Ants have an amazing ability to communicate with each other and work together to accomplish complex tasks. Their specialized behavior  51  chemical communication is so well developed, in fact,  52  humans can learn a lot from them about how best to work in teams.

British scientists at the University of Bristol are studying colonies of army ants to understand how they organize themselves and  53  knowledge. These insects—which come in various sizes—are known for using their bodies as living plugs to cover potholes on the rough terrain between their nest and their  54  When they encounter a hole in their path, they quickly determine which of them is the best fit. The  55  ant then lies across the gap, allowing the remainder of the group— 56  200 000 other ants—to step on its back. This important minority of ants optimizes the food collection of the entire colony by literally "paving the way" for the others.

The  57  behavior that emerges from a group of social insects, such as ants, can be called "swarm intelligence". Swarm intelligence  58  the self-organization of many individuals that work collectively to find the best solution for a difficult problem.

The  59  of swarm intelligence have been used in a variety of human applications. "Ant colony optimization" has been mimicked as a routing method that improves the  60  of cargo transfers on airplanes, and has even become a routing technique for moving data across telecommunications networks more smoothly.