The Jaws of an Ant's Life
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2021
⏱️ 45 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
The snapping of the trap-jaw ant's jaw is one of the fastest animal movements known to man—approximately three times as fast as the fastest cheetah. This mechanism is not only used for catching prey, but for moving away from potential predators. How?
Tune in for answers to this question and more, including:
- What worker ants do with an ant once it dies
- What ant behaviors can alter gene expression such that an egg results in a queen instead of a worker ant
- What important ecological roles are fulfilled by ants
It wasn't until Magdalena Sorger had nearly completed business school that she discovered her true passion: biology and the study of evolution—particularly of insects, and even more particularly, of ants. As an adjunct researcher with North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences & North Carolina State University, currently stationed in Vienna, Austria, Sorger focuses her efforts on two general areas within the field of ants: research on speciation (i.e., what differentiates one ant species from another), and working with students and teachers to promote citizen science, especially with regard to ants.
She shares his expertise on all things ants, discussing topics such as the ant mating process and reproduction, RFID and other tracking methods for studying ant colonies, the ant life cycle and social behavior of ants, the ecological role of ants, and the direction of future research.
Interested in learning more? Check out https://theantlife.com/ and https://discoverants.com/.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Forget frequently asked questions common sense common knowledge or Google how about advice from a real genius |
| 0:06.7 | 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed 5% go and beyond. They become very good at what they do. |
| 0:15.0 | But only 0.1% are real Jesus. |
| 0:18.2 | Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. |
| 0:22.3 | He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field, |
| 0:25.0 | sleep science, cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more. Here come the geniuses. |
| 0:30.3 | This is the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:33.0 | That is Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:35.0 | Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:41.0 | I have Magdalena Sorger. She's a research adjunct, part of the |
| 0:44.6 | North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and part of North Carolina State |
| 0:48.6 | University. We're going to talk about ants. So Magdalana, thanks for coming. |
| 0:53.2 | Thanks for having me. |
| 0:54.4 | Yeah, tell me about your research and your work. |
| 0:56.8 | I'm currently a research adjunct with the museum at the university, |
| 1:01.8 | but I'm currently stationed in Vienna in Austria. |
| 1:05.6 | So I'm kind of doing a long distance thing or kind of figuring out what I'm doing. |
| 1:10.9 | So I guess I want to talk about what I've been doing at the museum and how I'm finding my way into what I'm doing now. |
| 1:18.0 | So at the museum I used to work with teachers to bring ants and citizen science into classrooms. |
| 1:25.0 | So I guess that's already a bunch of things. |
| 1:27.4 | I don't know, maybe I should talk about citizen science or do you, have you heard |
| 1:31.0 | Well, yeah, what is citizen science and then we'll get more into the specifics of the ants? |
... |
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