Granular excavation is the removal of solid, discrete particles from a structure composed of these objects. Efficiently predicting the stability of an excavation during particle removal is an unsolved ...

Look, up in the sky. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a... fire ant? OK, fine, fire ant queens are probably way too small to see when they’re 400 feet above the ground, but flying is a vital part of ...

Dirt is all around us. Under our feet. What we live on. What we build our houses and roads on. Dirt is just … there, ...

To understand their strategies for working effectively without clogging traffic jams, researchers studied how fire ants dug tunnels in glass particles that simulated soil. Disclaimer: AAAS and ...

Ants are renowned for their industriousness. Ask the grasshopper in the story by Aesop. He had to come begging the hardworking ant for food when winter came because he had frittered away his summer.

Digging underground provides homes for many insects and animals. Animals like badgers and prairie dogs dig underground homes. Humans dig underground to mine precious metals like gold and silver. But ...

If you live in a rural or suburban area in the Southern states, you’ve likely seen a fire ant hill a few times in your life. Stepping on a fire ant hill, sometimes referred to as a mound, can mean ...

Ants don’t tend to get in traffic jams. They might butt heads (or antennae) momentarily as they go about their industrious business, but ants somehow have mastered the art of keeping things moving.

They are kicked in corners, whacked off cabinets, squashed by shoe leather and vaporized by chemicals. But Daniel Ksepka, curator of the Bruce Museum's new exhibit "Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives," ...