If Kyliegh Curran could describe her experience in Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, she would say ‘exciting.’ Curran just started the press tour for The Shining sequel and chatted with multiple outlets all week. It was only during this time, it hit Curran that she was starring in a major motion picture. “It was kind of […]

It’s difficult to imagine a more grotesque idiosyncrasy of life than cannibalism. Eating the flesh of one’s own species is not only intuitively disgusting, but there are even more downsides to the act than you’ve probably imagined. However, when it came to a colony of wood ants that made its home in and around a former nuclear weapons bunker in Poland, cannibalism not only helped the insects to survive, but thrive. And now, for whatever reason, scientists have brought most of them back to Earth’s surface.

A look at the hole through which the worker ants fell. Wojciech Stephan

Newsweek reported on the cannibal ants’ return to the surface, which was enabled by a group of Polish researchers led by Professor Wojciech Czechowski of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. In a recently published paper in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research, Czechowski et al. discuss the peculiar “colony” of Formica polyctena (wood ants), which was trapped for years inside of the defunct bunker once used to house nuclear weapons. (Colony is in quotations because this massive group of ants only contained workers.)

The wood plank researchers installed in order to evacuated the fallen worker ants. Wojciech Stephan

The authors of the paper note that the subterranean colony of wood ants was an offshoot of another colony that was built in the outdoors, around a ventilation pipe that still extends down into the former nuclear weapons bunker. While the complete upper colony was being built, worker ants would continuously fall down the ventilation pipe, subsequently increasing the new colony’s population size over time. Except, in order for that to happen, the ants needed food, which they didn’t have. But they did have each other’s corpses. The researchers note, by the way, that they could tell that cannibalism was the insect snack du jour because of the fact that many of the ant corpses had holes eaten into their abdomens, or were missing their abdomens altogether.

Cut to today, and the colony, which once contained roughly a million members, has now been almost entirely evacuated. This is thanks to the installation of a wooden board that has allowed most of the trapped ants to reenter the ventilation pipe, and ultimately rejoin the original colony. It’s unclear why exactly the researchers felt the need to evacuate the cannibal ants from their nightmarish underground home, but putting a stop to their twisted dietary dynamic seems like reason enough.

A close-up look at Formica polyctena. Michal Kukla

And for those wondering why researchers would bother studying these ants at all, the authors note that this “case adds a dimension to the great adaptive ability of ants to marginal habitats and suboptimal conditions… as the key to understanding their unquestionable eco-evolutionary success.” Presumably there are some things people could learn from this extraordinary adaptability, although if things ever get this bad for the human race, let’s all hope that aliens or robots come along with a metaphorical wooden board to save us before we turn to munching on each other’s abdomens.

What do you think of researchers releasing a million cannibal ants from a Polish nuclear weapons bunker? Are you glad they’re finally free, or should they have been left in their hole considering how well their population was doing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Header Image: Wojciech Stephan

The post Up to 1,000,000 Cannibal Ants Released from Nuclear Bunker in Poland appeared first on Nerdist.

To countdown to the release of Frozen II, we are providing all of you with an inside look at the making of the movie, as well as interviews with the filmmakers and artists who worked incredibly hard to bring Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Sven, and, of course, Olaf to life. Earlier this week, we brought you a […]

Miss Angela Bassett’s hubby, respected actor Courtney B. Vance, is the new SAG-AFTRA Foundation President succeeding actor JoBeth Williams.

After 10 years in the position, JoBeth Williams is retiring as President and Courtney B. Vance has been named as her successor.

According to Deadline, Vance will begin his tenure with the launch of the foundation’s first ever Entertainment Industry Council, which will advise the foundation on its work to support performers in all stages of their career. It will work in partnership with the foundation’s Actors Council, whose members serve as advisors and supporters.

The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is an American labor union representing approximately 160,000 film and television actors, journalists, radio personalities, recording artists, singers, voice actors, and other media professionals worldwide.

His hire represents the next phase in a plan to make the SAG-AFTRA Foundation “part of the industry fabric,” Vance tells Variety, after a decade of infrastructure development under Williams. Vance is also working on J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele’s Lovecraft Country for HBO.

Courtney B. Vance will appear in the upcoming Universal Pictures film The Photograph. The film also stars Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield. The romance tells the story of a woman who must learn from the secrets in her mother’s past if she is to move forward and allow herself to love and be loved.

The post Courtney B. Vance is the New SAG-AFTRA Foundation President appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.