Another example that we've been investigating are huge swarms of Mormon crickets. If you look at these swarms, all of the individuals are marching in the same direction, and it looks like cooperative behavior. Perhaps they have come to a collective decision to move from one place to another. We investigated this collective decision, and what really makes this system work in the case of the Mormon cricket is cannibalism.

From the archive:

If Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan -- a Camry, say -- to the ultra-efficient Prius.

Ants Have Algorithms