Scientists who were attempting to map an abandoned ant hill didn't expect to find a mega-city when they shot the hill full of cement, but that's exactly what they discovered. Over three days, scientists pumped 10 tons of cement into the empty ant hill to map its networks. After the cement dried, they dug for weeks around it. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The excavation revealed an incredibly impressive, intricate, and bizarre ant mega-city. The mega-city was a truly colossal undertaking. A video revealed that the ants created the structure by displacing 40 tons of dirt. And it really is a mega-city. The ants networked to disposal pits and fungus gardens. Each tunnel was designed to ensure thorough ventilation and reduce transport time. The narrator disclosed the truth. That despite the complex nature of the mega-city, there was no single architect of any - but it was down to the collective will of the colony. "Everything looks like it has been designed by an architect a single mind but of course, that isn’t true," they said. "This colossal and complex city was created by the collective will of the ant colony, the super organism." The short resurfaced clip is from a much longer piece called Ants! Nature’s Secret Power. You can watch the full documentary here. Our city designers should take a few notes. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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China have embarked on an enormous project: to dig the biggest hole in the country. The planned 10,000 metre hole will aim to pierce through ten layers of rock and could even end up finding signs of life as suggested by discoveries in past boreholes. And the objective? To reach rocks and minerals that could date back to around 145 million years ago - or the Cretaceous period. Findings from the mission may help alert China to environmental hazards such as volcanoes and earthquakes, whilst also identifying potentially valuable minerals lurking below. Past expeditions have also unearthed signs of life - with one project discovering signs of life under the surface. Don't worry, it wasn't subterranean humans or any other horror movie tropes. That borehole unearthed plankton 4 miles below the surface. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter That project won't be surpassed by this new - admittedly massive - attempt. The deepest ever dug - the one that discovered the plankton - was in Russia. The Kola Superdeep Borehole - just a really big hole in the ground - ended up reaching over 11,000 meters below sea level after being started by Soviet scientists in 1970. They had to abandon the project after hitting extremely high temperatures that they weren't expecting. Interesting. The Chinese project isn't going to be easy. It's not as simple as digging straight down into the Earth's crust and hoping for the best. It's also extremely costly and time-consuming. “The construction difficulty of the drilling project can be compared to a big truck driving on two thin steel cables,” Sun Jinsheng, an academic from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told news agency Xinhua. So yeah, they'll need more than a JCB for this. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Famous torrent site RARBG has shut down, blaming a variety of traumatic factors that have left its staff unable to work. The site will be going offline after two “difficult” years, staff said in a parting message posted online. The shutdown comes as some experts have predicted that the internet could be heading for a “golden age” of piracy, amid increasing streaming prices and other difficulties. But staff said that it had been hit by its own rising costs, as well as the loss of staff to covid and the war in Ukraine. “Some of the people in our team died due to covid complications, others still suffer the side effects of it - not being able to work at all,” it wrote. “Some are also fighting the war in Europe - ON BOTH SIDES.” It also said that inflation and price increases had made it impossible to run the site without high costs. “Also, the power price increase in data centers in Europe hit us pretty hard.Inflation makes our daily expenses impossible to bare,” staff wrote. “Therefore we can no longer run this site without massive expenses that we can no longer cover out of pocket. “After an unanimous vote we’ve decided that we can no longer do it. “We are sorry :(“ The message was posted on RARBG itself, and confirmed by specialist site Torrent Freak. RARBG has been running for 15 years. In that time it has become one of the biggest torrenting sites on the web – bigger even than more famous destinations such as The Pirate Bay. The change may not only affect users of RARBG. Both the films and torrents that were hosted there were mirrored on other sites, meaning that the shutdown of RARBG may make it harder to access pirated content elsewhere too. In recent months, piracy has seen a huge surge despite attempts by police to crackdown. Experts have speculated that an increasing number of streaming services, as well as increased pricing from those streaming services and a crackdown on shared logins, could send users to illegal sites rather than legitimate platforms. Read More Artificial intelligence warning over human extinction labelled ‘publicity stunt’ Therapist develops secret app to help abuse victims Elon Musk is once again world’s richest person Artificial intelligence warning over human extinction labelled ‘publicity stunt’ Therapist develops secret app to help abuse victims Elon Musk is once again world’s richest person

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The group that runs the French Open tennis tournament has hired an artificial intelligence company to monitor players' social media accounts in a bid to try to protect athletes from cyberbullying