<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML xmlns:o = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:st1 =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2769" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"
bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=role_document
face=Arial color=#000000 size=3>
<DIV>In his 1978 book Life Strategies, Valerius Geist, a charter member of this
group, wrote that all animal communication boils down to two words, yes and no,
to two sort of signals, attraction cues and repulsion cues. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Meanwhile, in his work during the 1990s with bacteria, Eshel
Ben-Jacob discovered that the same positive and negative signals
appeared on the microscopic level, where bacteria also issue attraction and
repulsion signals, chemical come-hithers and chemical stay aways.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When Pavel Kurakin and I started work on a joint project about quantum
partilcles a year or more ago, Pavel was hoping I could give him an example of
attraction and repulsion cues among ants. I couldn't. There were
equivalent signals among bees. But ants, from what I knew of the
literature, had just one chemical semaphore--come hither. They made do on
just attraction cues.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Nonetheless the leap that Pavel was making, the inference that
ants, too, had attraction and repulsion cues, seemed a good one. But was
it true? New data seem to indicate that, in fact, Pavel's inference was on
target. Ants have more than come-over-here-and-check-this-out
signals. Their chemical, pheromonal language also lets them give each
other repulsion cues. It lets them tell others to shun this place and stay
away.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Here's the confirmation of what springs from the work of Val Geist and
Eshel Ben-Jacob, this time cropping up among ants. Howard</DIV>
<DIV>------------</DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Courier New">Retrieved <SPAN style="mso-no-proof: yes">November 27,
2005</SPAN>, from the World Wide Web<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051126/fob4.asp Science News
Online<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Week of Nov. 26, 2005; Vol.
168, No. 22 Unway Sign: Ant pheromone stops traffic<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Susan Milius<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Researchers say that they've discovered
a new kind of traffic sign on ant highways—a chemical "Do not enter" that lets
the insects avoid wasting time on paths that don't lead to food.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>a6763_1188.jpg<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>COMMUTERS' CHOICE. Ants follow chemical
paths that increase traffic toward known food bonanzas and avoid thankless
journeys. Robinson<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Ant science has
for decades focused on chemical attractants that define trails, says Elva J.H.
Robinson of the <st1:place><st1:PlaceType>University</st1:PlaceType> of
<st1:PlaceName>Sheffield</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> in
<st1:country-region><st1:place>England</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
However, the new tests give evidence of a repellent pheromone, which hasn't yet
been identified, she and her colleagues report in the Nov. 24 Nature.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>"Nobody believed that such a thing
existed," says Robinson.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There has
certainly been resistance to the idea over the years, says Nigel Franks of the
<st1:place><st1:PlaceType>University</st1:PlaceType> of
<st1:PlaceName>Bristol</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> in
<st1:country-region><st1:place>England</st1:place></st1:country-region>. In the
1990s, he and his colleagues mathematically modeled ant trails. Complementing
attractants with a hypothetical repellent to block useless trails in a model
system "vastly increased its efficiency," he says, but other scientists' reviews
of that model were "scathing."<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Robinson says that she wasn't thinking about repellents when she started
her laboratory experiments on foraging trails in pharaoh's ants (Monomorium
pharaonis). "We got some quite unexpected results," she says. Some of the ants
started zigzagging or doing U-turns when approaching a trail that only Robinson
knew didn't lead to food. "It looked as if ants had suddenly developed psychic
abilities," she says.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>She and her
colleagues set up two-pronged, paper-covered platforms where ants could forage.
One setup had a feeder on one prong but no food on the other. After ants had
used it for a while, the researchers moved the paper from the no-food prong to
one prong of a different platform that had previously had a working ant trail
and feeder on each prong. The researchers put a neutral piece of paper—one from
an area of the ants' lab home that had no trail—on the second prong, which had
also carried a feeder.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Of the ants
in the new setup that came to the fork and made a choice, some 70 percent
avoided the branch with the paper from the no-food prong. Something on the paper
must have turned away traffic, the researchers concluded.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The prong's paper was most repellent
near the fork. Also, the ants often changed course some 15 body lengths before
the fork.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Chemical ecologist David
Morgan of <st1:place><st1:PlaceName>Keele</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType>University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> in
<st1:country-region><st1:place>England</st1:place></st1:country-region> says
that biologists "just haven't really looked" for negative pheromones on ant
trails, but the new paper "might now start a great flood of interest."<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As for do-not-enter signs in other ant
species, "I would be very shocked indeed if they didn't find them," says
Franks.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If you have a comment on
this article that you would like considered for publication in Science News,
send it to editors@sciencenews.org. Please include your name and location.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>References:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Robinson, E.J., et al. 2005. 'No entry'
signal in ant foraging. Nature 438(Nov. 24):442.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Further
<st1:City><st1:place>Readings</st1:place></st1:City>:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Milius, S. 2004. Road rage keeps ants
moving smoothly. Science News 165(March 20):190. Available to subscribers at
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040320/note16.asp.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>______. 2002. Ant traffic flow: Raiding
swarms with few rules avoid gridlock. Science News 163(Dec. 21):388. Available
to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20021221/fob3.asp.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For more on Pharaoh's ants, go to
http://www.shef.ac.uk/aps/mbiolsci/stuart-hutchinson/pharaore-ant.html.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Sources:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Nigel Franks
<st1:place><st1:PlaceType>School</st1:PlaceType> of
<st1:PlaceName>Biological</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> Sciences
<st1:PlaceType>University</st1:PlaceType> of Bristol Woodland Road
<st1:City><st1:place>Bristol</st1:place></st1:City> BS8 1UG United Kingdom<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>E. David Morgan Chemical Ecology Group
Lennard-Jones Laboratory <st1:place><st1:PlaceType>School</st1:PlaceType> of
<st1:PlaceName>Chemistry</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> and Physics
<st1:PlaceName>Keele</st1:PlaceName> University Staffordshire ST5 5BG United
Kingdom<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Elva Robinson Department of
Animal and Plant Sciences <st1:PlaceName>Sheffield</st1:PlaceName> University
Western Bank <st1:place>Sheffield</st1:place> S10 2TN United Kingdom<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051126/fob4.asp<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>From Science News, Vol. 168, No. 22,
<st1:date Month="11" Day="26" Year="2005">Nov. 26, 2005</st1:date>, p. 340.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Copyright (c) 2005 Science Service. All
rights reserved.<SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">
</SPAN></FONT><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A
Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and Global Brain: The Evolution
of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st Century<BR>Recent Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; Core Faculty
Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of Evolution
Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The Big Bang Tango
Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political
Science, Advanced Technology Working Group, Human Behavior and Evolution
Society, International Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member:
Institute for Accelerating Change ; executive editor -- New Paradigm book
series.<BR>For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from <BR>The Lucifer Principle: A
Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, see
www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of
Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>