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Ant researcher Deborah Gordon packs an incredible amount of science into her twenty-minute TED talk from 2003. Discussed: what happens when you dump toothpicks outside the colony; the four jobs worker ants can have; why half of the ants in the colony are just hanging out; what happens when you stick a fiber-optic camera into the colony; how the colony’s behavior emerges from a series of simple rules; how colony size changes as a function of colony age (and how you have to dig up all the ants and count them to figure this out). Check it out:
For more, check out Gordon’s Lab, Gordon’s Wikipedia page, and her book (via Google Books) Ants At Work: How An Insect Society Is Organized. See also: Gordon’s TED Talk page.
That was pretty fascinating. But it still doesn’t make me feel guilty enough to apologize for the time I killed them all after they took over my bathroom.
I was at Brookstone the other day and saw a really cool gel ant farm…do ants eventually become listless enclosed in a glass case?
In any case it would be fun to have.
posted by Lauren on 2-4-2008 at 10:52 am
i liked how the ‘hanging out’ ants were watching a tv in a couple of the graphics.
posted by ellen on 2-4-2008 at 4:07 pm
Hi Chris
I just love TED and I am glad it is public for us all to see!
We want to pay you money to use arizona_sky for a bookcover and banner for a site. It is just the best sky and cloud photo ever taken!
please contact me and let me know what is a fair and reasonable amount
Thanks!
posted by Zoe Zuniga on 2-17-2008 at 1:49 pm