What purpose do ANTS serve?
351221
Have you ever heard about ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION?\nAnts are much more wiser than we think...\nHave a look at this: \nhttp://www.aco-metaheuristic.org\nyou'll enjoy it.
1128996
I suspect the answer is they can, but when enough of them bite you, you'd wake up and do something about it. In Houston, some years back, some awful people abandoned a newborn baby girl in a plastic bag on the side of the road. They found her covered in ant bites but alive. Doctors said that the ant bites were bad, but if the ants had not eaten through the plastic bag the child would have suffocated, so it was just as well -- they could treat ant bites.\n\nOf course, 6 months later I'm in the checkout at the grocery and see a headline on one of the "rag" newspapers: "Doctors amazed! Ants save baby girl's life!"
989909
They can. But ants don't really walk to a destination the way we do. Most of the time they walk in a zig zag pattern leaving behind them a trail of scent back to their hole. Once they've found a food source they go back to the hole leaving behind them a different scent that other ants will pick up on and then they go to the food as well. Once a few ants start going to and from the food source from the hole all the ants around will just run back and forth bringing home the food, that's when you'll see ants running fairly straight.
784330
Maybe ants get thirsty too. How do you know they're not trying to develop an ant beach front resort ? Or a city by the waterfront. What if there's some giant being staring from across the Galaxies looking at people by a beach asking the same question as you are ?
711162
ants do sleep, or at least have a stage where they respond noticeably worse to external stimuli and are inactive. You just don't see ants sleep because they do that in their nest, not outside. You don't see many people sleep on the streets either, do you?\nWhy we sleep is a still unsolved and very intriguing question. Especially for something that essential. Clear is that people (or animals) can even die for lack of sleep. As it is a complex subject look up more details at the link below.
1152123
i dont think so............ \nits a good way of observing ants
207443
Yes they do.\n\nQuote from article found at http://ant.edb.miyakyo-u.ac.jp/ \n\n---quote begins---\nAlthough ants can be seen in various places from spring to autumn, they go into hibernation in the winter. In addition, from spring to autumn, many ants are seen to come from, and go into, the entrances of their nests, but these entrances are closed in winter and no ants are seen to come from there.\nWhere do ants pass the winter?\n---quote ends---\n\nFind out more from\nhttp://ant.edb.miyakyo-u.ac.jp/BE/Kingdom/5657/5657e.html
1064656
All the ants. There's about a googleplex of ants out there.
45152
What are of you people talking about the ants rule the population. one small caibbean ant colonies combined has the world's population. so ants rule the population (those queen ants can work...wow).
530182
Ants find their way to food in two different ways. Sometimes a scout simply bumps into a food source. Usually though Ants use their incredibly powerful antenna to detect particles in the air, just like a snakes tongue does. Its very much like smelling. They communicate to the other ants their is food by first laying a trail from the food source back to the nest. They do this almost always in the straightest fashion as possible, even if they have been weaving around for hours. Once back at the nest they convey chemical signals, which gets all the other worker ants (who are all female) to follow her chemical trail to the food. The combine brain power of a colony of ants is equal to a single human. And although no one ant is telling them what to do, each ant knows its job.
862232
I'm not sure about in Australia, but I know here in Western Canada we have flying ants called Carpenter Ants. As the name would suggest they are like termites in that they go after wood for a place to nest. Each year in late spring through till early summer you will see Queen Ants and Male Ants which have grown wings. They fly to find a mate, and once one is found they fall to the ground, loose their wings, and attempt to start a new colony.
536486
A number of birds will follow driver ants and feed on them and what they stir up.  Perhaps the always common greenbuls and bulbuls.  I expect that agamas would be happy to eat them also.  Certainly several amphibian species.  As mentioned above, many mammals would probably feed on them if given the chance.  I suspect shrews and brush-furred mice should be added to the chimps and mongosses listed above.\n\nNote: anteaters are South American and aardvarks largely specialize on termites.
589680
Army ants found in Africa are called driver ants. Driver ants form huge colonies, which in some cases consist of between 10 million and 20 million workers. Driver ants have extremely powerful mandibles. Their massive swarms are capable of immobilizing and killing large prey.\n\nIf attacked you won't be dismembered and eaten, but bites from large soldiers (workers) can inflict excruciating pain. Once their jaws have snapped shut, nothing can shake them loose.\n\nColonies of these ants have no permanent nests. Instead they make temporary bivouacs by interlocking their bodies in a protective dome over the queen and her young. Periodically they use a hollow log or decaying stump for a slightly more permanent shelter. This is for about 20 days and allows the queen to lay her eggs, possibly up to 30,000 of them.\n\nThey have been known to kill Elephants believe it or not. The very few cases with human fatalites most are of them being unconscious and their calls for help being unheard.
1001736
Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant or http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant\n\nI don't know whether are you asking about the ratio of physical size, or the ratio of number of them
463800
sugar & grease is what ants are usually attracted to.\n\nput out a potato chip & watch them go wild (it's the grease in the potato chip that they are after)
934886
Just imagine an army of ants with no queen. God Bless! quit the arrogance and realize all this beautiful nature was not created by chance or you. God Bless Love. Amen. Try praying and speaking to your Father God.
277213
The phenomenon that the ants and cockroaches take advantage of is that microwaves form standing waves within the oven cavity.\n\nSo in some places in the oven space, the energy density is very high, whereas in others it is very low. This is why most ovens have turntables to ensure that cooking food is heated evenly throughout.\n\nThis standing wave pattern can be observed by putting a static tray of marshmallows in the microwave, and heating for a while. The result will be a pattern of cooked and uncooked marshmallows. The standing wave pattern, however, varies according to the properties and position of any material within the oven, such as a cup of water.\n\nThe ant will experience this pattern as hot or cold regions within the oven and can thus locate the low-energy volumes. If the ant is in a high-field region, its high surface area to volume ratio allows it to cool down more quickly than a larger object while it searches for a cold spot.\n\nIt is a common myth that microwaves are too big to heat small objects. The fallacy of this has been demonstrated by chemists who employ microwave heating in their work. Certain types of catalyst consist of microwave-absorbing particles--typically of submicron size--dispersed throughout an inert support material. There is convincing evidence that microwaves are capable of heating only the tiny catalyst particles. \n\nThere is very little microwave energy near the metallic floor or walls of the oven. The electromagnetic fields of microwaves are "shorted" by the conducting metal, just as the amplitudes of waves in a skipping rope, swung by a child at one end but tied to a post at the other, are reduced to nothing at the post.\n\nAn ant crawling on the rope could ride out the motion near the post, but might be thrown off nearer the middle.\n\nFor a quick demonstration of this, place two pats of butter in a microwave in two polystyrene coffee cup bottoms, one resting on the floor, the other raised on an inverted glass tumbler. Be sure to place a cup of water in the microwave as well. On heating, the raised butter will melt long before the butter on the floor.