Strange Art: Fire Ants and Molten Aluminum?

Admit it: Some of you, when you were little, mean as it was, used to focus the sun through a magnifying glass to fry ants skittering along the sidewalk.

This work of art, which kind of looks like
a silver Christmas tree, was created by
pouring molten aluminum into
a fire ant colony.   

Some people in Louisiana took this to a bizarre, huge new level that somehow resulted in a thing of odd beauty: They poured molten aluminum into a fire ant nest, dug up the results and had art.

I don't know where they came up with this idea. And pouring molten aluminium into the ant nest seems cruel, though admittably, fire ants are a terrible, painful pest and the world wouldn't suffer too much if we got rid of a lot of them.

Apparently, the people behind the video, below, have a little business called Anthillart.com and do this molten aluminum vs. ants thing fairly often.

Again, I have no idea how they came up with the idea to do this, but the sculptures that result look shiny, intricate, delicate, beautiful. Not the kind of ideas that come to mind when you think of fire or carpenter ants.

Here's how they do it. Watch the video to the end. You'll be surprised at how good the resulting work is.