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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Zombie ants have fungus on the brain


Zombie ants have fungus on the brain

Zombie ants have fungus on the brain
Tropical carpenter ants (Camponotus leonardi) live high up in the rainforest canopy. When infected by a parasitic fungus (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) the behaviour of the ants is dramatically changed. They become erratic and zombie-like, and are manipulated by the fungus into dying at a spot that provides optimal conditions for fungal reproduction. New research, published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology, looks at altered behaviour patterns in Zombie ants in Thailand and shows how the fungus manipulates ant behaviour.

A multinational team of scientists investigated O. unilateralis infected carpenter ants in Thailand's rainforest. The growing fungus fills the ant's body and head causing muscles to atrophy and forcing muscle fibres apart. The fungus also affects the ant's central nervous system and while normal worker ants rarely left the trail, zombie ants walked in a random manner, unable to find their way home. The ants also suffered convulsions which caused them to fall to the ground. Once on the ground the ants were unable to find their way back to the canopy and remained at a lower, leafy, 'understory' which, at about 25cm above the soil was cooler and moister than the canopy, provided ideal conditions for the fungus to thrive.

At solar noon (when the sun is at its strongest) the fungus synchronised ant behaviour, forcing infected ants to bite the main vein on the underside of a leaf. The multiplying fungal cells in the ant's head cause fibres within the muscles that open and close the ant's mandibles to become detached. This results in 'lock jaw' which means that an infected ant is unable to release the leaf even after death. A few days later the fungus generates a fruiting body (stroma) from the ant's head which releases spores to be picked up by another wandering ant.

Dr David Hughes, from Penn State University, said, "The fungus attacks the ants on two fronts. Firstly by using the ant as a walking food source, and secondly by damaging muscle and the ant's central nervous system, resulting in zombie walking and the death bite, which place the ant in the cool damp understory. Together these provide the perfect environment for fungal growth and reproduction. This behaviour of infected ants is essentially an extended phenotype of the fungus (fungal behaviour through the ant's body) as non-infected ants never behave in this way". 

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Ias Exam , amazing answers

Awesome Answers In IAS Examination

Q. How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it?
A. Concrete floors are very hard to crack! (UPSC Topper)

Q. If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?
A. No time at all it is already built. (UPSC 23rd Rank Opted for IFS)

Q. If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand and four apples and three oranges in the other hand, what would you have?
A. Very large hands. (Good one) (UPSC 11 Rank Opted for IPS)

Q. How can you lift an elephant with one hand?
A. you will never find an elephant with one hand. (UPSC Rank 14 Opted for IES)

Q. How can a man go eight days without sleep?
A. No Probs, He sleeps at night. (UPSC IAS Rank 98)

Q. If you throw a red stone into the blue sea what it will become?
A. It will Wet or Sink as simple as that. (UPSC IAS Rank 2)

Q. What looks like half apple ?
A: The other half. (UPSC - IAS Topper )

Q. What can you never eat for breakfast?
A: Dinner.

Q. Bay of Bengal is in which state?
A: Liquid (UPSC 33 Rank)

Interviewer said"I shall either ask you ten easy questions or one really difficult question. Think well before you make up your mind!"The boy thought for a while and said,"my choice is one really difficult question.""Well, good luck to you, you have made your own choice! Now tell me this.
"What comes first, Day or Night?"
The boy was jolted into reality as his admission depends on the correctness of his answer, but he thought for a while and said,"It's the DAY sir!"
"How"the interviewer asked.
"Sorry sir, you promised me that you will not ask me a SECOND difficult question!"
He was selected for IIM!

Technical Skill is the mastery of complexity, while Creativity is the master of presence of mind.
This is a famous paper written for an Oxford philosophy exam, normally requiring an eight page essay answer and expected to be backed up with source material, quotes and analytical reasoning. This guy wrote the below answer and topped the exam!

* OXFORD EXAMINATION BOARD 1987* *ESSAY QUESTION*
Question: What is courage? (50 Marks)
Answer (After 7 blank pages, at the end of the last page…): This is courage

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

IJSO stage 1 results are wrong

I don't know what is going on to India , Since there is corruption in India in politics
In India corruption is increasing day by day faster and faster and here is another example out of 314 selections from all over India in NSEJS 286 are selected from Andhra Pradesh which is very strange as it seems like all the sharp brains of India belong to Andhra Pradesh only.
As we can see in the result list 94 students are from 1 center
AP014
Ratna Junior College
3-4-634/1, Narayanaguda
Hyderabad
Andhra Pradesh PIN 500029
Attn:G. Srinivas
which is quite impossible
At last I want to say that IAPT officials should analyse the OMRs and past acaedmic record of those students and should take a strict action against the student and the center and the invigilators


ANDHRA PARDESH

286

Madhya PARDESH

8

DELHI

7

RAJASTHAN

4

MAHARASHTRA

2

JHARKHAND

2

UTTAR PRADESH

1

WEST BENGAL

1

TAMILNADU

1

KARNATAKA

1

PUNJAB

1

TOTAL

314






NSEJS SOLUTION
View more documents from Shivang Jindal.








If you had noticed from centre ap014 , there are 94 selection , and from state rajasthan there are just 4 selection
Acoording to my experience from 1centre where 100 students have given the paper out of which there are 94 selection , whereas   from various 27 states of india , mostly 10000 students have given paper there are no selection . it is not possible to have so much students from 1 centre , I agree that andhra pardesh students are brilliant , but Rajasthan - Kerala - Delhi , these states are also have brilliant and outstanding students
I think that this can only be possible if there is mass cheating or paper leak or teacher being telling the answer
Now you will say , result is being displayed now what can we do ?
But this is not the point , these students will represent the country , outside the India , now if the team has 6 players and no one can battle then their is no chance of winning the game , so i want that their should be fair result , or recheck of the omr shoould be done

What if that omr are correct ?
yes omr can be correct , If thire is mass cheating or paper leak

so what

what we can do is that we can see the post paper results of the student , weather he has qualified in any other olympiad , ntse , or has scored very good marks in school




what i want from you ?

share this post to facebook and mail here


the email id of iapt officials are 

mdm@hbcse.tifr.res.in; nbhm@math.tifr.res.in; sharadsane@gmail.com; iapt@vsnl.net; rdharkar@vsnl.com; hcp@hbcse.tifr.res.in; nc_olympiad@hbcse.tifr.res.in



Hint , you can post these thinks

"This is to bring in your notice that as the NSEJS results are out IN total there are 314 students selected and 286 let me repeat 286 selections are from Andhra pradesh(which is absolute rubbish). Alright we agree that they are brilliant and they got selected in NSEJS but if we check out their past record - no one ,NO ONE out of those 286 students were qualified for NTSE and the CBSE record is also not good. So what do you think that their soul wake up and they are able to score more than 150 in such a tough compitition.
The team that is going to represent India is not good (as per many of the other person too) because A WORLDCUP TEAM IS NOTHING WITHOUT A WORLDCUP TEAM.
At last I would like to say that there should be something done by the authorized people who should investigate in this issue.



In India corruption is increasing day by day faster and faster and here is another example out of 314 selections from all over India in NSEJS 286 are selected from Andhra Pradesh which is very strange as it seems like all the sharp brains of India belong to Andhra Pradesh only.
As we can see in the result list 94 students are from 1 center
AP014
Ratna Junior College
3-4-634/1, Narayanaguda
Hyderabad
Andhra Pradesh PIN 500029
Attn:G. Srinivas
which is quite impossible
At last I want to say that IAPT officials should analyse the OMRs and past acaedmic record of those students and should take a strict action against the student and the center and the invigilators



IAPT has declared the NSEJS stage 1 result. A total of 314 students are selected from India out of which 286 selections ( more than 91 percent ) from a single state Andhra Pradesh, which clearly highlights the abnormality in the conduction of this examination. These stats are enough indication how ill managed system this is. Either the questions were leaked to students before the exam (the papers reach to schools a week back and schools conduct the paper itself with out any supervision) or mass cheating could be other possibility. We have never seen such a skewed ratio in any other examination conducted across India. Last year the the cut off for this examination was around 120, however this year the students of other states who were scoring 150 around are not getting selected. 
IAPT should spend some time on introspection where they are going wrong in the conduction of the exam. People selected only in stage 1 are going to represent India, if we are going to have inferior lot selected in stage1 examination; this is going tarnish the image of the Country.





thanks for your support
thanks a lot