A swarm of millions of locusts flies wing-to-wing and almost never collides — because each one carries a single crash-detecting neuron. So how do locust swarms not crash, and why are engineers copying that one neuron to help self-driving cars avoid collisions? In this episode we peel the locust swarm apart layer by layer: past the textbook ‘they just follow the crowd’ answer, down to the lobula giant movement detector — the LGMD — a single looming-detection cell in the locust brain that ignores the chaos of a million neighbors and fires only when something is truly on a collision course. We trace how that one neuron computes the timing of an impact, how it hands the alarm to the escape muscles, and how scientists reverse-engineered it into the collision-avoidance and automatic braking systems now riding in modern cars. A desert locust solved collision avoidance long before there were roads. #locust #insects #nature
Chapters:
0:00 A Cloud That Never Collides
1:09 The Textbook Answer: Follow the Crowd
2:47 The One Cell Standing Guard
4:15 Telling a Threat From a Neighbor
5:43 Arithmetic Inside a Single Neuron
7:06 From the Swarm Into Our Cars
8:23 The Answer Before the Road
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📺 Wild Anomalies investigates the strangest true stories from the living world — animals, insects, and plants that quietly break biology — one short, cinematic case file at a time. New documentary every Monday (animals), Wednesday (insects) and Friday (plants).
👉 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKj9-3uGF11Xw9kJbNl9GvQ?sub_confirmation=1
🎵 Music — YouTube Audio Library:
• No.8 Requiem — Esther Abrami
• East West — John Patitucci
• Butterflies In Love — Sir Cubworth
🎬 Footage: Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash (royalty-free).
🖼 Images — Wikimedia Commons (CC):
• The terrible plague of locusts in Palestine, March-June 1915. Trapping locusts. LOC matpc.01911 — Matson Collection (Public domain)
• NGC 4789A, a subtle swarm — ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgements: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla) (CC BY 4.0)
• Diagrams of Locusts which swarmed over England in 1748 — Thomas Pennant; drawing by De la Cour; engraving by R. White (Public domain)
• Periodical Cicadas — Adrienne van den Beemt (CC BY)
• Carolina Grasshopper — Sam Kieschnick (CC BY)
• Periodical Cicadas — Zachary Dankowicz (CC BY)
• Migratory Grasshopper — Andrew Meeds (CC BY)
• black locust — Tom Scavo (CC BY)
• Periodical Cicadas — Lexi Amico (CC BY)
• Close-up view of a bioluminescent beetle Elateroidea — Basile Morin (CC BY 4.0)
• Macro Close up shot of end of a ball point pen — Tim Denholm (CC BY 4.0)
• Locust statuette, bronze – Museo Egizio, Turin P 6599 p04 — Unknown author (CC0)
• Locust statuette, bronze – Museo Egizio, Turin P 6599 p03 — Unknown author (CC0)
• Boer War- soldiers in camp driving off a swarm of locusts with anything to hand. Halftone, c. 1900, after H. Paget. By Couresy of the Wellcome Collection — Henry Marriot Paget (1857-1936) (CC BY 4.0)
• Boer War; soldiers in camp driving off a swarm of locusts wi Wellcome V0015618 — Unknown author (CC BY 4.0)
• Looming Over You (234359855) — Pierre Vorpuni (CC BY 3.0)
• Looming thunderstorms fast approach — Paulo Ordoveza (CC BY 2.0)
• Bristly locust — Tom Norton (CC BY)
• High Plains Locust — Jared Shorma (CC BY)
• black locust — Sandy Wolkenberg (CC BY)
• Migratory Locust — William Harland (CC BY)
• Egyptian Bird Grasshopper — castieler (CC BY)
• Spur-throated Locust — Peter Crowcroft (CC BY)
• Red-legged Grasshopper — Jared Shorma (CC BY)
• Microcosmic photo of a locust Gomphocerus sibiricus. Body detail — Retro Lenses (CC BY 4.0)
• Microcosmic portrait of a locust Gomphocerus sibiricus — Retro Lenses (CC BY 4.0)
• Prototype LOCUST at Technology Innovation Day — U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released (Public domain)
• Prototype LOCUST at Sea-Air-Space Exposition 2016 — U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released (Public domain)
• WKCD Growing Up Pavilion 201904 — Wpcpey (CC BY 3.0)
• Carolina Grasshopper — Lauren McLaurin (CC BY)
• black locust — katunchik (CC BY)
• Black Locust Leafminer — Mario Bassini (CC BY)
• The terrible plague of locusts in Palestine, March-June 1915. Close-up of the dreaded visitors. LOC matpc.01891 — Matson Collection (Public domain)
• The terrible plague of locusts in Palestine, March-June 1915. Close-up of same tree, showing the locusts feasting. LOC matpc.01903 — Matson Collection (Public domain)
• Carolina Grasshopper — Chris Stahl (CC BY)
• (Sculpture of a girl holding a bird in Hiroshima Station, Japan) – DPLA – b3246065276a513450d309e120d77e82 — Carlquist, Sherwin John, 1930-2021 (CC BY 4.0)
• Penguin and researcher (14844393347) — U.S. Geological Survey from Reston, VA, USA (Public domain)
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