Biomimicry

"Ever notice how ant colonies so successfully explore and exploit resources in the world … to find food at 4th of July picnics, for example? You may find it annoying. But as an ecologist who studies ants and collective behavior, I think it’s intriguing — especially the fact that it’s all done without any central control. What’s especially remarkable: the close parallels between ant colonies’ networks and human-engineered ones. One example is “Anternet”, where we, a group of researchers at Stanford, found that the algorithm desert ants use to regulate foraging is like the Traffic Control Protocol (TCP) used to regulate data traffic on the internet. Both ant and human networks use positive feedback: either from acknowledgements that trigger the transmission of the next data packet, or from food-laden returning foragers that trigger the exit of another outgoing forager."

"Insects don’t have the capacity to reason, and yet some are capable of building complex structures and executing complex foraging expeditions with no central organizing. That’s why researchers recently sent ants to the International Space Station and will observe how the change in gravity affects the ants’ ability to organize. At Harvard, scientists are taking their inspiration from termites, which can spend generations building mounds that stretch multiple feet into the air. On Thursday, a research team revealed a crew of iPad-sized robots that can build structures with no input from a central leader."