this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
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Science Memes

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Everyone's got a fetish, I guess. (mander.xyz)
submitted 3 days ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] Denjin@feddit.uk 153 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Schmidt's index is full of brilliant stuff.

Red Fire Ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.

Tropical Fire Ant: You should have learned, but the carpet is the same, and when you again reach for the light switch, the shock mocks you.

Southern Fire Ant: It happens on the third day, as you reach for the light switch, and you’re wondering when you will ever learn.

Giant Ant: A pulsing sting with some flavour. You stepped into a salt bath with an open wound.

Glorious Velvet Ant: Instantaneous, like the surprise of being stabbed. Is this what shrapnel feels like?

Warrior Wasp: Torture. You are chained in the flow of an active volcano. Why did I start this list?

Tarrantula Hawk Wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath.

Absolute lunatic.

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 53 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Tarrantula Hawk Wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath.

The first time I ever saw one of these it was dragging a paralyzed tarantula back to its nest. That big fucker stopped what it was doing, turned around, and stared at me like it was sizing me up. It then turned back around and continued dragging the tarantula across the ground like, "Oh. It's just a human. Not an actual threat. No biggie."

No biggie is right. No way in hell I was getting anywhere close to a 3 inch long wasp.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 28 points 2 days ago (3 children)

He was sizing you up! We've recently figured out that their pin-head brains can pattern match well enough to recognize human faces. He was getting a lock on you and filing your face away in his threat matrices. :)

Tested this myself! Wasps were building a nest directly above my front dog. Pig went out the dog door, I out the regular door, many times a day. Made a point of not staring or reacting if they flew close. Zero issue for either of us. Only time they got riled up when when I got my face close and stared for a few seconds.

CAVEAT: This does NOT apply to hornets, particularly the ones that boil out of the ground. Run for the fucking hills.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

CAVEAT: This does NOT apply to hornets, particularly the ones that boil out of the ground. Run for the fucking hills.

I've only encountered those fuckers once in my life. They made a giant nest in a rather large sand and gravel pile on my parent's property. After a year or so of them being there, an older cousin of mine had the idea to try to take them out with slingshots. I suggested napalm.

We compromised. We whipped up a batch of improvised napalm with a bunch of kerosene and a styrofoam cooler, poured that down the main entrance of the hive extremely carefully, and lit it on fire. We then spent the next few hours taking potshots at most of the hornets that tried to flee while on fire. We made certain to kill the queen when she finally emerged, though I don't think she was long for the world anyway. She couldn't fly, and had burning "napalm" covering half of her. We still made sure to throw a large stone on her.

We did this specifically because everyone in my family is allergic to bee stings, so it was kinda an act of war for them to move into that part of our property.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

We whipped up a batch of improvised napalm with a bunch of kerosene and a styrofoam cooler

Kerosene doesn't dissolve styrofoam. You're thinking of gasoline.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Kerosene is still a non-polar solvent, why wouldn't it dissolve styrofoam?

[–] CatAssTrophy@safest.space 2 points 1 day ago

Somewhat, but not nearly as quickly or to the extent of something like gasoline, acetone or even d-limonene/orange oil (which is what I use to dissolve styrofoam packaging for repurposing, because it smells the best and is less flammable).

This video is someone dissolving polystyrene in kerosene, and as you can see it is a very slow process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1yDdIanTEA

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I was a kid at the time, but I'm pretty sure we used kerosene. It was red.

[–] ReverendIrreverence@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

He was sizing you up!

She was sizing you up. It's the females who do the tarantula stinging and dragging and all the rest while the males sit up on top of Milkweed plants looking down over their "domain" for female wasps on the ground that they can swoop down and mate with.

[–] Fermion@feddit.nl 5 points 2 days ago

Ground hornets pattern match too. I had a massive nest I had never noticed in an old stump. They hadn't bothered me despite having walked by numerous times. Then one time I hit the nest with the riding mower. Man that sucked. I'm not outright allergic, but a dozen stings does make me feel sick. After that, anytime I got within 20ft of the nest with the mower they would come out in force.

Then a few years later I had the same thing happen with a raised garden bed. They never bothered me and I didn't even know they were there, until my weedwacker attacked the entrance of the nest. I had to steer clear of that section of the garden for a few weeks after.

Ground hornets are horrible.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 13 points 3 days ago

I was at a bbq when an asian giant hornet landed near us. Damn near reconsidered moving the entire setup to get away from it, but eventually it flew off

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

This reminds me of Shulgin's drug rating scale, and some of the experience reports of him and his friends in PIHKaL and TIHKaL

[–] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 33 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I’ve been stung by a velvet ant (although not a glorious one) and that’s honestly pretty spot on. I still remember that hot poker feeling, and they move so fast I didn’t even see the sting happen! That was my first lesson that fuzzy is not always friend 🥲

[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 12 points 3 days ago

Back when I was in the military I saw one on the sidewalk in Texas as I was stepping forward, too late to abort. It was fine, completely unfazed by my combat boots. It had to fit in between one of the treads, but still. Serious little critters.

[–] halvar@lemy.lol 3 points 3 days ago

How did he know what getting electrocuted to death feel like?

[–] Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Inspired by the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, Michael L. Smith did us all a favour and answered the obvious follow up question on which body parts hurt the most when stung. He had honey bee guards sting him in 25 locations, multiple times to account for variability, over 38 days.

Results:

The three least painful locations were the skull, middle toe tip, and upper arm (all scoring a 2.3). The three most painful locations were the nostril, upper lip, and penis shaft (9.0, 8.7, and 7.3, respectively).

He and Schmidt were awarded with a shared Ig Noble Price for their efforts.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

As someone who has had pimples on his nostril before, I believe this 100%. That shit was inordinately painful.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 days ago

The shaft was only a 7.3?!?

Well we know what they're into...

[–] nailbar@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I guess that means he killed 25 bees. Should have used a hornet instead.

[–] Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

75 bees actually, 3 rounds of stinging.

A sting from a honey bee is familiar to many because of its world-wide distribution. The sting can be reliably provoked, and standardized, making it an ideal experimental stimulus. Furthermore, its rating as the center point of the Schmidt pain scale suggests it may be a useful standard. The present study therefore used honey bee stings to determine whether sting location impacts painfulness, and how painfulness varies by location.

Reads as: honey bees are cheap to acquire and I ain't letting no hornet sting my private parts.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Where did a taint sting land?

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Between the balls and anus.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Tongue? Eye ball? Penis head?

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Was only the shaft part of the penis tested?

[–] VivianRixia@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago

As a trans woman, can confirm, getting electrolysis on the upper lip is the stuff of nightmares. i can't imagine something as big as a bee stinger hitting you there.

[–] 01011@monero.town 2 points 1 day ago

No link to the paper?

[–] Datz@szmer.info 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Johnny Joestar describing his bug bite (on girls) fetish.

Well, it's SOMEONE ELSE getting bitten, but close enough.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

Of course it's JJBA

[–] hzl@piefed.blahaj.zone 18 points 3 days ago

I didn't even know sweat bees could sting. When I drove a cab I used to sit in a field with my feet sticking out the window and they'd inevitably come land on me and suck on my toes. I suppose it wouldn't make much sense to sting your food source if you don't have to, though.

[–] ano_ba_to@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 days ago

Who better to come up with a scale than a connoisseur.

[–] death_to_carrots@feddit.org 6 points 2 days ago

I mean, where is the difference to hot, spicy food?

Imagine Hot Ones, but with insect stings.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

I bet he'd be friends with Coyote Peterson.

[–] VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 days ago

Sweat bee's never going to recover after getting called fruity like that

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 3 days ago

I recommend Stand-up Maths video on this where he tries to recreate the scale with a bigger sample size. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv-lWg5HNaM