{"id":207,"date":"2023-11-13T11:42:07","date_gmt":"2023-11-13T10:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hweb-x-0-fe-04.fe.cpd.local\/softbio\/?page_id=207"},"modified":"2023-11-21T17:49:23","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T16:49:23","slug":"fire-ants-as-active-matter","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ub.edu\/softbio\/fire-ants-as-active-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire Ants as Active Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:14px\"><em>Caleb Anderson<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Active matter systems are a class of systems that share striking universal features over broad range of length-scales. The field was originally founded to understand the behavior of biological crowds, such as flocks of birds, but as theory work has become more precise, many of its predictions have been primarily verified in synthetic systems, in which particles interact with each other in well-defined ways. We seek to use fire ants to return the field to its roots and see if the some of the most famous results in synthetic systems can be applied to the ants despite their extremely complicated, in fact social, interactions.<br><br>Ants can attract each other and form clusters in a manner called Motility-Induced Phase Separation (MIPS) because their social interactions cause them to slow down when they approach each other, like particles in several synthetic systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video aligncenter\"><video height=\"720\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1280 \/ 720;\" width=\"1280\" controls src=\"http:\/\/hweb-x-0-fe-04.fe.cpd.local\/softbio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/MIPS.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">However, at very high densities, ants undergo \u201cactivity cycles\u201d, in which long periods of relative low activity are punctuated by short bursts during which all of the ants attempt to move, regardless of the density. During these bursts, the ants don\u2019t slow down when they approach each other, so they don\u2019t undergo MIPS. Instead they, leading to another behavior famous in active matter systems \u2013 collective motion. In systems of tens of thousands of ants, this combination of varying contagious activity levels and the resulting collective motion leads to beautiful \u201cactivity waves\u201d, that propagate towards the free surface!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video aligncenter\"><video height=\"720\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1280 \/ 720;\" width=\"1280\" controls src=\"http:\/\/hweb-x-0-fe-04.fe.cpd.local\/softbio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Waves.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><video autoplay=\"\" loop=\"\"><\/video><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caleb Anderson Active matter systems are a class of systems that share striking universal features over broad range of length-scales. The field was originally founded to understand the behavior of biological crowds, such as flocks of birds, but as theory work has become more precise, many of its predictions have been primarily verified in synthetic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"full-width","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"5","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"Soft Condensed Matter Laboratory","ocean_post_subheading":"Fire Ants as Active Matter","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-207","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ub.edu\/softbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ub.edu\/softbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ub.edu\/softbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ub.edu\/softbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ub.edu\/softbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ub.edu\/softbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"https:\/\/www.ub.edu\/softbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/207\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ub.edu\/softbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}