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ants

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An African army ant queen and worker against a white background, emphasizing the huge difference in their sizes
aging

Ants Live 10 Times Longer by Altering Their Insulin Responses

By Viviane Callier
January 10, 2023
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Queen ants live far longer than genetically identical workers. Researchers are learning what their longevity secrets could mean for aging in other species.

Close-up photo of a carpenter ant queen carrying eggs.
evolution

How Two Became One: Origins of a Mysterious Symbiosis Found

By Viviane Callier
September 9, 2020
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Carpenter ants need endosymbiotic bacteria to guide the early development of their embryos. New work has reconstructed how this deep partnership evolved.

Abstractions blog

How Insulin Helped Create Ant Societies

By Jordana Cepelewicz
August 14, 2018
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Evolution may have coopted an ancient metabolic mechanism to set social insects on the path toward one of the most puzzling behaviors found in nature.

520px photo of army ants forming a bridge
Abstractions blog

The Simple Algorithm That Ants Use to Build Bridges

By Kevin Hartnett
February 26, 2018
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Even with no one in charge, army ants work collectively to build bridges out of their bodies. New research reveals the simple rules that lead to such complex group behavior.

Q&A

Decoding the Remarkable Algorithms of Ants

By Emily Singer
June 25, 2015
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The biologist Deborah Gordon has uncovered how ant colonies search efficiently without central organization, an insight that might improve computer networks.

A living bridge.
Biology

The Remarkable Self-Organization of Ants

By Emily Singer
April 9, 2014
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Knowing the rules behind ant-made structures could help scientists understand how other complex systems emerge in nature.

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