This bloke is definately doing it wrong
Slightly influenced by Grinner's earlier post about "flying ants" i decided to Google the subject and found this gem from the BBC website dated 2008.. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7525028.stm

I don't expect you to read it all but there is this in there "Tom Fayle, who is completing a PHD on ants at Cambridge..." it then goes on to quote him as saying something but i couldn't get past the whole completing a PHD on ants at Cambridge

Who the fuck goes to university to get into thousands of pounds worth of debt to study ants?

^{oh bollocks. It's you isn't it Grinner?}
(Boiled_Tater is not the messiah, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 12:32, 15 replies)

To be fair ants are worthy of that and more level of study.
The setup of their social interactions and ecology is incredibly complex and sophisticated for such an apparently basic organism. I did a degree in Zoology and one of the professors was an insect biologist. His specialism was actually dragonflies (and yes he had done a PhD and then some in dragonflies), but he would regularly go off on one about ant behaviour - it's genuinely incredible stuff.
( barryheadwound Mul-ti-pass? Multipass!, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 12:43, closed)

not if they keep
Eating my new Wisteria bush they aren't.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 13:13, closed)

Think my money would be on the ants...

( barryheadwound Mul-ti-pass? Multipass!, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 13:31, closed)

not with the chemicals
I've put down
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 14:10, closed)

Destroyed a colony myself this morning that were in the dog food.
I am a cruel Overlord.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 15:46, closed)

chemicals?
real men hunt them individually, with a magnifying glass
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 15:57, closed)

magnifying glass tiny harpoon and a pack of trained aphids
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 16:22, closed)

I think they really fear biker grasshoppers who fly up from Mexico.

( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 16:37, closed)

Why wouldn't you?
You get paid to do a PhD!
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 14:06, closed)

Pfff
Not when I did it you didn't...

Although that was in black & white and old money etc, etc.
(rockdoctor, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 15:44, closed)

Ants are fascinating
Lewis Thomas's quote comes to mind:
“Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labor, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television.”
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 14:14, closed)

I'm not so sure
I fail to see how the target audience for Reality TV is anything other than social insects.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 15:58, closed)

Knowledge of social insects could be lucrative.
From the simple "organic" pest comtrol type angles to the esoteric AI or "nano swarm" type applications -- I can see it being a lucrative PhD.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 17:45, closed)

Ant TV
Now I've got this idea in my head. Take some film footage of an Ant colony and apply the dialogue from the BigBrother household. Should make some interesting TV. Educational and stupid at the same time.
(Woofie, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 19:18, closed)

I'm sorry, you have me there.
But my study was on the upward social movement of particular ants within their heirachy. NOT the upward draught that carried them aloft and to pastures anew.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Thu 22 Jul 2010, 13:34, closed)