What If 20 Quadrillion Ants Obeyed You?

What if you could talk to ants — and all 20 quadrillion of them did whatever you said? A What If story about the price of power, plus the real science: how many ants are on Earth, how ants talk, and why no ant is ever the boss. CHAPTERS 00:00 Twenty Quadrillion Say Yes 00:35 The Rules and the Price 00:52 Day One: Mum's Lost Ring 01:18 How Ants Actually Talk 01:51 The Ant Lost-and-Found 02:10 Day Four: The Tomato Mistake 02:41 When the Price Goes Up 03:24 Day Six: They Stop Listening 04:09 The Flood 05:15 Friday 05:31 Is Any of This Real? 05:59 Something at the Window You wake up able to talk to ants. They find your mum's lost ring, run a lost-and-found business with your best friend, and guard the tomatoes — in their own way. But every order has a price, and by day seven the whole street is in trouble. THE REAL SCIENCE IN THIS VIDEO • About 20 quadrillion ants live on Earth, and together they outweigh all wild birds and wild mammals combined (PNAS, 2022 — University of Hong Kong & University of Würzburg). • Ants talk with chemicals called pheromones. In 1958, biologist E. O. Wilson painted an artificial trail from a fire ant's gland, and the ants followed it. • Nobody is in charge of an ant colony — not even the queen (Deborah Gordon, Stanford). • Fire ants build living rafts in floods, in under two minutes (Georgia Tech, 2011). What would you make the ants do first? Tell us in the comments. Subscribe to WhatNova for more What Ifs — Part Two is coming. #WhatIf #Ants #WhatNova