News tagged with ant colonies

Related topics: ants

Next generation of algorithms inspired by problem-solving ants

(PhysOrg.com) -- An ant colony is the last place you'd expect to find a maths whiz, but University of Sydney researchers have shown that the humble ant is capable of solving difficult mathematical problems.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 10, 2010 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (27) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

Ants die alone, protecting their nest mates from infection

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists studying ants have discovered that when they are seriously ill they voluntarily go away from the nest to die, which reduces the chances of them passing their infection to nest mates.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 16, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (18) | comments 1 | with audio podcast report

Fire ants assemble as a 'super-organism' (w/ video)

The ants may go marching one by one, but they end up forming a superstructure of thousands -- and together they can form a raft that stretches the boundaries of the laws of physics, according to new research ...

Physics / General Physics

created Apr 25, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (16) | comments 20 | with audio podcast

Ants on the brain

(PhysOrg.com) -- Colonies of social insects such as ants and bees could collectively make decisions using mechanisms similar to those used in primate brains, according to new research from the University of ...

Biology /

created Feb 25, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 3

Mental time-travel in birds

(PhysOrg.com) -- Certain types of birds may track army ant swarms using sophisticated memory and the ability to plan for the future.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 14, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 17 | with audio podcast

Ants compete, recruit to identify best colony (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Professor Stephen Pratt studies how small ant colonies pick a new nest when theirs is destroyed or is no longer viable, and has found that the "brain" of the colony is distributed throughout ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 04, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Scientists sequence genomes of two ant species for the first time

Scientists have finally sequenced the entire genome of an ant, actually two very different species of ant, and the insights gleaned from their genetic blueprints are already yielding tantalizing clues to the ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Aug 26, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Orphan army ants join nearby colonies

(PhysOrg.com) -- Colonies of army ants, whose long columns and marauding habits are the stuff of natural-history legend, are usually antagonistic to each other, attacking soldiers from rival colonies in border ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 04, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Ants are friendly to some trees, but not others

Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts. But new research suggests that when they run out of space in their trees of choice, the ants can get destructive to neighboring trees.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 06, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (7) | comments 0

How social contact with sick ants protects their nestmates

In a research article published April 3 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, Prof. Sylvia Cremer and colleagues at the Institute of Science and Technology, Austria show how micro-infections promot ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 03, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Ants give new evidence for interaction networks

Be it through the Internet, Facebook, the local grapevine or the spread of disease, interaction networks influence nearly every part of our lives.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 23, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

The zombie-ant fungus is under attack, research reveals

A parasite that fights the zombie-ant fungus has yielded some of its secrets to an international research team led by David Hughes of Penn State University. The research reveals, for the first time, how an ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Common house ants form supercolonies, prosper in urban settings

One of the most common house ant species might have been built for living in some of the smallest spaces in a forest, but the ants have found ways to take advantage of the comforts of city living.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Mar 30, 2010 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

When industrious ants go too far

Nature is full of mutually beneficial arrangements between organisms—like the relationship between flowering plants and their bee pollinators. But sometimes these blissful relationships have a dark side, as Harvard biologist ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 28, 2009 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Studying ants to find out how colony size affects patterns of behavior, energy use

(PhysOrg.com) -- How does size affect the organization and physiology of superorganisms such as bacterial communities, insect colonies or human cities? James Waters and Tate Holbrook, graduate students in ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jan 26, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 3 | with audio podcast