Are
ants solid, or a fluid? Ants clinging together in a ball act
differently from an individual insect. Banded together, they change
their nature. Ants are now being studied by physicists, namely Zhongyang
Liu and David Hu of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
To
flow, they moved around, rearranging themselves in the group, acting
like a thick fluid. When the aggregation struggled to keep its shape,
the ants clung to each other, acting like an elastic solid — rubber for
example.
The research could have practical implications, Dr. Hu
said, for self-assembling robots, which build themselves out of smaller
bits and for self-healing materials.
Read more about the research
at The New york Times.
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