Everything in the Future Could Be Made of Ants

Your future windowpane , wall , and peradventure sauceboat will be made of ants — or at least of an ant - like center . novel enquiry shows why ants class as both a hearty and a liquid , and why they ’d make the best self - repairing construction stuff .

The fire pismire in the picture above are in a rheometer , a gadget that is usually used when examination helping hand emollient or toothpaste for consistence by splay , not by squish . While the ants tend to resist the flow of the textile , sooner or later the force gets to be too much for them . At that point they “ play idle , ” and their response to being stirred around is no dissimilar from that of utter pismire . They go with the flow until the imperativeness is off . On the other hand , if you constrict them chop-chop — as the scientists do with the ball of pismire in the moving picture below — they can yoke up again quickly and spring back into human body .

This give them the properties of a viscoelastic material — a substance that withstand any deformation , that can flow when it needs to , but that springs back into shape after it has been change shape . That is a very valuable belongings . If it could be harnessed , it would mean that instead of shattering , materials like windows or wall could flow back into shape if they were deformed by too much stress . Take a tone at what happens when a group of ants gets a penny dropped onto it :

The ants are n’t being crushed . ( Other than that one at the very top left . ) alternatively , they ’re go aside just before they get wound , letting the cent pearl slow .

This does n’t happen all the clock time . Ants with lots of space just move aside . However , the more ant get together , the more they act like an elastic fluid instead of individual creatures .

We ’re a foresightful way from constructing materials like these , but at least by detect ants , we can get a clue as to how we might do so someday . If we can work up a million midget robots and give them each the introductory instruction manual that will appropriate them to behave like crowd together ants , we might make bulwark that ready themselves .

Starship Test 9