Just in case we forgot that ants are freaking unbelievable, here's a video by the New York Times' ScienceTake to remind us.
In a video titled "The Physics of Ants," New York Times science writer James Gorman explores the curious tendency of groups of ants to move as both a solid and a liquid.
"See how the ants drip like some kind of syrup?" asks Gorman, as researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology show one group of ants pouring through a funnel. Meanwhile, another group clumps together like a rubber ball in a beaker. "But then, watch as a researcher pushes down on a ball of ants: it springs back as if it were a solid like rubber."
According to Gorman, researchers had never seen a group of living things behave this way. "To flow, the ants move around," he explained. "To spring back, they hang on to each other."
Gorman then considers the future implications of such a discovery, imaging robots that could assemble themselves or self-repairing structures.
The Times video isn't the first to document the mind-blowing world of ants. The BBC caught ants building a living raft during a flood in the Amazon. And Animal Planet showcased the complex metropolis of an ant colony by filling one with cement and digging it up. While arguably a bit cruel, the experiment revealed the downright mystical details of the ant kingdom: highways and side roads, ventilated tunnels between chambers, and even fungus gardens and waste pits.
In a video titled "The Physics of Ants," New York Times science writer James Gorman explores the curious tendency of groups of ants to move as both a solid and a liquid.
"See how the ants drip like some kind of syrup?" asks Gorman, as researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology show one group of ants pouring through a funnel. Meanwhile, another group clumps together like a rubber ball in a beaker. "But then, watch as a researcher pushes down on a ball of ants: it springs back as if it were a solid like rubber."
According to Gorman, researchers had never seen a group of living things behave this way. "To flow, the ants move around," he explained. "To spring back, they hang on to each other."
Gorman then considers the future implications of such a discovery, imaging robots that could assemble themselves or self-repairing structures.
The Times video isn't the first to document the mind-blowing world of ants. The BBC caught ants building a living raft during a flood in the Amazon. And Animal Planet showcased the complex metropolis of an ant colony by filling one with cement and digging it up. While arguably a bit cruel, the experiment revealed the downright mystical details of the ant kingdom: highways and side roads, ventilated tunnels between chambers, and even fungus gardens and waste pits.
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