The cen­tral intel­li­gence of ants – the way ant colonies orga­nize them­selves with­out a leader and get things done – con­tin­ues to amaze sci­en­tists and sci­ence writ­ers alike. Back in 2003, Deb­o­rah Gor­don, a Stan­ford biol­o­gist, gave a whole TED Talk called “How Do Ants Know What to Do?,” which sheds light on how ants can form stun­ning­ly com­plex, lead­er­less sys­tems. Then, sev­er­al years lat­er, Radi­o­Lab con­tin­ued to mull over Gor­don’s fas­ci­nat­ing research in one of its very first episodes.

Now we get this great bit of video. It comes to us via researchers at the Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, and it shows how ants, when placed in water, can form a com­plete­ly water­tight raft in under two min­utes. “They’ll gath­er up all the eggs in the colony and will make their way up through the under­ground net­work of tun­nels, and when the flood waters rise above the ground, they’ll link up togeth­er in these mas­sive rafts,” says Nathan J. Mlot, an engi­neer­ing stu­dent involved in the project. Amaz­ing­ly, even the ants at the bot­tom of the raft nev­er get sub­merged. They all sur­vive, which rais­es the ques­tion: Can this research lead to new floata­tion devices for the rest of us to use?

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Dai­ly Mail and Geek Sys­tem

The 2009 doc­u­men­tary Tran­scen­dent Man: The Life and Ideas of Ray Kurzweil is cur­rent­ly screen­ing both online and in select venues, and pro­vok­ing exact­ly the wide range of respons­es one would expect from a film about a futur­ist who has claimed, among oth­er things, that man would soon learn how to extend his life “indef­i­nite­ly.” The New York Times recent­ly com­pared his the­o­ries with 2nd and 3rd cen­tu­ry gnos­ti­cism, and since this film was made by an avowed believ­er in Kurzweil’s phi­los­o­phy and the­o­ries, it’s no sur­prise that Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can faults the movie for its rev­er­ence, and Vari­ety wish­es “It were not so trans­par­ent­ly on [Kurzweil’s side].”

Mean­while, the “high­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed crack­pot,” as you see him described in the movie’s trail­er, has been proven right more often than wrong. His fans are legion, and often wealthy. Lar­ry Page, the founder and CEO of Google, helped estab­lish Sin­gu­lar­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty with Kurzweil in 2008, and there many entre­pre­neurs and investors take 10 week cours­es to the tune of $25,000.

If you’re not inter­est­ed in shelling out $5 to rent the movie online (scroll down to the bot­tom of the page), then Kurzweil’s 10 answers to Time Mag­a­zine’s 10 ques­tions will give you a taste of what the fuss has been all about.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly