Friday, November 21, 2008

The Secret Lives of Ants

We've all seen ant farms; however, like Khan, they betray a bit of two-dimensional thinking. Eager for a better look at a real colony, a group of scientists scrounged together 10 tons (!) of cement and poured it into a leaf-cutter ant colony.

The results are, in a word, breathtaking. The complexity of the resulting structure, as well as its obvious logic and seeming design, must be seen to be believed. Yes, it looks like they buried a living colony in cement, but it's hard to be upset once the colony is unearthed.

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