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Fire Ants: The Material of the Future?

What can a creature with a brain smaller than a pinhead, have to teach us about the nature of physics, robotics and the future of advanced technology?

For the fire ant, what it may lack in size, it makes up for in millions of years of evolutionary genius. Over the winding road to the modern fire ant, it has made more than a few adaptations that are, to say the least, incredible.

🔥 Fire ants

So, what do I mean when I say that a fire antcan be incredible? Well, let’s start with this: Did you know that a colony of fire ants can be considered a material, better yet, a material that can be a liquid or a solid?

A group of remarkable scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Biolocomotion Lab has done just about anything you can do to a colony of fire ants, to test their remarkable capabilities. From coating them in gold, to submerging them in water, to tying them together; they have been able to not just learn about a small corner of the natural world, but find inspiration for cutting-edge technology

At Ever Widening Circles, we talk a lot about the importance of breaking down silos of thought. It’s all a matter of asking better questions: What are the novel possibilities when art informs the way we study biology, or when the natural world alters the future of robotics?  Where are the threads of connection between seemingly disparate systems?