robots

Researchers from Belgium, France and Switzerland have published an interesting little study in a recent number of Science. They developed some small autonomous robots and used them in a simple experiment with cockroaches. The robots and the cockroaches were placed together in a circular arena with two small dark shelters. Since cockroaches are night active, they prefer to stay in the shelters. The individual cockroach is influenced in its choice of shelter by the choices of the other cockroaches in such a way that usually all cockroaches ends up clustering together in the same shelter.