h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Actually, more seriously, they do breed a lot of fruit flys for population genetics studies and other things, inbreeding them gives pure lines, but sometimes has the consequence of producing mutant forms; I have seen the two-headed fruit fly on several ocassions, unfortunatly they don't live too long because of the mutation::
Now, if they could breed insects that can find the open-half of an half-opened window, and leave the room, without assistance from rolled-up newspaper, that would be

Ok smarty pants Lara Croft trained ant, what yer gonna do about this!

(produces hungry looking Ant Eater with a flourish)

*feeds the anteater jellybabies*

Aww, isn't he cute. Nice try, Stu, but Asteroid Lil and Garius Lupus tried that during the presidential election campaign last year. If they can't do it, you can't.

What is, was, the Ant trained to do???

What /isn't/ the ant trained to do?

*Stu struts over to Amy oni-ant In Indiana Jones oufit (pre Lara Croft and therefore the original and best crime / Nazi / ant fighting archaeologist)complete with bull whip and hat*

If there's anything I hate more than snakes it's ants

*close up of lop sided grin*
Battle ensues with loads of really expensive special effects explosions for no apparant reason etc. uses the bull whip on the ant.

Do you really think all those expensive special effects were called for?

Well, I enjoyed them! It's all done with computers, of course.

'Ere, does that man have a licence for that bull whip? Still, it's not an instrument noted for it finesse... and he missed me, of course.



*finds a nice to sit on whilst listening to the rest of this conversation*

Indy Gives up, he knows when he is beaten. (and the entire movie budget was used up on the special effects to make up for a non existant story line, so nothing new there then).

If the scientists could increase the size of an ant to say, horse size given the proportional strength and speed of the ant. We could well save the planet from extinction though polution, as we wouldn't need motor vehicles etc. We could also use giant grass hoppers for long haul flights. And get rid of Joan Collins for good, I'm sure I've seen her in an awful movie where she gets attacked by a giant ant
or should that be gi-ant. Do a proper job this time.

But surely, bigger ants would respire at a hugely increased rate, thus producing CO2 anyhow?

* s giant cockroach

Problem is, proportional strength is because the ant is so small. If you scaled-up an ant to even just a foot tall, its legs would break under its own weight because its weight would increae twice as fast as the structural support of its legs.

But what about my giant Cockroach?

* s cockroach even closer

Will she be alright?

Are you fond of Cockroaches in general, or one in particular?

I like the way they crack then squelch when you tred on them.
Like stepping on a little water balloon.


And with the ant problem just splice a couple of genes together to give 'em stronger legs, or keep ants the same size and insead of a petrol engine have an ant engine, some sort of treadmill thingy.

(You can tell I've really thought long and hard about this haven't I?)
*Heavy sarcasm*

How about crutches for the giant ants?

Anyway, I just found out that there exists such a thing as chocolate eating moths. Now that is just cruel!

Perhaps they should make chocolate covered moths for owls with a sweet tooth ( or beak ).

How about little trolley things for the giant ants, they could use their legs to propel themselves around then.

Does the chocolate have to be smeared on a light bulb?

I think you can already buy chocolate covered insects. But I don´t want to eat them.

You haven't lived if you haven't eaten a fryed locus dipped in chockalate.

Cockroaches; the ones I like are the giant hissing cockroaches; they have some at the lab in my last University; they didn't experiment on them though; I think they were just pets; but boy do they smell, and I (foolishly) offered to help the technition clean out their tank; just so I could handle the loverly things; but the smell nearly turned my stomache; and yes they do really hiss quite loudly.

This may be important, they (you know THEM )may have found out we're talking about them. I came back from lunch today to find my office over run with flying ants, the little bleeders were everywhere, the secretary had a panic and kept having to brush her hair, even after we'd got rid of or killed all of them.

Just be careful who you talk to, they may be in disguise.