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**Avaindimik** · 09-04-2012, 02:56 AM

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/tec...-1226459871303

ANTS and the internet. You wouldn't think the pair have anything in common, but, according to two researchers, ants actually speak the web's language.

Literally.

Biology professor, Deborah Gordon, wrote an algorithm that described how harvester ants go in search of food and realised it seemed similar to how files are transferred on computer networks.

So the Californian scientist called up her Stanford University colleague, computer science professor Balaji Prabhakar, who agreed that the process wasn't similar, but rather it was almost exactly the same as how internet protocols figure out how much bandwidth is needed to transfer a file.

09-04-2012, 02:56 AM	#1
Avaindimik Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 515 Senior Member	Ants searching for food mirror the workings of the internet http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/tec...-1226459871303 ANTS and the internet. You wouldn't think the pair have anything in common, but, according to two researchers, ants actually speak the web's language. Literally. Biology professor, Deborah Gordon, wrote an algorithm that described how harvester ants go in search of food and realised it seemed similar to how files are transferred on computer networks. So the Californian scientist called up her Stanford University colleague, computer science professor Balaji Prabhakar, who agreed that the process wasn't similar, but rather it was almost exactly the same as how internet protocols figure out how much bandwidth is needed to transfer a file.
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