Life may look like a paradise for beetles living in ant colonies. Plump, wriggling ant larvae and helpless eggs sit waiting to be devoured, while hundreds of thousands of ants stand at the ready to ...

Ants coordinate highly complex foraging and traffic systems without any leaders, relying entirely on local interactions and chemical cues. Pheromone trails encode information about distance, food ...

Some baby ants don’t ask for help when they contract deadly infections — they ask to be killed. Terminally ill worker ant pupae actively emit a “find me and destroy me” chemical signal, prompting ...

PythoC lets you use Python as a C code generator, but with more features and flexibility than Cython provides. Here’s a first look at the new C code generator for Python. Python and C share more than ...

This repository implements several swarm optimization algorithms and visualizes them. Implemented algorithms: Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Firefly Algorithm (FA), Cuckoo Search (CS), Ant Colony ...

In a wide range of social species, when an animal is sick, it takes itself away from its group. Ant pupae are unable to move, however, so they've developed a unique mechanism that leads them to ...

Ant pupae that are fatally sick don’t hide their condition; instead, they release a special scent that warns the rest of the colony. This signal prompts worker ants to open the pupae’s cocoons and ...

Sick young ants release a smell to tell worker ants to destroy them to protect the colony from infection, scientists said Tuesday, adding that queens do not seem to commit this act of self-sacrifice.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Ants are some of nature’s most selfless animals. They practice ...

New research shows that terminally ill baby ants tell other ants to kill them, potentially protecting the rest of the colony from their infection. In a study published today in the journal Nature ...