Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?

[cgreenie16]

@Scissorify her study is not meaningless, we know many things about human behavior and genetics thanks to scientists who study ants and other things like her.

[Thedreamshaperabc]

@cgreenie16

Also we have mathematical algorithms based on ant behaviour. Specificly ant colony optimisation which can be used to nummerically plan routes for cars etc.

[Scissorify]

Patrollers tell foragers ? return your title and by the way your study was meaningless ! ( if i don´t count wasting my time )

[Evers26]

"they've covered the earth, except for Antarctica"

lulz

[alkhimey]

"לך אל נמלה עצל, ראה דרכיה וחכם. אשר אין לה קצין שוטר ומושל תכין בקיץ לחמה"

The bible phrase is actually a common misunderstanding. People cite only the first part, not knowing has it has a continuance. The whole thing says (my free translation): "Go to the ant you lazy, see her ways and gain wisdom, that she that has no officer, ruler or governor, prepares her bread during the summer"

[airwave2oo8]

very interesting stuff

[SwytheQ]

So basically SimAnt was right?

[AAOCFORLIFE]

The ants that are doing nothing there sentrys/the colony army

[TomFynn]

Apparently there is a fungus (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) whose spores invade ant brains and make the ants die on the ground, so that the fungus can grow from there...

Obviously the ants are proceeding to Phase IV...

[1KaneOKauai]

all her kids have no dad, so they stay home forever, n "work" for mom.. nutz

[binhleau]

whats so funny?

[david1002a]

Ants communicate and have compassion.I got invaded by fire ants and only one gave me a tiny bite to get me to open my arm and then another small sting to get free. the other fire ants were squeezing oil from my skin but not stinging. After a while the pinching became painful. I walked into the shower and rinsed them off. What so big about that. We think because something besides us thinks, that it's evil. A human is the most intelligent animal on this speck of dust called Earth.

[david1002a]

Ants communicate and have compassion.I got invaded by fire ants and only one gave me a tiny bite to get me to open my arm and then another small sting to get free. the other fire ants were squeezing il from my skin but not stinging. After a while the pinching became painful. I walked into the shower and rinsed them off. What so big about that. We think because something besides us thinks, that it's evil. A human is the most intelligent animal on this speck of dust called Earth.

[MultiUniv3rsal]

Scorch the land, kill them all, and hear the lamentations of their women.

It's us or the ants, people. Mobilize for war!

Would you like to know more?

[BECK26x]

I don't get it what happened

[fiddlercrab3]

you mean "ant-archy." ;-)

[dirtyharree]

This is an alien conspiracy that the govt. is covering up. Ants near Area 51 have been known to used advanced instrumentation to contact aliens, which by the way are man sized ants from the crab nebula.

[MDChapel]

quick question how do ants know what to do once they hatch, is there another ant there that trains them? and how is it that all the ants are females does the queen have a way to make them females only? and do ants experience fear?

[kokobaboko]

Are you really this fucking stupid? Please don't breed.

[Hawkallica]

please dont breed or breathe.

[9noitulover]

there initial behavior is innate, all organisms have innate behavior, so no they are not trained. I'm not sure about the female thing with ants. Ants do not experience any emotions, they have a 'pseudo-brain', we have a brain that can much more complex tasks, whereas ant have a nerve core, where the nerves meet, their 'brain' is just a collection of sensory nerves that interact, our brains are a collection of sensory nerves plus more.

[MDChapel]

thanks for your time man, i was always kind of curious about it i always wanted to find out but hardly ever had the time i usually at nights, and again thanks for taking you time answering one of my question peace

[MDChapel]

oh yeah and the whole part about the "is there another ant that trains them?" was suppose to be a joke forgot to put lol and again thanks

[methodandmadness]

I didn't understand her explanation of what the midden workers do.

[AnimeAdmirer22]

Basically they are old senile hobos. They go around with large quantities of garbage and yell at anyone that gets close saying, "This is MY cr@p!".

[kokobaboko]

"Midden" is a garbage heap, idiot.

[methodandmadness]

I was sitting around on a friday night, while drinking, watching a video about a colony of ants. Why? Because I'm trying to better myself. Then I run into people like you.... I'm an ''idiot'' for not understanding what a midden worker does? No one knows what they do.

I spent my life doing all kinds of thing so just shhhhhh and keep from being condescending. It makes it look as though you have deep rooted emotional problems.

[kokobaboko]

Maybe you should lay off the booze and read a book instead of ripping out the pages and eating the covers.

Trying to better yourself by watching a youtube video and asking stupid questions, how quaint.

[javonoUTube]

@ 8:40 they're all lazy and on social welfare benefits!

[oskoret]

ALL HAIL ANTS!!! :D

[monikaherbyrainer]

Wow, what a testimony to the creator of life Jesus Christ.

[DavidTheSilencer]

haha u hav -8 thumbs down

[tapiwakay]

Nice video. However, i'm not happy about the assumption she makes when she says that ants are unable to perform complex calculations. I personally don't think we can curently prove that. We seem to always want to compare other speicies to humans and unfortunately it doesn't always work/apply.

[boorens18]

complex calculations would imply more synapses in the ants meta-brain/central nervous system. We dont see that of course as they simply arent large enough. I think its a fair assumption to assume they arent capable of complex calculations therefore

[robstuk666]

MY friend loves ant's

[whymustwe712]

The part about the tooth picks was interesting. So the key to the survival of a colony is the number of reserves, not really any kind of organization or hierarchy of task.

[OldieBones]

Maybe all the ants in the middle that are of still young age are learning how to be the worker ants. As in, they sit there and develop the necessary skills to decide what to do once they're old enough to hit the surface. Other creatures have to learn how to walk and hunt and fly, why not ants?

[abram730]

what about big floods?

watch?v=A042J0IDQK4

[abram730]

Would it be correct to say ants use something like quorum sensing?

[fiddlercrab3]

There is another talk on TED about the behavior of bacteria. A researcher at Princeton found that bacteria engage in quorum sensing too- if they contact sufficient other bacteria with similar markers, they change behavioral patterns.

She postulated this could be used to develop drugs that rather than kill off bacteria (perpetuating the cycle of drug resistance) instead confuse the bacteria's receptors, fudging the number count and "turning off" the desire to invade and attack. Very cool.

[abram730]

Targeting individual microbes would be quite helpful as broad attacks let more virulent microbes repopulate.

Also

I'll bet multi cellular organisms use a modified quorum sensing system to grow and develop in the first place. Cracking the genetic code would require knowing such systems.

[fiddlercrab3]

Indeed, that's one of the things she postulates.

[DSBrekus]

I love ants, so altruistic :)

[harryogre]

Very interesting.

[MickB0529]

Fascinating!

[zhenminliu]

From this video, I learned a few things about these communities that live sometimes right in our backyard. I don't assume these folks care much about the sub-prime crisis.Thanks for the video.

[fiddlercrab3]

Not necessarily. Upon watching, I immediately started abstracting: "how does this messy form of interaction relate to humans?" "Does this model the internet?" "How does this relate to various societies in Africa, for instance, who operate without central leadership?"

Science doesn't have the answers, just the information to put together in our search for answers.

[jefboyardee]

I can't wait for the video about Uncles.

[boydism08]

Really inspiring. Major influence in my artwork.

Thanks so much.

[tail00]

Whores? The queens have sex only one day in their lives, and all workers are virgins :\

[JimTL1000R]

HA! I was kidding. There was a point in the presentation where there were 2 males on one queen. I didn't mean anything by. I was just trying to be funny. If you want to apologize to the ants I may have offended let me know. HA!

[utubeaj242]

Yes, and chaotic as well... any surprise? haha

[WarzSchoolchild]

Web surfers wander about randomly. (2002)Chakrabarti et al. studied 'Topic Affinity' and found strong correspondence between page topicality and links. Topic drift was strongly depandent on the starting topic. Anchor text a stronger indicator than the page's subject. Search Engine ANTics? ooops!

[linuxlist2000]

Awesome

[ddball1]

Fascinating. Robert Heinlein never hinted at this .. :D

[abram730]

Hmmm Ants have pure Democracy. Who would of thought it.

[Darote]

that was (Y)

[joebot1]

That was awesome!!!!

[mitchthrower]

If only corporations could be that effective...

[zogg18]

But thats her point there system isn't very effective

[WroughtIronBed]

This is  fascinating.

[daniel246]

ants that live near humans are smaller than ants that live in the country

[kurtilein3]

daniel246: you are probarbly talking about different species of ants. the species of ants that manage to survive near human settlements tend to be smaller than the species of ants that require undisturbed nature.

[fiddlercrab3]

Kurtilein3: That's a very interesting point, especially given Deborah Gordon's conclusion that size of colony plays the principle role.

[amjPeace]

So foragers refuse to do maintenance? That would explain why I can't get my husband to do the dishes.

[jamiekin]

I for one welcome our new insect overlords.

I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

[esoervik]

lovely quotation :)

[johnet58]

Lot to be learnt from the meek.

In Oz you can protect your property and have a weather man with a colony of common black ant.

I have a carpenter ant in amber tested 5 million with C14 dating.

Looks the same as its mates today.

So I conclude it must be on the high end of evolution, unlike us?

[arifdesign]

salam...peace

in the Islamic holy book AL-Quran there is one chapter entitle ant

QUR'AN CHAPTER 27: AL-NAML (THE ANT, THE ANTS)

Dr Deborah Gordon should look at it

[waori]

Why would she need to read that? She's a scientist, I assume she would prefer to work with facts.

[Digeridude]

pWn3d!

[subach]

oh yeah, here's a gem from that chapter 27:18 "Till, when they reached the Valley of the Ants, an ant exclaimed: O ants! Enter your dwellings lest Solomon and his armies crush you, unperceiving."

In the next verse Solomon replies to the ants.

Yes perhaps Dr. Gordon should read it so she too can laugh at the idea of talking ants.

LOL @ primitive theists.

[waori]

I thought islam was the final revelation... Apparently they need one more on the cognitive capacities of ants. On a similar note I should recommend Jane Goodall check out King Kong.

[HighFlyingDutchman]

ants are talking with each other just like she says

but the language is not like humans'

i am laughing at your "rationality" that makes you think ants talk with their mouths,lol

but surely they were designed and SURELY G od can teach their "language" to a human

if u are not following a powerless god

such as a human god

lol

peace

[kev3d]

Designed by evolution. If anything were designed by any god, that god would have to be very unsure of him or herself since 99% of all species are now extinct. All stars will eventually collapse and planets will inevitably become either burnt cinders, asteroid targets or frozen wastes.

[alburda]

Depends how you look at it, doesn't it?

I rather see that as God being powerful over His creation...it's in the religious books after all that "everything that lives shall taste death"..that He's the only one that remains when all else is gone.

[kev3d]

The same religious books insist that animals talk, magic wands are real, along with giants, angels, demons, monsters, zombies and hundreds of other absurdities. Essentially the god of the bible, koran and others is a spoiled, angry child who likes to use his chemistry set to find ways to torture his pets.

[astrohopper]

@kev3d

Your theological knowledge is amazing for a lolbertarian. Could you please explain one more time how capitalism is going to EVERY PROBLEM KNOWN TO MANKIND (if implemented correctly) ?

[kev3d]

@astrohopper I assume you mean "solve" every problem, well capitalism promises no such thing. Capitalism is simply the best way to organize trade and cooperation between individuals and groups. The chief principles being non-coercion and property rights. In the greater picture, one cannot violate anothers , liberty or property. Capitalism, as a system, is mute on matters of race, religion, gender and nationality.

[nadiaTeeze]

ants have 50% unemployment. Who would have guessed.

Amazing lecture!!

[semiliteratedgod]

so what? they're stilll decent little animalz...

[subach]

LOL, But surely they were designed...

[joebot1]

that was a joke right?

[HighFlyingDutchman]

i am watching it now

i really wonder what she will say

thanks again for sharing

peace

[abram730]

I don't think they are unemployed. I would check to see if the number unemployment affects colony function. Use a controlled colony where you can remove the ants with no apparent job and see how that affects colony performance. They may serve another task. Perhaps they are thinking for the colony.

[sfudman]

perhaps the goal of the colony is to be so effeicient that the highest number of ants can be "unemployed".

[tail00]

Most ants really don't work at all, but they are military reserve. It is vital for every colony, because wars between ants are frequent and very serious. Colony without strong reserves would be defeated quickly.

[dollaresque]

She's one of my heroes because of the work she's done which helps us understand networks of all kinds.

[gosciu555]

yep networks and organizations are fascinating cause of their power. up next, human networks?

[thatguyfromopenmic]

This was very interesting.

[savyer]

This is great!

[FluffyDarkPrincess]

count all the ants!!!! five stars for that

[thepsion5]

I recently developed an artificial ant colony for my AI class. I experimented with adding something to "manage" the various ants and share knowledge to make them function better.

Interestingly enough, the ants performed WORSE when under the direction of a managing entity, even when that entity had the collective knowledge of every individual ant.

[Kotesu]

That is quite an interesting observation. Very cool. What control mechanism did you use for the individual ants? State machines? ANN's?

[thepsion5]

I used fairly simple state machines for my ants, along with a basic location it would store as a destination (observed food, the nest, ext). Granted, the internal design of my ants may be too different from biological ants to draw any real conclusions from it, but it was quite interesting to see.

[mcAUM]

Brilliant - ironic that they inhabit everywhere except ANTarctic!

[arabonormanno]

Extremely interesting!!!

[mortiphago]

great video, as usual from TED!

first,btw :)