Quorum Sensing
Part 4: The dangling conversation In the previous article, we saw bacterial populations defend themselves collectively. Cyanobacteria formed protective flocs, while dying E.
View seriesWelcome to adaptive-emergent
Software, Rewilded.
Featured
Part 1: From Little Things Big Things Grow
This is a part one of a four part series of emergent microbial communication.
19-Jul-2026
Read more
Series sampler
Algorithms on Display
(See the original demos announcement at the link). We have added more algorithms to the website to try out and tweak.
View seriesArtificial vs Natural Intelligence
Over this 7-part series, we’ve explored how natural systems — ants, bees, birds, and brains — solve problems through emergence, not instruction.
View seriesLatest Posts
Collective intelligence can become an echo chamber when agents see actions but not evidence
Simple information constraints can push biological collectives into self-reinforcing consensus that becomes detached from the outside world.
25-Sep-2026
Read moreThe gut microbiome runs several communication networks at once
Gut bacteria coordinate through multiple overlapping communication channels rather than relying on a single signalling mechanism.
24-Sep-2026
Read moreGlassfish turn a neighbour's disappearance into a distributed danger signal
Schooling glassfish can infer danger from the behaviour of nearby fish even when they never see the threat themselves.
24-Sep-2026
Read moreCockatoo culture spreads useful behaviour through a city-scale social network
Just two of Sydney’s sulphur-crested cockatoos spread the word to all its mates (and theirs).
24-Sep-2026
Read moreHow a fish school decides an alarm is real — and when it is safe again
Humbug damselfish offer researchers a natural system for studying how threat information propagates through a group without every fish independently detecting the danger.
22-Sep-2026
Read moreArmy ants enforce traffic safety without a traffic controller
Social insects provide concrete examples of collectives enforcing system-level constraints through local behaviour even when no individual can measure the state of the whole group.
22-Sep-2026
Read moreAn autonomous drone swarm forms a moving three-dimensional defensive wall
A field demonstration has used a coordinated autonomous drone swarm to intercept another swarm by forming a three-dimensional barrier in its path.
22-Sep-2026
Read moreOne bacterial sensor switches the collective between swarming and zorbing
Bacterial “zorbing” is a newly discovered form of collective social movement where spherical, biofilm-like microcolonies of Flavobacterium johnsoniae “walk” and migrate together across surfaces. Flavobacterium johnsoniae can switch between two radically different forms of collective organisation through a single environmental sensing pathway.
19-Sep-2026
Read moreChimpanzees have dialects, too
Young chimpanzees develop increasingly distinctive population-specific vocal patterns as they mature.
19-Sep-2026
Read moreAnts keep a metabolic fallback when their bacterial partner disappears
Cardiocondyla ants can dynamically switch between nutrients supplied by an ancient bacterial symbiont and their own alternative metabolic pathway.
19-Sep-2026
Read more