Ants in the Desert

Ants navigate by leaving scent trails, marking their journeys by leaving pheremones in their wake, to be followed by other ants or to find their way back home. Desert ants can’t do that, since it’s too windy there, and scents dissipate. Here’s how they compensate. A video by Robert Krulwich and Jason Orfanon, animated by OddTodd (Todd Rosenberg).

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Room for dessert?

More:

“Why you always seem to have room for dessert,” Madeline Marshall, Vox

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Balablok

“Balablok,” a 1972 animation by Bretislav Pojar. Human nature, same as it ever was.

h/t: TKSST

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Grocery Bags Carry Unintended Consequences

People who bring their own reusable shopping bags to the grocery store to help the environment are more likely to buy organic items … and then buy ice cream and cookies, according to new research. Hey, those folks saved the environment, they deserve a treat, right?

More:

“How Grocery Bags Manipulate Your Mind,” Carmen Nobel, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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The Truth About Dishonesty

Duke professor and behavioral economist Dan Ariely recently addressed the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) on the topic of honesty. Video of his lecture is here, but the short animated excerpt above is even more fun.

Illustrator: Andrew Park of Cognitive Media for RSA Animate.

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Trains and Brains

The classic London Underground Map, created by Harry Beck in 1933, is the granddaddy of all those schematic maps that chart subway systems in a simplified manner, without regard to the true scale of distances between stations. These maps reduce complex systems to comprehensible basics, but a recent NYU study shows that users actually regard the maps as if they were drawn to scale, and act accordingly: