Look out for more environmental disasters like this one

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080514/ap_on_re_us/texas_ants;_ylt=AuhtNcBNyWZaAeEFE7WKTL5H2ocA

Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics

In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

snip

The ants--formallyknown as "paratrenicha species near pubens" -- have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.

snip

"At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed," said Roger Gold, a Texas A&M University entomologist.

The article goes on to say how it is nearly impossible to get rid of colonies, and the harm the insects are doing to native species, as well as the fact the insects like electrical equipment and are shorting out power lines. This sort of problem will only get worse, I fear, since there doesn't seem to be any way to stop their spread. Ants are particularly bad this year because of the extremely wet weather throughout much of the nation's midsection.

Gabriel Marquez ended "One Hundred Years of Solitude" with the ants consuming everything in their paths.

So this is how the world will end, not with a bang but an ant bite!

I know it ain't no joking matter, as though fire ants aren't bad enough. Another of the 'gifts' of globalization, an influx of invasive species.

and thought most may laugh about this, it is a serious matter. Letting pests get out of control by shipping them to new habitats has played havoc with our environment. Killer bees are a good example. Asian lady beetles aren't as deadly, but they have become real pests, and not enough research has been done to determine if they are a health risk. Recent findings have determined that cockroaches are a contributing factor to asthmatic attacks, something not known until now.

for at least fifteen years. But these new ants make me scared for my habitat. I live about 100 + miles from Houston. My sis lives there. This may explain some of the frequent power outages they've experienced.

Thankfully not often.They do piss me off. But they haven't damaged anything.

which aren't the traditional lady bugs, will bite. If you crush them and leave the bodies around, they will stink. Best thing to do for them is caulk to keep them from coming in (they naturally hibernate under tree bark, and now use siding of houses) and use a vacuum to pick them up when they get inside.

I catch and toss them outside.

Didn't know they bite damn.
Is there anything that repels them,they just come on my porch area,stay a few days and go,it's like a migration. But in their few days stopover some get in.Not many, my house is pretty well maintained,and I have a few orb weaving big ass beautiful garden spiders that make big perfect webs on the awning that reach to the railing. Gorgeous when the dew drops hang off the web.I think he asian lady beetles split when they realize the spiders are there,waiting.

and I would say you are doing the best you can do with the Asian lady beetles. Yep, I think they split when they realize arachnids are waiting for them.

...the only creatures to survive into the Fifth World would be the ants.

any guesses on how long it'll take for the ants to get to Arlen? :shrug:

http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2008/05/080512-AP-severe-weat.html

In Picher, the devastation was complicated by the town's status as one of the most polluted hazardous-waste sites in the nation.

Miles Tolbert, the Oklahoma secretary of the environment, said he did not think there was an immediate public health hazard to the town's 800 residents, but more testing is needed to be certain.

On Saturday, a tornado with the second-strongest rating killed six people, destroyed a 20-block area, and blew dust off mountains of mining waste, or chat piles.

"You can look at the chat piles and see that a lot of the material has blown off," said John Sparkman, head of the Picher housing authority. "We went up on a chat pile an hour and a half after the tornado hit, and you could see dust blowing fine material all over the place from that vantage point."

Ouch.