Humans are all soft and gushy inside, and when it comes down to it, we're really not designed to take a lot of trauma. So some people have been inspired by nature to try to make us tougher, stronger, more (fill in the blank). One neat idea that has taken a long time in coming but that may be worth the wait is robotic exoskeletons. It appears that we may soon be able to work hard like an ant, for a price.
http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/2008/05/29/berkeley_bionics_accepting_orders_for_prototype_exoskeleton.html
When we watch ants filing along, ferrying food/resources back and forth to their colony, they seem pretty predictable. Food, home, food, home. Well, so are we.
http://staging.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6330
Maybe an understanding of just how like big smart bugs we are could help us fix some of society's problems, or at least engineer better solutions to them.
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