[ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world

[spike]

> On Behalf Of spike
> ...
> 
> For tiny bio-robots, ants are a good choice, hard to beat: 
> they reproduce quickly, and they are already preadapted for 
> doing some curious behavior when the appropriate chemical 
> signal is present.
> 
> spike

Or think of this: imagine ants could be trained to take threads of aramid
fiber, and walk along an ordinary thin wire of some sort, or even a string,
place the aramid fiber somewhere along the string, tack down one end with
some kind of epoxy material, then stick it down along the length of the
string every few cm.  Jillions of the little bastards keep adding more and
more aramid fibers and tacking them in place until they evolve a structural
element of astoundng tensile strength.  They grow a kevlar rope. 

Or how about having them carry radio frequency identifier tags, then wander
about inside the walls of a house known to have termites.  If they encounter
the termite nest, the termite soldiers slay the ant, which then makes the
RFID tag stop wandering.  If a number of the tags seem to be stopping in one
place, we know that is a suspected termite area, so we get a magnetron tube,
perhaps scrounged from an old microwave oven, and cook the damn termites in
the wall without poisons or other expenses.

Or perhaps we could figure out how to program the mandibled beasts to go out
and remove shell weed from the rye fields.  If so, what would we call them?
Shell weed ants?  (No thanks, I think I will sit this one out.)

{8^D

Darwin would be so impressed.  (With the ants, not the wordplay.)

spike