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These simple organisms physically encode food locations to solve complex tasks
Credit: James Herndon A new type of collective behaviour in ants has been revealed by an international team of scientists, headed by biologist Professor Iain Couzin, co-director of the Cluster of Excellence "Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour" at the University of Konstanz and director at the co-located Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, and Matthew Lutz, a postdoctoral researcher in Couzin's lab. Their research shows how ants use self-organized architectural structures called "scaffolds" to ensure traffic flow on sloped surfaces. Scaffold formation results from indiv...
SHARE When we think, each of our brain cells fires signals to as many as 1,000 neighboring neurons up to 200 times per second. This enables complex decision-making like navigating a four-way stop or solving an algebra problem. But animals with tiny noggins (or none at all) also complete involved tasks—no cerebral fireworks needed. Ant brains are hundreds of thousands of times smaller than ours, rendering them incapable of any significant individual computing power. Instead, they employ an intricate hive mind communication system, says New Jersey Institute of Technology entomologist Simon ...