http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/04/gigantic-new-superorganism-with-social-intelligence-is-devouring-the-titanic-todays-most-popular.html In 2000, Roy Cullimore, a microbial ecologist and Charles Pellegrino, scientist and author of Ghosts of the Titanic discovered that the Titanic --which sank in the Atlantic Ocean 97 years ago -- was being devoured by a monster microbial industrial complex of extremophiles as alien we might expect to find on Jupiter's ocean-bound Europa. What they discovered is the largest, strangest cooperative microorganism on Earth.

Scientists believe that this strange super-organism is using a common microbial language that could be either chemical or electrical -a phenomenon called "quorum sensing" by which whole communities "sense" each other's presence… ]]> Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:53:34 -0700 http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/04/gigantic-new-superorganism-with-social-intelligence-is-devouring-the-titanic-todays-most-popular.html http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2010/11/fluid-nature-ants-mimic-liquids-to-stay-afloat.html Rain may seem a harmless nuisance to us humans, but for ants, it's a big deal. They can get trapped by just a single drop and risk drowning. Paradoxically, it's by mimicking liquids that ants manage to conquer them.

In the video above, Micah Streiff and his team from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta captured writhing groups of ants behaving just like liquids. Working as a group they can turn themselves into a "raft" as they seek dry land or travel down a surface following the same physical rules as a viscous liquid. Thankfully, they… ]]> Thu, 25 Nov 2010 04:36:00 -0700 http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2010/11/fluid-nature-ants-mimic-liquids-to-stay-afloat.html http://www.miller-mccune.com/science-environment/bacteria-r-us-23628/ A few scientists noticed in the late 1960s that the marine bacteria Vibrio fischeri appeared to coordinate among themselves the production of chemicals that produced bioluminescence, waiting until a certain number of them were in the neighborhood before firing up their light-making machinery. This behavior was eventually dubbed “quorum sensing.” It was one of the first in what has turned out to be a long list of ways in which bacteria talk to each other and to other organisms.

Some populations of V. fischeri put this skill to a remarkable use: They live in the light-sensing organs… ]]> Thu, 21 Oct 2010 10:00:00 -0700 http://www.miller-mccune.com/science-environment/bacteria-r-us-23628/ http://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.5/gordon.php Our fascination with ants has led to engaging stories about them, from the Iliad’s Myrmidons to Antz’s Z, as well as a growing body of research by biologists. Though the ant colonies of fable and film often are invested with the hierarchical... ]]> Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:09:39 -0700 http://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.5/gordon.php http://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.5/gordon.php Our fascination with ants has led to engaging stories about them, from the Iliad’s Myrmidons to Antz’s Z, as well as a growing body of research by biologists. Though the ant colonies of fable and film often are invested with the hierarchical organization characteristic of human societies, a real ant colony operates without direction or management. New research is showing us how ant colonies get things done without anyone being in charge. Ants, it turns out, have much to teach us about the decentralized networks that operate in many biological systems, in which local interactions produce global behavior, without the… ]]> Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:09:00 -0700 http://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.5/gordon.php http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered. Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another. The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination. What's more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together. Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica. These introduced Argentine… ]]> Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:10:00 -0700 http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm