When I think of Bernie I think of army ant death spiral. It’s when army ants get confused and start marching around in a circle. Like all ants - they remain forever determined but they can die of exhaustion.
An ant mill is an observed phenomenon in which a group of army ants, separated from the main foraging party, lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle. This circle is commonly known as a “death spiral” because the ants might eventually die of exhaustion. It has been reproduced in laboratories and in ant colony simulations.
The phenomenon is a side effect of the self-organizing structure of ant colonies. Each ant merely follows the ant in front of it, which functions until a slight deviation begins to occur, typically by an environmental trigger, and an ant mill forms. An ant mill was first described in 1921 by William Beebe, who observed a mill 370 m in circumference. It took each ant two and a half hours to make one revolution. Similar phenomena have been noted in processionary caterpillars and fish.
When I think of Bernie I think of army ant death spiral. It’s when army ants get confused and start marching around in a circle. Like all ants - they remain forever determined but they can die of exhaustion.
watching us all go through the 1980’s hiv/aids crises again but with project 2025 makes me think that we’re doing the same things as the ants.