Ants: A Model for Business Management?

The ant is not only a good model for cameras and for activists but also, according to Forbes’ Rick Wartzman, for managers. Wartzman identifies four ways in which the typical ant colony implements quality management practices in accordance with the philosophy of Peter Drucker:

1) Work is focused on tasks rather than promotion

2) Promotion is devoid of nepotism

3) The flow of information is decentralized

4) Using ants as models because, as Drucker said, “ants and bees are as much social animals as man”

The last point is a bit of a cheat and doesn’t really address an aspect of ant social behavior. Regardless, I appreciate Wartzman’s efforts to learn from ants in order to improve the efficiency of mankind. Perhaps such comparisons are not too off the mark? In any case, be sure to read the rest of the article here.

Through the Eye of an Ant

A friend of mine recently shared with me a story from CNN in which humans, per Solomon’s instructions, look to the ant, consider its ways, and are wise. Researchers have developed a digital camera that actually mimics the eye of various insects, including the fire ant. Below is the image included in the article:

This is certainly an impressive feat, and may lead to advances in cameras for both wide-angle purposes and small spaces like those in the human body. Less impressive is the inclusion of the “fire ant” in the photo, which is, incidentally, not a fire ant (genus Solenopsis). I believe that this is actually some sort of Pheidole species, but I’m not sure. I was first suspicious due to the rugosity (bumpiness) of the exoskelton, which is not something I typically associate with the rather smooth fire ants, but two other definitive traits soon presented themselves. The first is the presence of spines on the “propodeum”, the last segment of the “mesosoma” (the middle section of the ant which looks like a thorax, but is actually both the thorax and part of the abdomen fused to the thorax). Solenopsis species lack such spines. The second trait is the number of segments of the club of the ant’s antennae. Solenopsis species only have a two-segmented club, while this individual has a four-segmented club (like in some Pheidole and other genera). See the image below:

So, in summary: cool discovery, bad taxonomy.

Chomsky on Ants: Collateral Damage

Noam Chomsky is well known for his achievements in linguistics and his commentary against American imperialistic behavior. He is less well known for his fondness of ants.

Strictly speaking, Chomsky has never explicitly stated that he is an admirer of ants. But his repeated use of the insect to illustrate his views on American attacks on foreign soil strongly indicates that he has a proper understanding of the supremacy of the venerable Formicidae. I noted his use of ants in a previous post, in which Chomsky compared the treatment of non-U.S. citizens by the U.S. government to our treatment of ants that “we step on when we walk down the street”. However, I did not realize at the time that such a reference was not unique to the 2011 case of Anwar al-Awlaki, and that such metaphors by the professor date back to over a decade ago.

In a 2007 response to Samantha Power on terrorism, Chomsky had this to say:

Evidently, a crucial case is omitted, which is far more depraved than massacring civilians intentionally.  Namely, knowing that you are massacring them but not doing so intentionally because you don’t regard them as worthy of concern.  That is, you don’t even care enough about them to intend to kill them.  Thus when I walk down the street, if I stop to think about it I know I’ll probably kill lots of ants, but I don’t intend to kill them, because in my mind they do not even rise to the level where it matters.  There are many such examples.  To take one of the very minor ones, when Clinton bombed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical facility in Sudan, he and the other perpetrators surely knew that the bombing would kill civilians (tens of thousands, apparently).   But Clinton and associates did not intend to kill them, because by the standards of Western liberal humanitarian racism, they are no more significant than ants.  Same in the case of tens of millions of others.

Like the metaphorical use in 2011, Chomsky here criticizes the U.S. government for treating “collateral damage” – i.e. “humans” – like ants. Or perhaps he is actually criticizing the U.S. government’s (and his own) lack of concern for the lives of ants? Hm…

Similarly, in his 2003 book, Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World, Chomsky implements the ultimate metaphor (ants) to discuss collateral damage, this time in relation to the War in Afghanistan:

It is acceptable to report the “collateral damage” by bombing error, the inadvertent and inevitable cost of war, but not the conscious and deliberate destruction of Afghans who will die in silence, invisibly – not by design, but because it doesn’t matter, a deeper level of moral depravity; if we step on an ant while walking, we have not purposely killed it.

It is revealing that the eloquent Chomsky turns to ants when he must try to illustrate the “deeper level of moral depravity” involved in the bombings he describes. Again, perhaps he is trying to show that ants should be considered as having the same moral status as humans. Just think – if mankind viewed ants like they do their fellow man, would such atrocities ever occur?

In any case, Noam Chomsky has provided a decade of apt ant metaphors. However, despite my satisfaction with his choice of insect, I sincerely hope he will not have another chance to make such a connection.

Also, one (more serious) final note: I wrote this post prior to the horrible events in Boston on Monday. I think it is therefore even more important to mention that Chomsky, and those like Glenn Greenwald who comment on the atrocities of U.S. action abroad in the light of national tragedies, clearly do not think that domestic loss is irrelevant compared to the abuses of our government abroad. Rather, they (and I) believe that we, as American citizens, ought to realize that our response to violence is marked by “selective empathy”. All too often, we view the foreign victims of U.S. bombings as mere ants, while American victims of events like the Boston Marathon bombings deserve the status of humanized parents, siblings, and infants. Regardless of how interesting I find ants, I believe it is a human obligation to view all humans as, well, humans. No one is “collateral damage”. Goods are damaged. People are killed.

Mad Ants

I am surprised I didn’t know this already, but there is an NBA Development League team called “Fort Wayne Mad Ants“. They are from Fort Wayne. Apparently they did well this year, with The Ants making it to the playoffs for the first time since their formation in 2007. I am sure it won’t be long before these Ants, like those in nature, come to dominate their environment.

Monday Mandarin Meanings – huángfěn chóng

Last week, I discussed insect poop tea. This week we have something more disgusting:

This is huángfěn chóng, the Mandarin word for the mealworm (the larval stage of the beetle Tenebrio molitor). The last character, chóng, is the basic character for “insect”, as we’ve seen before (e.g. here and here). It is therefore the first two characters which carry the interesting meaning. Huáng is “yellow”, and fěn is “powder” or “noodles made from flour”. I prefer the latter definition, as “yellow noodle insect” make sense. I’ll spare y’all the pictures, but let’s just say it could be hard to distinguish huángfěn chóng from the rest of the pasta on your plate. However, they are apparently high in protein, so accidentally consuming a mealworm or two may simply confer nice health benefits.

Diabetes. Diabeetus. Diabeetants.

As I was looking up some information on diabetes, I happened across this gem, in Principles of Diabetes Mellitus:

Physicians in India at around [1500 BC] developed what can be described as the first clinical test for diabetes. They observed that the urine from people with diabetes attracted ants and flies. They named the condition “madhumeha” or “honey urine”.

I suppose that given ants’ potential ability to predict earthquakes, I shouldn’t be surprised that ants can detect diabetes. As an aside, I didn’t know that higher glucose in urine is a result of diabetes! Yet again, the ants outsmart me.

Ants as Seismologists

Earthquakes are big. Ants are small. Nevertheless, a recent story by LiveScience tells of red wood ants in Germany that predict oncoming earthquakes of magnitude 2.0 or greater.

These Formica ants incidentally prefer the soil along fault lines, with “more than 15,000 red wood ant mounds lined up along Germany’s faults, like candy drops on a conveyor belt”. The researchers who studied these ants (Gabriele Berberich et al.) detected shifts in nest behavior prior to earthquakes that occurred between 2009 and 2012, with the typically diurnal ants exhibiting nocturnal activity leading up to the events. Remarkably, normal behavior resumed a day after each earthquake.

Berberich et al. aren’t sure how these miniature seismologists are able to detect imminent earthquakes, but they suggest that changing gas emissions or local magnetic field shifts may trigger the abnormal activity. That the researchers are uncertain of the cause is not surprising, as I am sure this is the first study to document such interesting (and potentially useful) behavior. Imagine if ants turn out to be as effective as our most advanced seismological equipment at predicting earthquakes?

More information is available on the University of Duisburg-Essen’s website.