0819邮报：不做事的蚂蚁

Ants don’t tend to get in trafficjams.  

Another striking thing aboutants is that some of them just sitaround doing nothing. Whenants build a nest, some of themjust sit around, inert, lazy, seem-ingly useless. 

The team created computermodels with simulated ants andfound that this system of selec-tive idleness enables the ants todig deep faster. In effect, the antshave solved the eternal problemof too many cooks in the kitchen. 

Feinerman said researchershave noted that ants are sensitiveto success and failure. When anant tries to do something, such asobtain food or dig a tunnel, and issuccessful, she keeps doing itwith extraordinary vigor and en-durance. But when she fails, suchas getting stymied while trying toenter a tunnel, she will quit andbecome inert. He said the newresearch suggests that relativelysimple rules govern this behav-ior.

“There’s a positive feedbackbetween how successful an ant isand her tendency to repeat thetask,” he said.

Gravish, who builds robotsinspired by insects, said of ants:“They’re far more complicatedthan robots. I wish we could geteven close to the complexity ofants.”