Annalee Newitz 🍜Oct 11

I cannot stop thinking about this paper about how Iberian harvester ants can produce offspring of two entirely different species. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02524-8

cc: @futurebird

Ant queens produce sons of two distinct species

The discovery of an unusual reproductive system for one ant species solves a long-standing puzzle about a missing population of another ant species.

Show threadWinchell Chung ⚛🚀

@annaleen @futurebird

That is just begging to be used in a science fiction story. Because yet again truth is stranger than fiction

Oct 11 at 1:11pmWeb
Show threadmyrmepropagandistOct 11

@nyrath @annaleen

It's in the story I'm working on! Not a major plot point ... but part of the history of the moon ants.

Yes. The moon ants.

But I promise this is a "grounded" SF story.

Show threadWinchell Chung ⚛🚀Oct 11

@futurebird @annaleen

Fantastic! Looking forwards to it.

Show thread0xC0DEC0DE07EAOct 11
@futurebird @nyrath @annaleen grounded, but are you going to have an appendix like Peter Watts where you gesture at how and link to studies
Show threadllewellyOct 11
@futurebird @nyrath @annaleen
I imagine the ants grounded it up by digging a deep hole and sticking a lighting rod in the hole so the current has somewhere to go when the reader is shocked
Show threadCharlie StrossOct 11
@futurebird @nyrath @annaleen It's in my stack of notes for the (currently merely hypothetical) third Authority novel. (It's a space opera setting that isn't in print yet, because I'm working on a huge mid-career pivot back to space opera in the next few years.)
Show threadcpmOct 11

@cstross
awesome!

Stay strong!

looking forward to it

@futurebird @nyrath @annaleen

Show threadAnnalee Newitz 🍜Oct 11
@futurebird @nyrath heck yeah! I should have known you were already on it.
Show threadFranchescaOct 11
@nyrath @annaleen @futurebird Martha Wells wrote a whole series about a civilization that did this cross species thing. I highly recommend.
Show threadCarl (He/Him)Oct 11
@Frantasaur @nyrath @annaleen @futurebird Octavia Butler also had a series that had similarities. Decades ago. Also, she was Octavia Butler. (I love Wells, just bought one of her books. But Butler.)
Show threadFranchescaOct 11
@nitpicking @nyrath @annaleen @futurebird yeh, I have just started on Butler myself, got a lovely hardback box set of the parable of the sower and the parable of the talents. The first one was a really tough read emotionally speaking, so I had to take a break before tackling the second!