Zombie Ants

By Greg Baker   Just Say, “Hell, No!”Recently, we’ve heard talk about employers asking job seekers for their Facebook passwords.Their pretense is company reputation.If you want to be hired by our company, then we have the duty to make sure nothing in your past will damage our reputation. Let’s start with government employers.They should get nothing since the whole reputation pretense is false.Imagine a City of Augusta HR representative telling a job applicant they needed to verify that nothing in their past would bring down the reputation of the city government.Kind of makes you chuckle just thinking about it. Now for private organizations, I have no problem with the request.It’s their organization, and I fully support their right to ask job seekers whatever they need in order to determine suitability for the job. That said, I want to be very clear about the answer that I would give.I want to be clear because this is the answer that you should give as well. “Hell, No!” Besides the fact that this is yet another significant invasion into our privacy, I have a rational explanation for my position.Someone that would willingly give up this degree of privacy for a jobwithout question is either desperate to get a job; docile, compliant and will fold under the smallest bit of pressure;risk averse, since nothingin their past is incriminating; or a liar with a second, sanitized Facebook account just for business.None of these folks will help a company in its mission to deliver services to their customers.So don’t be one of these people! Zombie Ants. This week, Discover Magazine published a follow-up article on the lives of zombie ants.For those unfamiliar with zombie ants, google “ophiocordycepsunilateralis.” In short, zombie ants are ants infected with a fungus that alters the behavior pattern of the ant.Specifically, erratic movements, wondering in random directions…you know, typical zombie-like stuff.Eventually, the ant clamps down on a leaf vein with its mandibles.The fungus then sprouts out of the ant’s body, lashing it to the leaf’s underside, and producing a long stalk tipped with spores. The spores then shower down on unfortunate insects below. For those concerned about the startling similarities between this and the coming human zombie apocalypse, this week’s article describes a vulnerability of ophiocordycepsunilateralis.It turns out that ophiocordycepsunilateralis is susceptible to a hyperparasitic fungi, or another parasite whose host is a parasite.This second parasite feeds of off ophiocordyceps, killing a majority of the original zombie organisms.Regrettably, the ant was already dead by the time the hyperparasite took hold. So the pending zombie apocalypse is still on its way, but at least we now know someone is working to give us all some hope! Until next time, I’m off the grid.@gregory_a_baker.  You Might Also Like: