WEBVTT - Ants ... to the Future 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.080 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking. The 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.720 podcast then looks at the future and says, I spend 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.520 my cash on looking flash and grabbing your attention. I'm 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:26.200 Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren back Obama, and I'm Joe McCormick. So, guys, 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.960 we we've tackled on this podcast some pretty heavy topics 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:34.280 in the past. Spiders was a big one. Bees, bees 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.360 another big one. Mosquitoes. You know, a lot of these 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:40.239 I was not present for. I think, I think, actually 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:45.320 were you present for any of them? But they're not 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.840 an insect, that's true, they're creepy crawley. Yeah, for a while, 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:51.320 every time you were out of the office, Jonathan, Lauren 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:53.640 and I would record a podcast about some insect. And 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.280 to be fair, you chose this topic when it looked 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.720 like I wasn't going to be in the office. Yes, uh, 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:03.200 And then for Chin smiled upon me, and it turns 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.480 out I am here to talk about ants. Yes, the 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:12.600 future of ants? Why, I mean, come on, guys, can 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.120 we talk about like, I don't know the future of 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:20.120 of of slow slow lorries or or the future the 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:24.320 future of Koalas or I'll do that episode. Well, I 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.560 guess we gotta get through this one. For next time, 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.120 we'll do a sloth tech. I'm a big fan of sloths. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.480 I love slots. They are adorable, they're pretty creepy. My 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:41.920 favorite sloth is Extinct, the one that's like big bear. Yeah. Yeah, 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.160 terror comes for you slowly and just set creeping up. No, 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:50.480 we're gonna talk about ants. Ants are actually fascinating and 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.600 they may inspire some really interesting technologies of the future. 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.960 So first, let's just talk about ants in general. So 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.680 did you guys know that there are more than ten 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:08.800 thousand ant species already identified by us the human beings, 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.840 as in, there might be plenty more out there. Sure, 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.880 there could be species that we have had limited or 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.360 no contact with that we have yet to identify. In fact, 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:20.560 there's one ant we're gonna be talking about later in 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.280 this podcast that for a long time had been misidentified 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.840 and as a result, um the handling of that ant 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.400 never really went into action. But I'm getting ahead of 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:35.120 myself anyway. Yeah, there are a lot of different types 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.840 of ants out there, and in fact, they can be 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.519 found just about everywhere on Earth. There are a few 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:45.040 exceptions where there are no native species of ants. Antarctica, 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.120 for example, you don't get any snow ants up there, 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.760 or ice ants ants in Antarctica, And I know it's 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:57.120 it's anti Antarctica. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, Antarctica, ironically 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.160 is the is one of the places where you're not 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.760 gonna really old places, so near the North Pole you 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:05.919 probably don't. Yeah, Greenland, Iceland, they don't have native species 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.240 of ants. Uh. Parts of Polynesia do not have any 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.720 native species of ants. And there are a few remote 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.880 islands in say the Indian Ocean or that don't have 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.119 them either. But otherwise you can pretty much find them everywhere. 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.000 They're really prevalent in tropical regions and can make up 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:29.160 more than half of all the insects within a tropical forest. 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.480 For example, where where to ants fit in the sort 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.960 of the family tree of insects, They belong to the 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.760 same order as wasps and bees, so uh, they're very similar. 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.000 If you, by the way, are ever wondering if perhaps 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.119 a little insect you have encountered is either an ant 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.800 or a termite, look to see if they have a 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:52.120 very thin waste. Essentially is what you're you're looking between 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.840 the thorax and the abdomen. If they don't, it's a termite. 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:59.040 If they do, it's nand simple rule of thumb there. Uh. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:03.880 Most pecs of ant live in permanent colonies that they 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.280 establish in some location. It might be tunnels under the ground, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.640 it might be a mound that's on top of the ground, 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.040 could be in trees or would carpenter ants are famous 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.960 for being really destructive around houses. Most ants do live 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.640 in these colonies, these permanent colonies, but there are some exceptions. 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.640 Army ants, for example, do not have a permanent nest. 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.679 They migrate, so their colony actually will move from place 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.279 to place, and you will get these massive army ant 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:35.880 migrations which are the stuff of nightmares. Uh. Then you 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.800 also have the fact that ant colonies are centered around 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.039 a queen ant. So this sounds very familiar to anyone 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.360 who's studied bees, I mean queen bee ideas very similar. Um, 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.600 the queen ant lays eggs. Those eggs will develop into 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.600 either female ants, which are the worker ants. They do 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:58.239 all the hard work, including building the colonies, gathering food, 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:00.640 all that kind of stuff, taking care of the lar Yeah. 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.240 Then you know the male ants whose job it is. Yeah, 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.960 their their job is to knock up the queen. That's 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.839 all they do. That's it. And most, not most, but 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.640 in several ant species, lots of them. Uh. The males 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.679 will die after meeting with the queen. And that's pretty 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:22.560 much the you know, fairly standard, that's pretty much it. Yeah, 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.920 it's not not being terribly Uh, you're not really exaggerating there, Joe. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.360 So normally, you know, ants communicate chemically with each other 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:35.600 through pheromones. Yeah, and a little bit by touch, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.600 mainly it's through chemicals. Like most ant species, if they 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.719 are traveling someplace, they laid down a pheromone trail, So 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.440 this tells other ants that this is the pathway that 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.599 was taken to get to some location, usually like food. 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.400 This is actually interesting. You can disrupt the pheromone trail 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.000 with your finger. If you ever see ants moving along 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:01.120 the line, uh, and you just drag your finger across 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.880 the line of ants. Watch what happens. It totally breaks 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.440 their their concentration. The ones in in behind that are 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.960 about to move across where you've just dragged your finger, 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:15.920 they start acting confused. Where do I go? Yeah, yeah, 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:20.520 there's a several visual gags in a bug's life that 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:22.160 kind of play on that, except of course it's not 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.160 a pheromone trail. They do it where it's just like 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:29.560 a a sudden obstacle moves in the way and that 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.320 disrupts everything, which is a little simplification, but hey, it's 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.880 a Pixar movie and it's adorable. Uh. Then there are 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.080 specific the specific type of ant that we wanted to 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.719 refer to that are just kind of interesting that relate 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.760 to technology but not in a good way. No. Well, 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.359 so you've heard about the fire ant invasion of the 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.159 United States again, which are scary and painful and terrible. Yeah, 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.840 we got a new one now. Yeah, crazy ants, specifically 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:02.159 tawny crazy ants or raspberry crazy ants. Raspberry named after 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.280 the the UH fruit. No, not the fruit A lot 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:08.839 of people think that. No, it's actually named after the 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:14.080 UH exterminator who discovered these ants living in Texas. So 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.320 in two thousand and two, there was this this guy 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:21.160 who UH encountered these particular types of ants that people 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.720 were really kind of um getting perturbed over because one 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.360 the ants, the reason why they're called crazy ants is 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.960 when they are running around like on your kitchen floor 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.600 or something. They seem to be going every which way. 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.560 There's no apparent rhyme or reason to it. It's not 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:40.920 that ants go marching one by one kind of thing. 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.080 It's like they're just going all over the place. And yeah, 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.800 and their pathway is not like a straight line to 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:51.080 wherever they're going. They're going left, right everywhere. Also, they 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:57.160 seemed to be infesting electronics. Yeah. Really, the there was 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.000 a theory for a while that perhaps the ants were 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:04.040 attracted to either electric fields or magnetic fields. Science does 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.200 not seem to bear that out. Experiments have not beared 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.360 that out. What they what the current hypothesis is is 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.440 that they just love to find places to nest and 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.480 they will go anywhere that's kind of an enclosure to 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.120 nest in them. And if an ant, one of these 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:25.440 crazy ants, encounters something that harms it, like say electricity, 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.400 it gives off a pheromone that's an alarm pheromone, which 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:30.520 is essentially a signal to say, hey, I need some 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.440 help over here, and then other crazy ants will zoom 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.400 in and go straight to try and help them. Now, 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.040 in the case of electronics, those ants may in turn 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.120 get hurt and then they give off these pheromones and 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.320 then more and more ants come. So what you end 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.280 up with is a device that shorts out because the 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.439 ants short circuiting. Yeah. Yeah, that the ant bodies are 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:56.079 literally disrupting the circuit and frying themselves. Yeah. And so 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.360 you'll have stories about their stories about things like there 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.120 was a story about a guy who is using an iron, 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.160 the iron shorts out, uh sparks fly out and then 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.839 ants just pour out of the iron. Or someone is 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.360 watching television and the television ends up flickering and then 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:13.319 going out, and so they go and look at and 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.480 they remove the backpedal of the television and it's just 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:21.760 ants everywhere. And we're talking thousands upon thousands of these ants. Now, 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.120 when I told you earlier about the misidentification of ants, 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.439 this is the species I was talking about when scientists 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.960 were first looking at these ants. See See Raspberry was 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:35.240 trying to tell people, we need to figure out a 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.480 strategy to handle this now because this is a thing. 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.520 This is a thing that's happening, and it's going to 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:41.840 get worse before he gets better, because if we don't 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.240 address it, we're going to have a full on infestation 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.680 of like a plague level event here. And meanwhile you 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.280 had the government saying, well, you don't know anything about 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:54.719 these ants, so we can't We're not gonna give you 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.280 any money. And the science they're saying, well, without any money, 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:58.960 we can't learn anything about these ants, and it begin 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.480 this catch Twain too. Meanwhile, the scientists also misidentified, or 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:07.440 at least one entomologist um misidentified the ant as being 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.680 the same species as one that had become entrenched in 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.480 Florida in the nineteen fifties. But Raspberry said, hey, I 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.240 don't think so, because those ants in Florida we have 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.520 never heard of any problems like the ones we're experiencing 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.120 in Texas. And ultimately he ended up doing a lot 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.720 of research on his own, which there's a great article 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:31.840 about his research where its about crazy ants. It reveals 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:38.320 it reveals that he hates reading, he didn't go to college. Um, 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.880 he's not big on research, but he was obsessed with 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.880 this idea and so he really looked into it. And 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.400 then eventually they were able to identify the ant as 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.520 actually belonging to a species native to Brazil and Argentina, 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.439 not to Florida, and they suspect that bringing in soil 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:58.760 or perhaps building materials were what introduced the ants to 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:02.520 Texas and the cell eastern United States the Gulf States essentially, 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.840 so these things do end up clogging up a lot 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.680 of electronics. There were there were lots of reports. I 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.320 remember when this first started happening, when people started talking 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.600 about it, where everyone said, oh, they actually crave electricity, 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.680 But that's not what happening. Although they're they're interesting in 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.520 other ways as well. They're basically the xenomorphs of the 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.480 ant world. Yeah. So fire ants are also an invasive 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.319 species in the United States, specifically in the areas that 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.880 crazy ants tend to be found in, like Texas. Yeah, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.160 and here in Georgia as well. Crazy ants are also 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:37.920 in Georgia. Guys, I don't know if you knew that 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:42.160 fire ants have a pretty nasty sting. They clamp onto 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.640 you with their jaws and then stab repeatedly with their stinger, 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:50.240 and it has a tough venom. Yeah. I react poorly 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.600 to fire ants stings. Um I get. I get nasty 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.199 little bumps everywhere where there was a sting, and I 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.200 used to encounter them quite a bit when I was 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.760 mowing my lawn. I now have someone else doing that 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.040 for me. But at any rate, you know, normally, fire ants, 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.320 as big of a nuisance as they are, don't cause 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.080 the kind of problems that crazy ants do. They don't. 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.480 They aren't as invasive into the human home as crazy 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.440 ants are. However, crazy ants have a couple of abilities 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.160 that really make them formidable opponents of the fire ant. 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.200 One is that they can coat themselves with chemicals that 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:28.040 counteract fire ant venom, which means they can fight longer 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.240 against the fire end. They also, instead of a stinger, 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.520 have a little appendage that allows them to spray acid 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:40.520 against other ants. Yeah, so xeno morph was pretty accurate. 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.440 They are able to spew acid on their opponents. And 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.080 I read a report where that said something along the 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.720 lines of in UH encounters between fire ants and crazy ants, 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:55.040 crazy ants when something like nine of the time, and 0:12:55.120 --> 0:13:02.160 that even in an experiment where scientists covered up the 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.640 the the glands essentially that the ants were using to 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.160 cover themselves in the anti venom UH, they won fifty 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:13.479 three percent of the time. So wow, even when your 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.200 chief defense has been removed, you're still winning more. Who's 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:21.760 been arranging these scientific bug fights? There's there's an ant 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:27.120 thunderdome in Texas, UM, where they do these experiments. And yeah, 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.160 so the crazy ants are the master and the blaster 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:36.679 in this thunderdome world. So very interesting creatures. Um. Obviously 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.480 when we want we wanted to talk about specifically because 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.800 of their relationship with electronics and the misunderstanding that they 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.760 crave electricity. Also they're they're just really cool. But but right, 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.200 so so let us transition here by saying that ants 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.240 do more than just really mess up electronics. As it 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:57.760 turns out, they might inspire new electronics in the future. Yeah, 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:03.040 specifically things like computer algorithms and artificial intelligence algorithms. Uh. 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:07.760 So we wanted to talk about navigation specifically this idea. 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:13.440 You know, ants exhibit some interesting behaviors, including with certain species, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.880 the ability to range out really far, like two meters 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.760 away from their nest, which when you're only like three 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:24.440 point five millimeters long, is not that that's a quite 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.000 a great distance. Uh. What's really interesting is not only 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.800 are they able to do that, but they can visit 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.400 various locations while foraging for food. When they find a 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:37.360 place that has food and they're ready to return to 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.320 the nest, they don't retrace their steps right, they don't. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.720 Let's say they go to three different points and it's 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:45.840 not in a straight line. So they venture out from 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:47.720 the nest. They go to point one, then they maybe 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:49.960 take a left turn and go forward for a while, 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:51.840 and they visit point too, and they make another left turn, 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.800 and they visit point three. Well, once they found point 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:56.360 three and they said this is the place we want 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:58.040 to go, I need to go back to the nest. 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.760 They don't retrace their steps back two points two and 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.960 one and then go back home. They plot a course 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.880 that essentially goes in a straight line back to the nest, 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.080 as much of a straight line as they possibly can manage, 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.160 which raises the question, how do they do that thing? 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:20.240 That's odd? So when it comes down to navigation, scientists 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:25.360 have pretty much identified there being some combination of elements 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.560 going into effect here. One is path integration, one is 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.760 visual piloting or you know, seeing landmarks, and one is 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:36.560 called systematic search. And so here's how this breaks down. First, 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.160 you've got path integration. Now, this is that idea that 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.000 was just talking about the ability to visit multiple locations 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.440 and then find your way back home. So, as an 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:48.880 example I gave for the humans, because I think this 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.360 is helpful. If you're having trouble visualizing this, Imagine that 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:54.480 you have errands to run and you have to go 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.320 to multiple places to run these errands. And so you 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.360 leave your house. You have to go to the store 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.520 to pick up some non perishable stuff that you've just 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:04.040 gotta thrown into the car. So you go and you 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:05.840 store and you pick that up. Then you gotta go 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.800 and you gotta pick up some dry cleaning that you 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.640 had over at a totally different locations. So you drive 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:15.000 from the store to the dry cleaning pace. Then you decide, oh, 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.720 wait that I've also got my copy of the two 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:21.880 thousand six version of wicker Man starring Nicholas Cage uh, 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.600 and I need to return that to Video Drome, which 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:26.480 is in a totally different location from the dry cleaners. 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.160 Video Drome is a video store here in Atlanta. It's 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.600 a pretty fabulous one. It's pretty amazing. So anyway, you 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.920 go to video, You got to Video Drome and you 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.800 return the wicker Man um and they say thank you. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.040 But at that point you're ready to go home. Now 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:46.000 you would not if you you know your way around, 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.480 you would not drive from Video Drome back to the 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.640 dry cleaners, and from the dry cleaners back to the store, 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:54.840 and from the store to your home. You would go 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:57.080 from video drume to your home. Same sort of thing 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.560 with animals, but they don't have the kind of of 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.440 pro sessing power that we have. Aunt brains are like 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.560 a milligram. I mean, we're talking super small. So how 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:12.280 can a creature this tiny, this with with this limited 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.320 number of neurological resources, be able to do something so 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:22.600 seemingly complex as plot a straight line path from a 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.760 distant destination rather than retracing steps to get back to 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:31.000 the starting point. And Uh, there's some disagreement or at 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.919 least some debate on what's going on. A lot of 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:35.280 it is just based upon the fact that we don't 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.119 definitively know um. But there's a specific type of desert 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.760 ant that really displays this behavior that's been under a 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:44.760 lot of scrutiny for years. In fact, if you look 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.840 up path integration and ants, you're going to see multiple 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.920 scientific papers written on the subject. So one of the 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.000 hypotheses about this is that it's all based on an 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:01.879 egocentric methodology rather than g e centric. Okay, so the 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:06.240 ant is sort of relating itself to its previous self 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:10.200 rather than itself to its surroundings. Yeah. Yeah, Essentially, it's 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.680 it's remembers its own position rather than having to look 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:15.960 and see where it is. Right, it's not making like 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:20.840 a mental map of its surroundings. It's thinking of where 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.720 it is in relation to its nest. But it's not 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.840 it's not mapping things out, thinking, oh, to the east 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.159 of me is a puddle and to the west of 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.879 you know, it's not like that. It's very very u 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.359 egocentrics centered upon the ant itself. It would be almost 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.480 like if you ran your errands by remembering how exactly 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.919 how far you drove and at what degree angles you 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.280 turned at each leg of the trip. That's part of it. Actually, 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.399 there's so ants have an odometer. It is not a 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.959 little dial tells it how far it went. Essentially, this 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:57.359 is information that relates to the distance and grade that 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.800 the ant has traveled. So whether it's a down slope, 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:02.040 up slope, whether it was to the left the right, 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.679 that kind of thing, how far it went. Generally speaking, 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:07.440 bees contract the same kind of information, and we talked 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.439 about that at length during our b episode. Right, So 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.240 this is all part of path integration, Right, you're being 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.920 able to integrate that information, but you integrate it with 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.760 something else, and in this case it's with polarized light, 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.840 which bees do as well. Yeah, so the ants are 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.119 able to sense polarized light. They use it as a 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.520 compass essentially, which is really nifty because the light of 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.960 the sun is polarized in such a way that that 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:35.439 if you can detect that polarization, you can navigate by 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.560 the sun even when it's cloudy. Right, Yeah, you just 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.480 through the polarization of the light itself. So essentially you're saying, oh, 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.080 the light is polarized in this way when I'm going 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.679 in this direction, so when I'm coming from this other direction, 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.760 it should look this other way. So that's part of it. 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:54.359 Then you've got the landmark navigation, which is just what 0:19:54.440 --> 0:20:00.440 it sounds like that the ants identify specific geographic landmarks 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.919 and are able to relate that as a point along 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.520 their travels. It seems to be the major way that 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.560 I think humans navigate. Yeah, that's well, there's that in 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.920 Google maps. But yes, um so this in a I 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.199 would relate back to image processing being able to not 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.560 just uh detect an image, but to be able to 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:26.280 recognize it, particularly being able to recognize it from different angles. So, uh, 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.919 we talked about this a lot. Image processing is huge. 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.840 You know. It's not just that you're able to show 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:35.600 it a picture of let's say a coffee cup, and 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.880 then you show it a picture of that same coffee 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:40.960 cup in the same position and it says that's the 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:42.919 same thing. Well, what if you take the picture from 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.240 the opposite side, so that the handle is on the 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.280 opposite side of the coffee cup. Can it's still uh, 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.359 Can it's still identify that? What if you're closer so 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:53.919 the coffee cup is larger. These are all things that 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:56.320 have to be taken into account with artificial intelligence and 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:58.760 being able to build a system that's able to recognize 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:02.000 an object and understand or iritation distance, that kind of thing. 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:06.000 Then there's just systematic search. This is just that idea 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.640 of being able to go through an area and uh 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.280 and figure out where you are in relation to some 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.840 other point that you know, which is obviously useful for 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:19.800 artificial intelligence in lots of ways. Obviously, Yes, Uh, It's 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.000 it's also useful when searching for something to forage. So 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:25.919 if ant is looking for food sources, this would be 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.800 an appropriate method. But also sometimes ants will lose their 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.600 way when they're trying to come back, like they'll uh. 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.760 Some experiments have shown that ants can tend to underestimate 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.399 how far they have traveled, and so that can cause 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.000 some issues when they are coming back. They don't always 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:46.439 have like a comp I hate to use bline of 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:48.879 the term. They don't always they don't always have a 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.359 completely accurate return home. And sometimes they get to the 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.320 general area of where their nest is and they have 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.240 to do a systematic search in order to nail down Oh, 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.080 this is specifically the way I need to go. So yeah, 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.159 pretty cool stuff. Now, if you were to incorporate these 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.080 sort of strategies in AI, you could easily see the 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.880 benefits specifically for something like a robot. Right, you would 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:14.920 have this ability to have robots have a centralized headquarter 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:19.720 type location. They could travel outward from that explore, go 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:23.760 to multiple other locations, and then return back to headquarters 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.520 without retracing their steps and wasting energy. Yeah, you can 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.240 already see some of these types of search strategies that 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:32.719 we see in animals showing up in robots that are 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.240 very simple like maybe the room BA Sure if you 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:38.000 just think about the way a room BA navigates the room. Okay, 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:41.639 so it tries to vacuum all the different parts of 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:43.760 the floor in the room. How does it do that? Well, 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.280 it has to have a system. Uh, of course, that's 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.320 a very simple application, right. Think about a robot that 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.560 needs to navigate an area in a much more complex way, 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:56.359 like it needs to reach different nodes in a different order, 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:58.879 or do it with a different time frame or something 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.800 like that. In the ease cases, studying the way ants 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:05.359 and other swarming insects move can be really important in 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:07.879