Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same interrelated colony, and will refuse to fight one another.

The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.

What’s more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together.

Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica.

[...]

In Europe, one vast colony of Argentine ants is thought to stretch for 6,000km (3,700 miles) along the Mediterranean coast, while another in the US, known as the ‘Californian large’, extends over 900km (560 miles) along the coast of California. A third huge colony exists on the west coast of Japan.

The article goes on to say that this mega-colony of ants won’t attack each other. They’re all friends. From Japan to Europe to the US. They like each other. The antageddon is upon us. Here we thought robots would be our downfall.

For a better idea on how the world will end, follow the jump.

Well, not exactly like that. Instead of giganticized crushing death, it will be the death by one billion bites.

(via bbc, @deepeight)

You did?

Ok, smarty. Did you also know that wallabies tend to eat this opium and run around in circles afterwards til they crash?

“The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” Lara Giddings told the hearing.

“Then they crash,” she added. “We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.”

(via bbc and someone on Twitter. We forgot exactly who.)

Panel & Pixel’s Cover Action thread rises from the pit of despair and hits us with Obama joke covers by BOMB QUEEN’s creator, Jimmie Robinson.

For those of you just tuning in, these are the things you need to know:

• Over the last few months we’ve noticed comics publishers are not immune to “The Obama Effect.” tracking this effect has become a new obsession of ours.
• BOMB QUEEN is about “a villainess who has eliminated and subsequently banned all superheroes from the fictional city of New Port City. She rules the city as a benevolent dictator; the limitations she has placed over the city’s criminals have made her a popular leader.”
• Mr. Robinson was kind enough to let us post both covers on this site.

One thing we’re required to ask is, “Why aren’t you reading BOMB QUEEN?” Issue one is up for the reading on Robinson’s Comics Space. You have no excuse now.

The last we read was these covers were green-lit and are going to press.

(via panel & pixel, jimmie robinson, special thanks to the Alex Files for explaining what “cannot” be done.)

When thinking on all the comics to movies projects that’s hit the screens in the last few years, we discovered we couldn’t think of a one to hit the screen this summer. Sure, Transformers 2 and GI Joe have had many turns as comic book series, but the truth is we can’t be bothered with their movie counterparts. A quick shout out to Twitter taught us all we needed to know.

SURROGATES, a Bruce Willis helmed film based on the Top Shelf Productions comic of the same name.

In the year 2017 humans live in isolation and interact only via robotic bodies that serve as surrogates. Several humans are murdered when their surrogates are destroyed, and cop (Bruce Willis) investigates the crimes through his own surrogate. After a near fatal encounter, his surrogate is destroyed, which forces him to bring his human form out of isolation and unravel a conspiracy behind the crimes.

The viral site is up. This, of course, means that you can create your own surrogate.

There’s a trailer after the jump.

Technically SURROGATES is a Fall 2009 event. It’s also on the short list of the only science fiction to cross our laptop that looks halfway decent. If only Rantz’s Longbox Digital Comics were active now. That would make researching comics source material a helluva lot easier.

In the beginning, his music was fun and revolutionary. That’s the MJ we mourn.

Thanks to Boingboing for the surreal Pepsi commercial.

MTVMusic.com has the Ultimate Playlist.

And then there was You Tube.

(via every damn where and boingboing)

Here in North Alabama, one man is making sure every Iranian citizen has the opportunity to be heard.

He has helped set up a web site for citizen journalists in Iran. It has several safeguards to protect people’s identities, allowing them to speak freely about their experiences in a country where repression of journalists is all too common.

Hey! We know that guy (@joshmull) and we could not be prouder.

• http://aliveintehran.org/
• http://twitter.com/AliveInTehran
• http://twitpic.com/photos/madyar (Warning: Some of the pics are graphic.)

The WAAY TV coverage is just a click away.

(via @joshmull, waff)

Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis was a graphic novel long before it became a movie. We have yet to experience either media. Persepolis is about “a young woman growing up in a changing Iran.” Given the current Iran election turmoil, it seemed the least we could do was bring the book back into the public eye.

…amidst the current chaos surrounding the Iranian election results, Satrapi stood alonside Mohsen Makhmalbaf, filmmaker and spokesman for opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, at the European Parliament to protest the results, with a document claiming to throw serious doubt on the numbers.

A new comic is sure to follow. Looks like we have some reading and netflixing to do.

(via bleeding cool)

“A Kiss From Tokyo” Theatrical trailer from Stephane coedel on Vimeo.

“A Kiss From Tokyo“, Theatrical Trailer (1964) – Yuki 7 dashes around the world in hot pursuit of the tantalizingly tricky Diamond Eye, who is stealing parts and plans and leaving behind a path of murdered scientists in her quest to build a missile inside her volcanic lair.

A secret agent lady running around in her lingerie. She’s a bit gun crazy, as all attractive young spies must be. Her clothes fall at the drop of seduction. Her book is available for pre-order at Fleet Street Scandal.

We must say that this is the classiest comic book trailer that’s ever met our eyes.

(via sidebar nation, fleet street scandal)

The LongBox Project came to our attention during our tenure on Panel & Pixel. The forum where professional artists and writers mingle with us lowly beginners and tell us what is what. Rantz Hoseley is P&P’s host. last year, he let slip some new project that would bring comics to your personal computing devices. We investigated but could find only a short interview on the matter.

Now Heroes Con has come and gone, and it has brought forth everything we needed to know about The Long Box Project from the man himself.

Longbox, a digital comics platform similar to iTunes, is expected to launch later this year as a free download for Mac, PC, and Linux. Developed by Quicksilver Software, Longbox comics can be download for a suggested price point of $.99 per issue, with the potential for block and subscription pricing. The first two publishers confirmed for Longbox are Top Cow and BOOM! Studios.

The BOOM! Studios participation means a very special website CEO will have all the Eureka comics his bank account will allow. The Farscape books we wants to hold in our hands, precious.

Because a wider audience is not going to be reached by Spider-Man or Batman or ‘Irredeemable’ or any other superhero book no matter how well done it is. They’re going to be reached by things like Bryan Lee O’Malley’s work, or the large numbers of independent books by people like the Hernandez Brothers. They’re more into what people look for in other forms of entertainment, and really positing it instead as, rather than it being ‘comics’ (with the big Pow! balloon around it) and the weight of preconceptions related to superhero comics, it really becomes a matter of [being] portable, affordable entertainment. People can find stories that they really engage with and that they find entertaining and that they go back to time and time again.”

We suggest you read the entire interview over at CBR. This has the potential to be a game changer, people. Imagine it: an I KILL GIANTS on every iPhone and a Muppet Show on every portable tablet device.

(via @hellomuller, CBR)

(via ontd)