms as varied as mice and rice. Mutant fruit flies are a laboratory staple. But ants' complex life cycle hampered efforts to grow genetically engineered ants — until now.
On Thursday, two independent research teams described their work deleting ant genes. Two papers chronicling the first mutant ants appeared in the journal Cell, along with a third study that altered ant behavior using an insect brain hormone.
Claude Desplan, a New York University biologist and an author of one of the studies, said that, as far as he could tell, these ants are “the first mutant in any social insect.”
Ants have complex social roles, even though members of a colony are genetically very similar. Females may be egg-laying queens or sterile workers, colony cleaners or fierce soldiers. Males, who are little more than sperm-delivery systems with wings, appear only seasonally. To ensure the mutant genes carry on, “you need to go through the queen,” Desplan said. “It is not so easy to make queens.”
“There's a lot of interesting biologic questions that you can study with ants that you can’t study with fruit flies or even mice,” said Rockefeller University biologist Daniel Kronauer, an author of the other mutant-ant study. If you throw a thousand fruit flies in a bucket of dirt, maybe they'll fight or copulate, he said. But that's about it. Do the same with ants and they'll set to work digging, caring for broods and foraging. What's more, the insects are prime targets for studies of epigenetics, the external factors that toggle genes on and off....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If they could find a way to exterminate the fire ants it would be worth millions.
I thought of taking the guts of a large microwave oven, wiring it up so that it’s in a steel box you can put on top of the mound and then when they all start swarming out zap them!...................
There's one research facility I wouldn't be opposed to PETA breaking in and destroying all the research subjects.........
That movie was on TCM the other day, and I forgot to tape it.
Coming soon: Alien ant farms, sold by smooth criminals.
WE may be the ones in the glass cages.................
I watched it. Charlton was young and Eleanor was glorious. Great movie for movie fans.
Soon you will have Replicators
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.