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Foraging patterns of ants in zero gravity
Foraging patterns of ants in zero gravity
Inspired by Matt Groening's Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer", NASA in collaboration with Stanford University sent ant colonies to the International Space Station, to study their behavior in microgravity and compare it against ground control experiments.
AnTracks was used in this study to track the ant movements and compute metrics.
NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins conducting the ants experiment on the ISS.
NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins conducting the ants experiment on the ISS.
Experiment setup on the ISS with four arenas, each with two chambers into which the ants are successively released in order to study their foraging behavior over time.
Experiment setup on the ISS with four arenas, each with two chambers into which the ants are successively released in order to study their foraging behavior over time.
Ant trajectory density over 30min in one of the experiment chambers.
Ant trajectory density over 30min in one of the experiment chambers.
Original experiment design by Matt Groening and David Mirkin (see "Deep Space Homer").
Original experiment design by Matt Groening and David Mirkin (see "Deep Space Homer").
Images (c) 20th Century Television / Fox.
Images (c) 20th Century Television / Fox.
Fore more info, see a the Daily Mail article, BBC article, video from the ISS, the paper describing the results, and NASA experiment details.
Fore more info, see a the Daily Mail article, BBC article, video from the ISS, the paper describing the results, and NASA experiment details.
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