Cambridge Colony

Should you try to save a failing colony?

Lots of new beekeepers ask how they can save a failing colony. But the real question, I think, is should you even try? Could you be doing more harm than good? If you find a colony that is obviously declining, you have three choices. You can let [...]

Automation removes the colony-picking bottleneck

Integrate colony- picking into Tecan’s liquid handling robots to eliminate bottlenecks and increase throughput.

The Biggest Lost Colony Of Roanoke Theories: What Really Happened?

When a settler of the Roanoke colony returned after a three-year absence, he found the settlement abandoned.

One Of The World’s Largest Penguin Colonies Has Officially Disappeared

The unlikely, growing hobby of antkeeping

It’s come a long way since the toy ant farms of the 1950s. Today, hobbyists have gotten so good at it that scientists are turning to them for help.

Ants sniff out subtle chemical differences to navigate social hierarchies

Detectors on their antennae even allow the insects to tell enantiomers apart

What If? 1970 Cadillac Roadster de Ville

It's a question that has been on everyone's mind since at least 1963: Why is the Corvette a Chevrolet and not a Cadillac?

Ant Colony Optimization For Hackers

Originally proposed in 1992 by Marco Dorigo, ant colony optimization (ACO) is an optimization technique inspired by the path finding behaviour of ants searching for food. ACO is also a subset of swarm intelligence - a problem solving technique using decentralized, collective behaviour, to derive artificial intelligence.

Marine animal colony revealed as a multi-jet swimming machine

Marine animals that swim by jet propulsion, such as squid and jellyfish, are not uncommon. But it’s rare to find a colony of animals that coordinates multiple jets for whole-group locomotion. This week in Nature Communications, scientists report on a colonial jellyfish-like species that uses a sophisticated, multi-jet propulsion system based on an elegant division of labor among young and old members of the colony. [view:story=block_1]

How ants self-organize to build their nests

Ants collectively build nests whose size can reach several thousand times that of individual ants and whose architecture is sometimes highly complex. However, their ability to coordinate several thousand individuals when building their nests remains a mystery. To understand the mechanisms involved in this process, researchers combined behavioral analysis, 3D imaging and computational modeling techniques. Their work shows that ants self-organize by interacting with the structures…

So-called Indian Ridge linked to Lost Colony by local researcher

"This site is about more than the Lost Colony," said Hatteras native and businessman Mel Covey.

The Intelligence of Ants

Although initially believed to be an exclusively human trait, tool use has been documented in several species of ant - but just how capable are these tiny creatures?

What Space Billionaires Cost Us

Jeff Bezos’ quick trip into outer space is about more than just publicity.