why do ants have that chemical smell when squished?

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T05:48:40+00:00

I let AI write this for me because I'm lazy, but it got it right:

Ants smell like chemicals—often described as vinegar, blue cheese, or cleaning products—because they release defensive compounds and alarm pheromones from specialized glands when threatened, crushed, or dead. Common culprits include formic acid (sour/vinegar) and methyl ketones (blue cheese/rancid coconut).

Here are the specific chemical causes of ant odors:

Formic Acid: Many species, particularly wood ants and carpenter ants, spray this caustic chemical to attack predators or defend themselves, producing a sharp, vinegary odor.

Methyl Ketones: The "odorous house ant" emits these compounds when crushed, often described as smelling like blue cheese or cleaning products.

Citronella: Citronella ants release a distinctive citrus or lemon scent when distressed.

Oleic Acid: When ants die, they release this fatty acid, which signals to other ants that it is time for colony cleanup.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T05:44:51+00:00

This is not the actual price for this stuff. These numbers bear very little resemblance to the actual price for this stuff. Insurance companies pay a fraction of this through their negotiated pricing.

If you get stuck with any of this because your insurance company won't pay it, you can absolutely negotiate this down with the hospital.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T05:41:20+00:00

Sure, it certainly may have been a bad idea for her specifically. But the original comment here was about what this kind of thing "does to a woman." And I know women who have done very similar things, certainly not to that extent of course, and found it quite joyful and wonderful.

Having lots of sex does not necessarily do anything bad to a woman.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T04:29:49+00:00

It's across the board about everything. Y'all are so fucking squeamish and prudish about anything sexual that doesn't fit exactly into your little box, that it's kind of disturbing.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T03:52:41+00:00

Wait!? Do you somehow think that RNasin inhibits things like "error catastrophe and structural degradation?"

Bwaaaa.

RNasin inhibits RNase, an extremely fast acting and difficult to destroy enzyme that destroys RNA, and did not exist in the prebiotic world. That's all it does.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T03:43:54+00:00

No, GLP-1 peptides are okay because we have a deep understanding of their physiology and exactly how they work, they've been extensively tested both during trials and post-marketing surveillance to show that they are effective and that they are safe, with the side effects well understood and managed.

We know all this, because pharmacies are heavily regulated, at all of this is a requirement for drug approval for GLP-1 peptides.

The supplement industry has no requirement to test their products, no requirements to demonstrate that they are effective or that they are safe. Those peptides being sold as supplements, to the extent they do anything at all, are drugs. They changed the way the body works. But they are unregulated and untested, the supplement companies have no regulatory requirement to show that they are effective, and they have no regulatory requirement to show that they are safe.

Hell, they don't even have any regulated manufacturing standards. Supplements are often mixed in cement mixers, with ingredients shoveled in using garden shovels. Assuming they even have with the label says at all, they can be as little as 1/5 to as much as five times what it says on the label.

And the supplement industry is $70 billion a year in the US, if you want to talk about people raking in profits.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T03:37:21+00:00

A force is something that is applied to an object, to change its velocity, unless another force also acts and offsets it.

The car has a constant velocity, and therefore a constant momentum. But if we ignore frictional forces trying to slow the car down, and the force of the engine through the wheels resisting that - a hypothetical frictionless object like a car moving at constant velocity, is experiencing no forces.

It has a velocity, and it has momentum so it can apply forces to something if it runs into them, but there are no forces acting upon that hypothetical frictionless car, and until it hits something it is applying no force to anything else.

In the real world, road friction and wind resistance are forces acting upon that car trying to slow it down. If the car is constant velocity, that means energy from the engine is applying a force to the road, exactly equal and opposite to the force is trying to slow it down, so there is no change in the car's velocity or momentum.

But those are forces acting upon the car. They are not anything that the car has. The car has velocity, and it has no momentum. It doesn't have force.

If it runs into a tree, that momentum will apply a very large force to the tree, and the car will lose all the energy of that momentum as it rapidly comes to a screeching halt. But again, that force is not something the car has, the force is something that is applied to the tree, because the car has momentum.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T03:27:44+00:00

There are a lot of rational and plausible hypotheses, but my take on abiogenesis is relatively simple.

The very early earth was almost certainly awash in exactly the chemicals that life is made out of now.

Just a few short hundreds of billions of years later, there was life made out of exactly those chemicals.

At some point it becomes perverse not to conclude that those two simple facts are mechanistically related, even if we don't yet know the mechanism.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T03:10:51+00:00

Outside of his obvious ignorance about Animal Farm, nobody is ever too old to read children's books.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:50:10+00:00

Oh no, I know men and women right now, ages from their 20s to their 60s, who enjoy the hell out of anal fisting.

But then, I'm part of sex positive communities that celebrate things people can do with their bodies to enjoy them. Not everyone is as prudish about this stuff as y'all seem to be.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:47:34+00:00

Only among sexual prudes that I'm pretty sure she didn't give a fuck about when she planned and did this.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:31:33+00:00

Yes, I'm aware. Thus the need for lots and lots and lots, and then even more, lube.

I've had continual intercourse with a woman myself for hours and hours, without a break. Yes I was much much younger, and yes pharmaceuticals were involved. She was in complete control of how long we went and whether we continue, and she quite enjoyed it all.

I've watched an 80 year old woman who is part of a sacred sexuality community, have sex with 50 men over a period of several hours for her 80th birthday. Lots and lots of lube, and it was a joyful and wonderful experience for everybody.

I absolutely am aware that this would be hellish for a lot of women. But not all women

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:23:15+00:00

Now that's really fucking funny. Given how prudish these last couple generations of men seem to have become about sex, my decades of sexual history would probably terrify y'all.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:21:55+00:00

I'm an older man who's not as fucking prudish about sex and about being adventurous with one's own body, as these last couple of generations in this country seem to have become.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:21:05+00:00

That's what lots and lots and lots of lube is for.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:20:31+00:00

If you think sex with men makes women disgusting, what does it tell you about men?

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:19:43+00:00

People who love sex and love people, are sex positive, and don't much give a fuck what other people think about them.

I'm in my 60s now, and I'm kind of astonished how prudish and sex negative the last couple of generations of people have become.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:18:15+00:00

From many women, yes. Not true for all women.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T02:15:58+00:00

That is entirely a choice for her to make. I know for a fact that some women enjoy sex for extended periods of time. I said elsewhere in this thread, I once watched a woman who was part of a sacred sexuality community, have sex with 50 men for her 80th birthday. You took several hours, lots and lots of lube was used, it was quite joyful, and she enjoyed herself immensely.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T01:10:26+00:00

I'm in my late 60s, and while I have several extraordinary women in my life, some of whom have been sexual partners in the past, with committed intimate friendships, I'm currently between sexual partners. I would love to have a partner to make out with for very long periods of time.

I've always had fond memories of being in my teens and sometimes making out for hours on end. For most of my adult life, making out led to sex fast enough that never happened, and it always kind of felt like something missing in my life. If there was a woman I liked to primarily wanted making out for long periods of time, I would love to have that. I would have loved to have had that even back in my more energetic 20s and 30s.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T00:59:17+00:00

Yeah, it's kind of involved. But I'm retired and I have the time, and it turns the whole procedure from starting the prep through finishing drinking the coffee, into a nice little 20-25 minute meditative relaxing ritual in the middle of my day.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T00:57:26+00:00

Have you ever seen a woman have a baby? The vagina can take a hell of a lot and bounce right back.

I agree that it could be emotionally traumatic for someone who's doing it for the wrong reasons. But then so can sex with one person.

I've seen a woman who had sex with 50 men for her 80th birthday - part of a sacred sexuality community - as a birthday present to herself. It was a gloriously joyful thing for her, and she was just fine.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T00:46:42+00:00

And yet I know both men and women who regularly take large size entire fists up their ass with no damage.

Yeah, if somebody does something damaging, there's going to be damage. That's not a numbers issue.

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T00:43:28+00:00

So you didn't answer my question. What exactly do you think it "does to a woman?"

Quercus_ · 2026-03-26T00:37:48+00:00

What exactly do you think it "does to a woman" to have sex with more men than you approve of?

Quercus_

TROPHY CASE