英文外刊-蚂蚁如何避免交通拥堵

英文外刊-蚂蚁如何避免交通拥堵
Anyone who commutes by car knows that traffic jams are an inevitable part of life.
开车通勤的人都知道交通堵塞是生活中不可避免的一部分。

But humans are not alone in facing potential backups.
但是，并非只有人类面临着潜在的交通阻塞。

Ants also commute between their nest and sources of food.
蚂蚁也往返于巢穴和食物来源之间。

The survival of their colonies depends on doing this efficiently.
它们“殖民地”的生存依赖有效地通勤。

"The more they are, the more food they're going to bring back. But at the same time, they might end up with traffice jam because there are too many of them."
“蚂蚁的数量越多，带回的食物就越多。

但同时，可能会因为数量太多而导致交通堵塞。

”
Arizona State University mathematician Sebastien Motsch.
塞巴斯蒂安.莫特奇是亚利桑那州立大学的数学家。

When humans commute, there's a point at which cars become dense enough to slow down the flow of traffic, causing gridlock.
人们通勤时，总有一个地方的车辆密度很大，导致交通堵塞。

Motsch and his colleagues wanted to know if ants on the move could also get clogged.
莫特奇和他的同事想知道移动中的蚂蚁是否也会碰见交通拥堵。

So they manipulated traffic density by constructing bridges of various widths between a colony of Argentine ants and a source of food.
因此，他们在阿根廷蚂蚁群和食物来源之间建造不同宽度的桥梁，以此控制交通密度。

Then they waited and watched.
然后，他们等待并观察。

"The goal was to try to find out at what point they are going to have a traffic jam. But it appears that never happened. They never, at one point, just stopped. They always managed to avoid traffic jam."
“我们的目标是找到发生交通堵塞的地方。

但是，这个地方似乎不存在，蚂蚁从未停止前行，且总能避开交通堵塞.。

”
The flow of ants did increase initially as ants started to fill the bridge and then leveled off at high densities.
一开始，蚂蚁的数量确实有所增加，因为桥上满是蚂蚁,然后蚂蚁密度又下降。

But it never slowed down even when the bridge was nearly saturated with ants.
但是，即使在桥上几乎满是蚂蚁时，它们也没有放慢速度。

The researchers then took a closer look at how the behavior of individual ants impacted traffic as a whole.
然后，研究人员进一步研究了单个蚂蚁的行为如何影响整个交通。

That meant meticulously tracking thousands of separate ants as they made their way across the bridge.
这意味着，数千只蚂蚁从桥上穿过时，要仔细地跟踪它们。

Motsch and his team found that when ants sense overcrowding, they adjust their speeds and avoid entering high-density areas, which prevents congestion.
莫特奇和他的团队发现，蚂蚁感到拥挤时，会调整自己的速度，避免进入高密度区域，从而避免拥挤。

These behaviors may be facilitated by pheromones, chemicals that tell other ants where a trail is.
这些行为可能是由信息素促进的,信息素(化学物质)可以告诉其他蚂蚁自己的路线。

The ants also manage to avoid colliding with each other at high densities, which could really slow them down.
蚂蚁也能在高密度的情况下避免相互碰撞，这可能会减慢它们的速度。

The study is in the journal Elife.
这项研究发表于杂志Elife。

Can ants help us solve our own traffic problems?
蚂蚁能帮助我们解决人类的交通问题吗?
Not likely, says Motsch.
莫特奇表示，不太可能。

That's because when it comes to getting from point A to point B as fast as possible, human drivers put their own goals first.
这是因为，以最快的速度从A点到达B点时，人类司机是把自己的目标放在首位。

Individual ants have to be more cooperative in order to feed the colony.
为了供养整个蚁群，蚂蚁个体必须密切合作。

But the research could be useful in optimizing traffic flow for
self-driving cars, which can be designed to be less like selfish humans and more like ants.
但是，这项研究可能有助于优化自动驾驶汽车的交通流量，这类汽车可以设计得更像蚂蚁，而不是自私的人类。