
The wonderful world of insects - overwhelm
https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?3973
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proc0
"The big question here is how the wasp mother can control the ladybug,
transforming her into a zombie babysitter... The answer is that the wasp
mother injects the ladybug not just with the egg but also with a virus. "

This strengthens my belief that insects are like tiny little robots.

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gwern
The really interesting question is why don't we see these amazingly detailed
and precise parasitic mechanisms elsewhere, like in mammals? Are we just doing
a terrible job of finding them, or is there something more interesting going
on? Del Giudice recently published a paper arguing that the baroque complexity
of non-insect nervous systems may in part be an anti-parasite mechanism, by
making it too hard for a distributed group of small simple parasites to find
hacks: "Invisible Designers: Brain Evolution Through the Lens of Parasite
Manipulation"
[https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/selection/2019-delguidic...](https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/selection/2019-delguidice.pdf)
, Del Giudice 2019 (discussion: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/08/19/maybe-
your-zoloft-stop...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/08/19/maybe-your-zoloft-
stopped-working-because-a-liver-fluke-tried-to-turn-your-nth-great-
grandmother-into-a-zombie/) ).

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woliveirajr
Toxoplasmosis is (not) your friend here [0]

[0] [https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/toxoplasmosis...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/toxoplasmosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20356249)

~~~
gwern
Toxo is the exception that proves the rule here. Toxo is perhaps the best
known example of any parasite having human behavioral effects, yet the causal
role of toxo is still not accepted, and what it's postulated to affect is
pretty random: schizophrenia, car accidents, that sort of thing. That doesn't
look like _any_ kind of planned behavioral control which might affect toxo
reproduction. It just looks like a parasite causing some damage post-
infection. It's unclear if it even manages to replicate the mouse effect of
making humans more attracted to cats (since we contract it mostly from cats,
obvious confound). You certainly cannot compare its capabilities, in rodents
or primates, to the astonishingly precise and complicated behaviors that
insect parasites can orchestrate. And it's not like humans in the wild don't
host plenty of parasites!

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videogreg93
Has anyone read this book? I've been having a craving these days for books on
animals, having just finished "The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs", and this looks
pretty good.

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jcims
Lots of underrated beauty in the insect world as well. Check out the last
series of images in this video about manual focus stacking for short dof shots
- [https://youtu.be/2GmQ2Hj9WOs?t=198](https://youtu.be/2GmQ2Hj9WOs?t=198)

Another one from the same guy, have to poke around -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmMcCjEU68Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmMcCjEU68Y)

Lots more of these kinds of vids on youtube of course...

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11235813213455
Some tiny wasps are used for pest control in farms, natural and clean way

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low_code
To borrow a line from Spock: 'Fascinating...'

