In which gentleman scholar and committed insect-botherer Sir John Lubbock observes what happens when ants are forcibly plied with alcohol. Sober ants who encountered inebriated counterparts from the same nest were more likely to move their hive-mate to safety to sleep off the effects of their imposed bender. Ants from other nests were more likely to be moved ‘to water’. (Or in other, less euphemistic words: drowned.)
In an 1877Popular Science article describing the experiment, Lubbock complained about the difficulty of getting his myrmecological specimens suitably liquored up. It was not easy in all cases to hit off the requisite degree of this compulsory intoxication, he wrote. (Lubbock would spend the following year experimenting with the effects of slipping roofies to woodlice.)
It’s good to see Hollywood finally recognising the dramatic potential of a movie about co-operative shadow puppetry.
Oh, It’s Just an 8 x Life-size Colour Pencil Rendering of Page 1 of The New York Times, 11/09/2001. Luke Hand, pencil on paper, 2011
As the Ninth Doctor himself might have said, “Give the man a medal”.
In case it’s not immediately apparent, that’s a Pacman sculpted from canned food. The cans were later distributed to food bank charities as part of the annual Canstruction competition.
Even Ian Fleming would have baulked at using this title. Though surely he would’ve been within his rights to sue: the strapline even refers to an ‘Agent 0008’ (“Yeah, chuck an extra zero on. Oh, and change the ‘7’ to an ‘8’ while you’re at it. What? Well, no. Not a lawyer exactly.”)
Either the photo on the cover is genuine documentary evidence or the art director has an uncanny eye for verisimilitude, because those dudes look exactly right.
