F-22 Raptor Gets Owned By a Bunch of Honey Bees
The F-22 Raptor is one of the military’s most powerful weapons, but everything—man, woman, sentient rotted orange—has a weakness. For the fighter jet, that weakness is BEEEEEEEEEES!
These Tiny Little Robots Are Helping Us Understand the Science of Swarms
Have you met the Kilobot? It’s small, simple, inexpensive—not the most impressive robot, on its own. But the Kilobot wasn’t made to work alone, or even in twos or threes. No, where the Kilobot really thrives is in groups. Since 2010, the size of the group in which it cooperates has steadily grown, and with it the…
These Crickets Eat Their Own Kind — And Here's How They Pick Their Meals
Mormon crickets occasionally swarm across the Midwest in droves. They keep moving across vast distances, for two reasons – they’re looking for food, and they don’t want to look like food to each other. Here’s how to keep being eaten by cannibals, if you’re a cricket.
This aerial video of reindeer-herding is surprisingly soothing
In addition to being one of the more unlikely string of words you've heard this week, this aerial video of reindeer-herding shot by a hexacopter camera drone is surprisingly serene and relaxing. Watching it feels a little like tending a rock garden with your brain.
Can self-replicating spacecraft swarms take over the galaxy one day?
io9's George Dvorsky explains the math, tech and physics that explain "how swarms of self-replicating spacecraft could someday rule the galaxy."
Engineers Build The First Robot Ant Society
By using ten tiny robots equipped with light sensors and an exceedingly simple set of rules, scientists have successfully replicated the navigational behavior of colony ants. The breakthrough could result in more efficient transportation systems for humans — but it also gives us a new understanding of how these…
The science of swarms will blow your mind
Here are two things you should do immediately. One: watch this. It's a jaw-dropping video of starlings in flight that will straight up give you chills. The swirling cloud of birds is called a "murmuration," and it's just one example of how animals in very large groups can engage in remarkably coordinated collective…
Watch a swarm of aquatic robots assemble into an emergency water-bridge
The idea of creating autonomous robotic swarms is nothing new, a concept that's been demonstrated by GRASP Lab's quadrotors. What needs to happen now is for developers to push the technology forward and come up with practical applications for these cooperative bots. A good example is the new Tactically Expandable…
Watch This Adorable Horde of Intelligent Swarm Robots Play Piano
Sometimes robots can be better than humans at playing instruments. Sometimes they're just cooler at it. This herd of little swarm robots—which divvy up the playing between themselves automatically—is the latter.
Why swarming locusts grow giant brains
When the conditions are just right, solitary grasshoppers undergo a terrifying transformation that converts them into masses of swarming locusts that destroy crops. New research reveals why swarming locusts grow much bigger brains than ordinary grasshoppers.
