Imagine trying to build a house without a blueprint, find a shortcut through an unfamiliar city without a map, or govern a large organisation with no leaders and no meetings. It sounds impossible. Yet ...

Abstract: Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is a heuristic algorithm that has been widely used to solve combinatorial optimization problems. However, determining heuristic measures and initial pheromones ...

A few months ago, I awoke to find a streak spanning the length of my kitchen wall that looked like it had been drawn there with thick black crayon. This was confounding, given that I live alone, save ...

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 ...

Scientists say they have for the first time unlocked how a parasitic ant uses chemical warfare to take over the nest of a different species, by tricking workers into an unlikely assassination. The ...

Biologist E.O. Wilson once wrote that "ants are the most warlike of all animals," noting that clashes between ant colonies dwarfed the human battles at Waterloo and Gettysburg. But sometimes ant ...