Ants

The clerk in the Chinese grocery glanced at the door, then reached under the counter to pull out an unmarked package wrapped in brown paper. She carefully slit the thin paper down the side and removed a small, rectangular box that she put on the counter. "This is very good," she said. This illicit transaction is occurring in Asian neighborhoods all over Southern California, with people from all walks of life flocking to mom-and-pop stores for a fix of what's inside the box.

As a member of the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Swarm Lab , Simon Garnier studies how living things coordinate their behavior in large groups. The assistant biology professor recently used a swarm of micro-robots to dissect the behavior of invasive Argentine ants (read the robot ant story here ), and has also studied nomadic army ants in the jungles of Panama to observe their extraordinary bridge-building capability. In one of two papers published in PLOS Computational Biology on Thursday, Garnier and colleagues from Princeton University described the mechanics of how army ants use their own bodies to erect a bridges over gaps, allowing their fellow ants to walk over them.

Which is smarter: a swarm of brainless mini-robots with clockwork guts, or a colony of ravenous, half-blind Argentine ants? If you answered mindless robots, you're right - but just barely. Researchers studying the problem-solving abilities of foraging ants enlisted the aid of 10 sugar-cube-sized robots to determine whether the real-life insects had to put any thought into deciding which direction they should go when they came to a fork in the road or an obstacle in their path.

Which is smarter: a swarm of brainless mini-robots with clockwork guts, or a colony of ravenous, half-blind Argentine ants? If you answered mindless robots, you're right - but just barely. Researchers studying the problem-solving abilities of foraging ants enlisted the aid of 10 sugar-cube-sized robots to determine whether the real-life insects had to put any thought into deciding which direction they should go when they came to a fork in the road or an obstacle in their path.

For those who think spring is all about robins arriving, or window cleaning or crocuses budding, I have two words for you: ant sex. Now, I know what you're thinking: Those tiny black creatures marching relentlessly toward the sugar bowl or streaming across the driveway are all infertile females who have no interest in sex at all. This is true. But when the days lengthen and the earth warms, the thoughts of a select class of ants turn to passion. An ant queen produces all of the other ants in the colony.

Serfdom, war and dying for the tribe: It reads like a page out of a Russian novel. In fact, we're talking about ant life. Mark Moffett, an ecologist and a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution, has observed all of these behaviors in ants — and much more. Known for his detailed photographs of insects and other small creatures, the author of books about the rain forest canopy and frogs has now written "Adventures Among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions."

Groves suggested that today's audiences are too sophisticated to appreciate a classic like "Them!," and I must, unfortunately, agree. "Them!" treated 1954 viewers to an intelligently written script, a limited number of realistic-looking colossal black ants and a minimum of blood-letting in a story that was both suspenseful and credible from start to finish. By contrast, 1988 moviegoers would expect dialogue liberally laced with four-letter words, thousands of titanic ants cast in psychedelic hues, buckets of blood in every scene and a few pornographic embellishments tossed in for bad measure.

A recent art exhibition in Tunisia that some claim was insulting to Muslims has provoked new riots in the streets of the capital city of Tunis this week. The provocative exhibition was the annual Le Printemps des Arts, the Northern African country's largest visual arts show, which took place in the Tunis suburb of La Marsa. The exhibition featured a work that spelled out the word "Allah" with a string of ants, as well as other pieces that depicted the city of Mecca, according to reports from the BBC News and Reuters.

Re "Rain Has Ants on the Move; People Are Crying Uncle," Dec. 6: I never thought I'd be writing about my cure for home ant invasions, but here's what I've devised: If the ants are in the kitchen or bathroom and are marching along the counters, I take some liquid soap (I prefer Dawn but I'm sure any would work) and draw out a line of soap around the portal of entry. I also encircle any other sites on the counter that I don't want the ants to cross. In just a few seconds the ants will become mired in the soap, drown and die -- without getting through the soap moat.

Fire ants are making a comeback in Orange County, years after being nearly eradicated from the area, pest-control authorities report. Recent findings indicate the ants, named for the fiery sting of their bite, are expanding their range along county borders. The red ants had been kept largely under control within the county because of a homeowner fee approved by voters to pay for local ant control.

It started out as an inside gag, a bit of dadaist prankster wordplay. When Café Tacuba began thinking about a title for its new album, the Mexican alt-rock band opted to pay tongue-in-cheek tribute to the shape-shifting Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Thus was born "El Objeto Antes Llamado Disco," which in English translates as "The Object Previously Called a Record," the band's first studio release in five years. "It was a joke," says José Rangel, a.k.a. Joselo, the band's lead guitarist and sometime vocalist, speaking by phone in Spanish.

Building Stories Chris Ware Pantheon: Boxed, unpaged, $50 Chris Ware has been asking us to rethink comics for a long time, since his early days drawing for Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly's RAW. He's best known for the 2000 graphic novel "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth," a multilayered narrative that won several awards, as well as his ongoing comic book series the "Acme Novelty Library. " Still, it's no stretch to suggest that with his new work, "Building Stories," he has upped the ante, pushing comics in a new direction while paying tribute to their history.

On "De Este Lado Del Camino," the third track from their new album, Café Tacuba celebrates the art of creative meandering. "From this side of the street, without looking for any destination / and although the design isn't very clear," lead singer Rubén Albarrán intones in Spanish, his gravelly honeyed tenor guiding the rhythm section through a gathering storm of ethereal keyboard chords on its leisurely sojourn. Unhurried and unworried about the trail ahead, but sure of its ultimate purpose: that artistic approach has defined the Mexico City quartet and helped it endure for two decades as one of alt-Latin rock's most popular and influential acts.

The Texas Transportation Commission has approved the highest speed limit in the country -- 85 mph -- for a 40-mile-long toll road between Austin and San Antonio . . . . The first-ever "Tour de Antelope Valley" family campout and bicycle fun ride  will be held Sept. 28-29. Proceeds go to the Save Saddleback Butte fund to help keep Saddleback Butte State Park open. Info:  SaveSaddleback, (661) 946-1976 . . . . Sunset Magazine's SAVOR the Central Coast's Main Event takes place Sept.

A recent art exhibition in Tunisia that some claim was insulting to Muslims has provoked new riots in the streets of the capital city of Tunis this week. The provocative exhibition was the annual Le Printemps des Arts, the Northern African country's largest visual arts show, which took place in the Tunis suburb of La Marsa. The exhibition featured a work that spelled out the word "Allah" with a string of ants, as well as other pieces that depicted the city of Mecca, according to reports from the BBC News and Reuters.

The Social Conquest of Earth Edward O. Wilson Liveright: 330 pp, $27.95 Edward O. Wilson is one of the great scientists of our time. The world's leading expert on ants and a consummate naturalist, he brilliantly compiles research data from a broad cross-section of fields to produce pictures of the innate complexity of life. He is also a renowned author. His more than 20 books have won two Pulitzer Prizes for their explanations of the lives of ants and exploration of human nature.

With some embarrassment, I read David Colker's "Ants Balk at Chalk, but What's in It?" (Sept. 11). I've no claim to Asian ancestry, only a profound trust in urban legend. Street science assures me that ants don't breathe lung-wise, just through their hides. If I shut off whatever they use for pores, they quit gathering in my kitchen. I don't need to poison them; I just cosset them with leftover baby powder. Two years ago I explained this to a neighbor and he gratefully powdered his own ants to ant heaven and even applied a powdery trail around the kitchen of the Hermosa Beach house he was "sitting" for a traveling friend.

Ants Software.com Inc.'s shares fell 32% after Frederick Pettit, 64, resigned as chief executive, two weeks after the software developer warned "present cash resources will sustain operations" only through January. Shares of the Burlingame, Calif.-based company, which says it has found a way to speed up data processing, fell 94 cents to $2 in Nasdaq trading. On Nov. 28, Ants said it was abandoning its new corporate headquarters as losses for its fiscal second quarter ended Oct.

James Riley passed through three Major League Soccer franchises in two countries within a matter of minutes last November - all without leaving his living room. Left unprotected by the Seattle Sounders in the MLS expansion draft, he was selected by the fledgling Montreal Impact, which immediately traded him to Chivas USA. So over the next few months Riley had to rent an apartment in a strange city, find a yoga studio, locate the nearest grocery store and - most important - learn the quickest route between his new home and the Home Depot Center.

For those who think spring is all about robins arriving, or window cleaning or crocuses budding, I have two words for you: ant sex. Now, I know what you're thinking: Those tiny black creatures marching relentlessly toward the sugar bowl or streaming across the driveway are all infertile females who have no interest in sex at all. This is true. But when the days lengthen and the earth warms, the thoughts of a select class of ants turn to passion. An ant queen produces all of the other ants in the colony.