“Wasted”? They’re literally figuring out how the world around us works!
If you ever want to do anything socially unacceptable, just say it’s for science.
Remember, we do what we must because we can.
It’s for the good of all of us, except the ones who had their legs clipped off.
Look at you still talking while there’s science to do!
I’ve heard in psychology it’s the opposite, which is kind of unfortunate. Like one guy I follow on YouTube talked about wanting to research something (can’t remember what, but take something like pedophilia) but was told that if he went forward with it he’d be viewed as one because people often want to research what they’re familiar with. I personally find that a bit more important to study than whether ants track their steps, but I’m just one person 🥲
I wonder what percentage of these weird studies that make us ask “why are they spending money on that?” are being done by students working on theses and doctorates and whatnot, and what percentage are non-scholastic institutions asking for government funds to see if you can teach penguins to French kiss.
To be clear this is probably someone’s PhD thesis and they basically do it on their own dime with grants and such. It’s not like the dod playing with bugs for some reason.
Can confirm that this is a PhD thesis. The guy who made it was my professor when I was in college.
Research for the sake of research is how we make discoveries we never thought possible.
The best discoveries are the ones that start with somebody going, “Huh, that’s weird…”
This one’s not even that far out there. Understanding how ants think has direct applications! Ants must take many thousands of steps in a day; being able to count them precisely requires certain cognitive facilities we wouldn’t otherwise know existed. Next step: figure out how those things work with such simple cognition. Then apply that to self-organizing robots and use them to cure cancer or something.
I mean, we could even try to extract how this works and use it to create a biological processor. Or a myriad of other stuff. This is actually a really interesting discovery
Get stilted losers
-Science
Science is basically journalism about the natural world. If ants have exposed themselves to a laughable scandal, it’s only a matter of time before we’ve nailed their asses to a wall
I’m not sure… ants walk really far. Think of how long it takes us to get human children to the point where they can count to 1000. Do ants just hatch with a sense of numbers?
You don’t need a sense of numbers, in the abstract mathematical way humans use, to count.
Maybe a human child can’t count to 1000 but they could be taught to put a BB inside a jar every step they take. Then they can take a BB back out of the jar at every step on the way back. When the jar is empty, they’re near home. Even if they can’t count at all, they can keep track of thousands of steps this way given enough attention span and stamina.
Then, just imagine, instead of a BB’s in a jar it’s some chemical signal in the brain.
Maybe its less like a number as we know it, and more like an ant poem or other mnemonic representation?
Yeah, I always thought it amazing that crows could keep track of items up to five. Maybe we read that one wrong if ants are capable of counting so high, or maybe they’re not exactly counting. I’d love to know more.
I’m pretty sure the ants are using a memory palace (method of loci).
It’s simple, they just remember all their siblings born after them, until they arrive at their food. So once they reach Jant they know the food is close. Simply count backwards until they reach Trant and they’re home.
I always assume they just left a trail of ant stank on the ground and everyone followed it to wherever the food was.
What is this? Stilts for ants?
I wonder if they happen to use base 10?
I’d guess base 6 with their 6 legs.
Every base is base 10.
Woah
I read ant bootie and thought of something ENTIRELY different
Ah, so you’re an abdomen guy, eh? I’m partial to a nice thorax.
I hope someone glues stilts to their legs then. What. It’s for science. Because we can’t figure out a better way to study how scientists get stilts glued to their legs.
I wonder if they’re smart to count, or stupid to walk past the food.
Yes
Scientists should teach AI to be more like ants, maybe then it can finally do better math.
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Wasting budget and time? Grad students get paid?
