Editing 2654: Chemtrails

{{comic
| number    = 2654
| date      = August 3, 2022
| title     = Chemtrails
| image     = chemtrails.png
| titletext = Ants have reverse chemtrails--regular citizens spraying chemicals everywhere they go to control the government.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another comic on [[:Category:How to annoy|How to annoy]] people. Here [[Cueball]] annoys [[Ponytail]], an entomologist who studies ant navigation, by telling her "So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?"

Two similar comics have been released, [[2036: Edgelord]] and [[2744: Fanservice]], with the same settings but different text, both with [[White Hat]] being annoyed.

{{w|Entomologist}}s study insects. {{w|Ant}}s are social insects that leave chemical trails between locations such as newly discovered food sources and the nest. These chemical trails can guide other ants in their colony to the food, for example.  Biologists call such signaling chemicals {{w|pheromones}}.  This comic uses the word chemtrail as a shortening of chemical trail. [[Cueball]] is intentionally conflating ant chemical trails with {{w|chemtrails}}, the subject of a fallacious conspiracy theory that the government controls the population by spraying toxic or mind-/body-transformative chemicals from high altitude aircraft. 

That conspiracy theory may be partly based on the practice of {{w|cloud seeding}}, which uses chemical flares containing silver nitrate to attempt to increase precipitation [https://www.vox.com/videos/23290459/cloud-seeding-manmade-rain-future-perfect]. Despite [[1677: Contrails|occasional conflation]], chemtrails are distinct from "contrails," short for "condensation trails," which are cloud-like lines in the sky created by {{w|Contrails|airplane engines or airfoils}}. There is very little evidence that sophisticated mind control posited by chemtrail conspiracists is possible, even after extensive research.[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Poisoner_in_Chief/U6iDDwAAQBAJ]

[[Ponytail]] is an entomologist, studying chemically mediated cooperative ant navigation. [[Cueball]] knows she will be annoyed when he tells her, "So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?" Indeed, he gets the reaction he hoped for when she objects strongly and rejects this with a loud, "'''No!!'''" The choice of terminology is often a sore spot for those who study a particular field in depth. [[Randall]] writes in the caption that such misuse is how to annoy people like Ponytail.

The title text humorously notes that ants' "chemtrails" have the opposite effect from the chemtrails of the conspiracy theory.

Ants are a recurring theme, as are those who study them. See for instance [[638: The Search]] which specifically deals with ants' pheromone trails or [[1610: Fire Ants]]. Chemtrails were also the subject of [[966: Jet Fuel]], [[1677: Contrails]], and were mentioned in [[1803: Location Reviews]].

==Transcript==

:[Cueball stands talking to Ponytail, who has her arms raised and has small lines above her head to indicate annoyance.]
:Cueball: So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?
:Ponytail: '''''No!!'''''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:How to annoy entomologists who study ant navigation

==Trivia and speculation==

Whether ant gland secretion signalling is {{w|Turing completeness|Turing-equivalent}} is explored in Douglas Hofstadter's ''{{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach|Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid}}''.

Ponytail may conceivably be a professional entomologist who once worked with an editor who inserted the word "chemtrails" in one of her [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00359-019-01363-z comparative physiology] or [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-020-01354-7 ''Animal Cognition''] drafts competing before a peer review panel with papers by [https://bio.kuleuven.be/ento/pdfs/billen_procnev_2006_signal_variety.pdf Johan Bilen] of the Leuven University Zoological Institute and Harvard's [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674045880 Rüdiger Wehner].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Ants]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]
[[Category:Aviation]]
[[Category:How to annoy]]