Luminiferous Æther

I’ve seen a lot of shows on ants — I love the little bugs. In my childhood I had the unusual desire to become a Myrmecologist in the footsteps of the great E. O. Wilson. Much to my parents’ relief, I ended up as a physics teacher instead.

Anyway, the program linked to is the most amazing thing I’ve seen on ants. The researchers studied a colony of leafcutters. In order to see the structure of the colony they poured ten tons of concrete down the opening of the nest and let it harden for a week before digging the casting out. The colony covered 50 square meters and went 10 meters under the ground.

[Click here for the most amazing ant video ever]

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Header photograph by jurvetson

Future Australian Cities May be Influenced by Ant Architecture. From the article:

Professor Currie said ants moved in an orderly fashion, and never seemed to panic, even when there was danger or congestion.

“Ants will organize their freeways’ so that ants bearing loads are in the middle of the freeway all going one direction, and the ants that are unladen are on both sides of the middle row.

[Link to Reuters Story ‘Insects give science clues to anti-social problem’]

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Story via bldgblog

Photograph by asobitsuchiya