Parasitic worms 'manipulate' mantises onto asphalt roads, say researchers

Re:Parasitic worms 'manipulate' mantises onto asphalt roads,... by amelius on Saturday January 04, 2025 @06:15AM (#42594051)

On the other hand, without saliva the virus cannot spread, and you need water to have saliva.

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Re:Parasitic worms 'manipulate' mantises onto asphalt roads,... by llamaimperative on Saturday January 04, 2025 @09:38AM (#42594899)

Evolution has already done the math on this

(Or more precisely, it’s already doing the math, and the current answer is that hydrophobia is the better solution [for rabies’ purposes])

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Re:Parasitic worms 'manipulate' mantises onto asphalt roads,... by DontchaKnowit on Saturday January 04, 2025 @02:35PM (#42597069)

Really that is not how evolution works

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Re:Parasitic worms 'manipulate' mantises onto asphalt roads,... by amelius on Saturday January 04, 2025 @03:26PM (#42597446)

The particular math used might get stuck in a local optimum ...

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Re:Parasitic worms 'manipulate' mantises onto asphalt roads,... by llamaimperative on Saturday January 04, 2025 @06:51PM (#42598553)

Possible but unlikely in this case

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Re:Parasitic worms 'manipulate' mantises onto asphalt roads,... by serf on Sunday January 05, 2025 @11:59AM (#42603092)

without a big genetic assay isn't it virtually impossible to know whether or not the trait (hydrophobia) persisted due to the symptom itself rather than just a correlated advantageous mutation that brought along hydrophobia as a happy coincidence?

if we need to continue the flawed math analogy; evolution has always done pretty imprecise cocktail-napkin math, even if it has been wildly successful at it.

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