I imagine that when leaf-cutting ants chop segments out of a leaf that they do so in a pretty well defined pattern, and then carry each segment at a certain orientation. I'm proposing that it might be possible to pre-paint a leaf with letters - the ants would chop them up and carry them off in a neat little line. If this didn't work you could just spray the letters on as they march past.

Lots of uses: Doing subtitles for (slow) newsreaders - right there on the desk! Showing news during the night instead of those boring teletext pages. Advertising/cheerleading at snooker, table-tennis, chess matches.
-- sild, Jun 25 2002

Monitor Fish http://www.halfbake...idea/Monitor_20Fish
[phoenix, Jun 25 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

____ ___ ____ ____
| N || I | | K || E |
\__/ \__/ \__/ \__/
ooO" ooO" ooO" ooO"
_m___m__m___m

-- sild, Jun 25 2002


Couldn't "Ant Trainer" be one of the categories in the "Jobless Job Descriptions" idea ?

What about Aardvarks ? Wouldn't they be irresistably attaracted to the signs ?
-- 8th of 7, Jun 25 2002


To read a new subtitle, just turn a new leaf.
-- FarmerJohn, Jun 25 2002


There's an advert in the latest Computer Weekly that depicts this - I wonder if they owe me any money?

They've actually made out that the ants have bitten out the shape of the letters as well. Yeah right, like that could happen.

WIBNI, Computer Weekly.
-- sild, Sep 20 2002



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