Given this, I found a recent online article quite interesting. John Johnson over at Newser.com posted a piece titled “Ants May Solve Our Traffic Jams: They Stay in Their Lanes, May Provide a Model for Autonomous Traffic Systems”. According to the article…
You know that guy who tries to pass everyone on the shoulder of a road during a traffic jam? Even ants would think he's a jerk. A new study suggests that the tiny creatures have a knack for avoiding jam-ups when they're marching along together—and one of the rules is "no overtaking," per Interesting Engineering. Researchers at the University of Trento in Italy studied the way ants behave when proceeding in a long line—long being relative at 30 centimeters, or about 12 inches, according to a release at Phys.org. The line moved with the ants in perfect sync with each other.
"Ants are among the few species that can handle bidirectional traffic flows, much like our roads, yet they move seamlessly without congestion," says Marco Guerrieri, co-author of the study in the journal Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. The lead ant lays down a pheromone trail the others follow, moving "in platoons with small gaps and no overtaking," explains Guerrieri. This might not have much relevance at the moment in regard to the aforementioned shoulder-passers—but it could someday if autonomous vehicles become the norm.
"In the future, traffic systems for autonomous vehicles ... could be inspired by ant behavior," say the researchers. "Just like insects communicate through pheromones, on smart roads, Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAV) could use advanced communication technologies to communicate with each other and with the road infrastructure management." Like the ants, the autonomous vehicles "could form coordinated platoons, moving at high speeds with close spacing across parallel lanes."
I had to laugh as I read the story. In a day and age of artificial intelligence driven by algorithms, researchers have apparently discovered that simply watching slow-motion films of ants moving along provides a much needed clue for the movement of automobile traffic.
Why am I laughing? Because the Word of God tells us (in Proverbs 6:6-8 KJV): “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.”
I like the way the New Living Translation translates Proverbs chapter 6, verse 6: “Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise!”
Did you catch it?! Some three thousand years before anyone ever conceived of computers and artificial intelligence, the Bible offered men and women simple everyday wisdom!
Now, if the Word of God is so preeminent to the wisdom of men and women in matter of insect behavior in the natural world, how much more so is it in matters of the spiritual realm? That is to say, in matters far more consequential?!
Of course, whether or not we choose to learn from the ants is purely our choice. In other words, we alone determine whether or not we will ever see the Word of God as a beneficial “learning experience”!
ARTICLE SOURCE:
https://www.newser.com/story/362786/ants-may-solve-our-traffic-jams.html.
SCRIPTURE:
https://biblehub.com/kjv/proverbs/6.htm;
https://biblehub.com/proverbs/6-6.htm.