Natural Networks

Now ideas for advances in data routing are beginning to emerge from a surprisingly simple model: the ant.Indeed, applying the study of ants to complex engineering problems is something of an intellectual trend. The topic drew attention at a recent international conference on artificial intelligence in Seattle. It has been discussed in a variety of scientific journals. And a new book by Steven Johnson, "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software" (Scribner), points to ant behavior as a way to further, among other things, understanding of the World Wide Web.What makes ants worth studying, if not emulating? For one thing, they exhibit something called swarm intelligence. That is, the teamwork of social insects is decentralized. Individually, an ants actions are primitive, but collectively, they result in efficient solutions to complex problems like finding the shortest route between the nest and a food source.
http://nytimes.com/2001/09/13/technology/circuits/13ANTS.html?pagewanted=all