Flying Ants Swarm over Twitter

If you check Twitter's highest trending topics in the UK right now, the fourth highest on the list -- behind Jason Stackhouse, Joey Cole and the concerning "Scrotal implosion" -- is flying ants. Approximately once a year, known as Flying Ant Day, the species of ant that's usually found in Britain's homes and gardens (Lasius Niger) takes to the skies for an elaborate mating ritual to ensure the survival of the colony.

The queen ants grow wings, as do the males, and they swarm in their millions for about 10 hours, before the queens land again and lose their wings, and find somewhere to hibernate for the winter. Only a few queens are successful, however, and those that aren't will be killed when they try and join an already-existing colony. Once a queen has mated, she's fertile for the rest of her life.

A certain type of weather is required for the event to occur. It needs to be hot, but also moist -- muggy, like the weather before a thunderstorm. Winds speed is crucial too -- it needs to be windy enough to spread the insects out a bit, ensuring the genetic diversity of the colony, but not enough to damage the creatures' fragile wings. Once the necessary conditions are met, all the colonies in a local area take flight at once to reduce to risk of predation and, again, ensure genetic diversity.

The insects are harmless, beyond the occasional bite, and Dave Clark, the head keeper at London Zoo's entomology division, told the BBC last year that the ants bring benefits too -- they pollinate flowers and feed on other insects which cause damage to plants. Following the swarming, any dead ants are eaten up quickly by birds.

Response so far on Twitter has been split between disgust and excitement. "WHERE HAVE ALL THESE FLYING ANTS COME FROM?" yells Kayleighmartin. "It's weird enough without them all doing it at the same time," adds LondonMUgirl.

All I can think is that I wish I'd shut my windows this morning.

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Apple has posted video of the iPhone 4 press conference held today at its campus in Cupertino, California. The company has also posted severalnew pages on its website dedicated to explaining the antenna issue and showing off the company's antenna design and testing facilities.

The press conference offered a presentation from Apple CEO Steve Jobs outlining the company's belief that antenna issues with the iPhone 4 are common to nearly all smartphones and that only a very small fraction of iPhone 4 customers have reported the issue. He noted, however, that Apple is committed to making sure that every customer is happy and to that end announced that the company will be offering free cases to all customers purchasing iPhone 4s through September 30th. 

The company also acknowledged issues with the device's proximity sensor and reported that they will be addressed in a future software update.

Following Jobs' presentation, a Q&A session was held with Jobs, Tim Cook, and Bob Mansfield. The Q&A session is not, however, included in the video posted by Apple.


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