"Unhappy China"

Book Stokes Nationalism in China

by Jason Dean

http://www.wsj.com/

BEIJING -- A hot-selling new book that excoriates the U.S. and calls for China to be more assertive is fueling debate among Chinese about nationalism and their country's role in the world.

"Unhappy China" is a collection of essays by five authors who argue that China has been too deferential to a Western world that is hostile toward it. They argue that China needs to use its growing power and economic resources to carve out its own position of pre-eminence. "From looking at the history of human civilization, we are most qualified to lead this world; Westerners should be second," the book says.

The authors, a group of scholars, single out the U.S. for special scorn, and say their book's message -- aimed largely at younger Chinese -- has been helped by the economic crisis. "This economic problem has shown the Chinese people that America does have problems, that what we've been saying is right," said Wang Xiaodong, in an interview Friday in Beijing with three of his co-authors: Liu Yang, Song Qiang and Huang Jisu. The fifth author is Song Xiaojun.
Since being released March 13, the book has sold out its initial shipments in many Chinese bookstores and landed on the best-seller list at leading online retailer Dangdang.com. The publisher has printed 270,000 copies, and says sales are far outpacing expectations.

Yet much of the response has been negative, reflecting the complex place that nationalism holds in today's China. Several reviews in the Chinese media have ridiculed "Unhappy China" as an attempt to cash in on nationalistic sentiment. The book is a way to "fish money from the pockets of the angry youth and angry elderly," wrote one critic in the China Youth Daily, a leading state-run newspaper.

An English-language article by Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said the book had failed to hit a chord with average Chinese, and quoted blistering critiques from bloggers and academics calling its nationalism embarrassing and unconstructive.

"Unhappy China" comes as the economic crisis has damaged the West and, in the minds of some Chinese, left China relatively strong.

In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Premier Wen Jiabao blamed the U.S. for creating the economic crisis. Earlier this month, he expressed concern about China's holdings of U.S. government debt given questions over Washington's economic policies. Last week, Zhou Xiaochuan, China's central-bank governor, proposed adopting a global currency to replace the dollar as a world standard. But Chinese officials, like their Western counterparts, also have called for more international cooperation to help pull the global economy out of its slump.

The authors of "Unhappy China" reject such talk, reciting a litany of grievances against the U.S., from a monetary policy that threatens to devalue China's holdings of U.S. Treasurys to Washington's support for Taiwan.
Many of the prescriptions in "Unhappy China" echo positions China's government espouses -- strengthening the country's reliance on domestic technology and innovation, and bolstering its military, for example.
The authors, however, reserve some of their greatest resentment for China's current political and economic leadership.

"I've already lost all hope in China's elite," says Mr. Wang. The authors see last year's angry protests by mainly young Chinese against foreign criticism of China's Tibet policies and its hosting of the Olympics as a "milestone" for relations with the West.

"America will face a less friendly China in the future," says Mr. Wang.

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Book Stokes Nationalism in China

Book Stokes Nationalism in China
by Jason Dean
www.wsj.com

BEIJING -- A hot-selling new book that excoriates the U.S. and calls for China to be more assertive is fueling debate among Chinese about nationalism and their country's role in the world.

"Unhappy China" is a collection of essays by five authors who argue that China has been too deferential to a Western world that is hostile toward it. They argue that China needs to use its growing power and economic resources to carve out its own position of pre-eminence. "From looking at the history of human civilization, we are most qualified to lead this world; Westerners should be second," the book says.

The authors, a group of scholars, single out the U.S. for special scorn, and say their book's message -- aimed largely at younger Chinese -- has been helped by the economic crisis. "This economic problem has shown the Chinese people that America does have problems, that what we've been saying is right," said Wang Xiaodong, in an interview Friday in Beijing with three of his co-authors: Liu Yang, Song Qiang and Huang Jisu. The fifth author is Song Xiaojun.
Since being released March 13, the book has sold out its initial shipments in many Chinese bookstores and landed on the best-seller list at leading online retailer Dangdang.com. The publisher has printed 270,000 copies, and says sales are far outpacing expectations.

Yet much of the response has been negative, reflecting the complex place that nationalism holds in today's China. Several reviews in the Chinese media have ridiculed "Unhappy China" as an attempt to cash in on nationalistic sentiment. The book is a way to "fish money from the pockets of the angry youth and angry elderly," wrote one critic in the China Youth Daily, a leading state-run newspaper.
An English-language article by Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said the book had failed to hit a chord with average Chinese, and quoted blistering critiques from bloggers and academics calling its nationalism embarrassing and unconstructive.

"Unhappy China" comes as the economic crisis has damaged the West and, in the minds of some Chinese, left China relatively strong.

In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Premier Wen Jiabao blamed the U.S. for creating the economic crisis. Earlier this month, he expressed concern about China's holdings of U.S. government debt given questions over Washington's economic policies. Last week, Zhou Xiaochuan, China's central-bank governor, proposed adopting a global currency to replace the dollar as a world standard. But Chinese officials, like their Western counterparts, also have called for more international cooperation to help pull the global economy out of its slump.

The authors of "Unhappy China" reject such talk, reciting a litany of grievances against the U.S., from a monetary policy that threatens to devalue China's holdings of U.S. Treasurys to Washington's support for Taiwan.
Many of the prescriptions in "Unhappy China" echo positions China's government espouses -- strengthening the country's reliance on domestic technology and innovation, and bolstering its military, for example.
The authors, however, reserve some of their greatest resentment for China's current political and economic leadership.

"I've already lost all hope in China's elite," says Mr. Wang. The authors see last year's angry protests by mainly young Chinese against foreign criticism of China's Tibet policies and its hosting of the Olympics as a "milestone" for relations with the West.

"America will face a less friendly China in the future," says Mr. Wang.

Captain Planet

The Return of Captain Planet
Mother Nature Network hopes nostalgia will help revive the eco-friendly superhero cartoon

by John Jurgesen, 27 February 2009

http://www.wsj.com/

In 1990, Ted Turner added an unlikely asset to his media empire: a superhero with blue skin, green hair and a vendetta against pollution. The cartoon series "Captain Planet and the Planeteers" delivered environmental messages and featured a diverse roster of heroes, including Gi, a dolphin lover from Asia, and Kwame, an African with earth-moving powers.

Voiced by stars including Martin Sheen, Meg Ryan and Sting, the cartoon, which ran to 1996, tackled issues such as AIDS and global warming, which were considered somewhat taboo topics at the time. It drew plenty of detractors, including a People magazine critic who called it "politically correct claptrap," but fans hailed it as a bold step in educational programming.

Now, with such issues considered mainstream conversation, Captain Planet's next mission is to harness nostalgia. Mother Nature Network, a new environmental news and commentary Web site whose founders include a rock musician and a former marketing executive, has licensed more than 20 original installments of the defunct series in hopes of luring viewers -- especially children of the early '90s who might fondly recall the eco-hero's catchphrase, "The Power Is Yours!" Full 22-minute episodes began streaming online today at MNN.com.
The nostalgia factor has been a powerful driver of online video. Fans of classic TV have populated YouTube with pirated clips from the past, while studios have tried to capitalize on their dusty holdings. Sony Pictures Television repackaged episodes of "Diff'rent Strokes" and "T.J. Hooker" for its online Minisode Network. But the Web resurrection of "Captain Planet" also has a social component: The mullet-haired superhero played a role in the environmental movement's transition into the mainstream.

"He's a forgotten hero and it's time to bring him back out," says Chuck Leavell, co-founder of Mother Nature Network, who also has served as a keyboardist for the Rolling Stones since 1979. Though dated looking and sometimes heavy handed with its message, the retro cartoon fits into MNN's mission of making environmental news relevant, even to the uninitiated, Mr. Leavell says. He believes the cartoon could tap the "Captain Planet" following that already exists, including the more than 180,000 Facebook members who have signed up as "fans" of the show.

Mother Nature Network, which launched in January, is based in Atlanta, as are many of Mr. Turner's current operations, including Ted's Montana Grill and the Captain Planet Foundation. The foundation helped MNN president and chief executive Joel Babbit broker the licensing deal for "Captain Planet" with Turner Broadcasting System, which owns the rights to the cartoon. Independent investors supplied $10 million in initial funding for the site, which also runs on sponsorship from Dell, AT&T and other companies. The site hosts blogs, news bulletins and video interviews with entertainers such as rapper Ludacris talking about their conservation views.

While it's possible to book an entertainer in a Captain Planet costume for parties and special events, the series itself was never released on DVD. "I've been trying to get 'Captain Planet' off the shelf since it went off the air," says Barbara Pyle, the cartoon's executive producer.

At its peak, the show was syndicated to more than 200 stations around the country and there was a script in development for a feature film, Ms. Pyle says. But the show was cancelled in 1996 as a victim of corporate shuffles. Ms. Pyle and her colleagues mourned the loss with a New Orleans style jazz funeral. "We were grief-stricken," she says.

Ms. Pyle has tracked the show's cult following over the years, trolling through the thousands of unauthorized excerpts and satire videos on YouTube. Now a member of MNN's advisory board, she helped select which episodes to stream online, including her favourite, "12 Angry Animals," in which the Planeteers are tried for crimes against the animal kingdom before a jury of extinct species.

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Food for Thought:

1. Do comic books serve any purpose at all? What about fantasy stories/film (refer to diagnostic test essay question)

2. Which other superheroes can you think of that purported 'good moral values'?

Women in Science and Tech

In Science and Technology, Efforts to Lure Women Back
By Sue Shellenbarger
www.wsj.com, 26 Feb 2009


It will come as no surprise that many career re-entry programs, designed to help at-home mothers return to the work force, are disappearing, victims of hard times among the Wall Street firms and banks that led the so-called on-ramping trend.

But a new bright spot is emerging. Small, innovative return-to-work programs are springing up in other sectors -- specifically in science, engineering and technology. Prospects for long-term job growth in these fields are relatively good, and many employers expect a talent shortage, partly because of high quit rates among experienced women.

Honeywell, General Electric, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and even the British government have all launched programmes to provide women scientists, engineers and technicians the tools they need to jump-start stalled careers. Some of the new programmes provide only training, coaching, networking and referrals, while others offer actual jobs with lower return-to-work barriers through special training or mentoring.

"Even in this troubled labour market, their prospects are good," says Carol Fishman Cohen, a career re-entry consultant, of women in these fields. Government contractors, engineering-related businesses and other employers that stand to benefit from the government's economic-stimulus plan, in particular, are faring relatively well, adds Ms. Cohen, co-founder of iRelaunch.com, a Web site for professionals, employers and universities.

Rachelle Berk, Northborough, Mass., a nuclear engineer and a student in a "Career Reengineering" retraining program offered by MIT, is among those who stand to gain. The MIT program, now in its third year, is instilling the confidence she needs to return to work after four years at home with her children, now 3 and 6, says Ms. Berk, who hopes to find work developing sustainable-energy sources. "It was exactly what I needed," she says of the MIT program. Dawna Levenson, director of the 10-month programme, sees enrollment expanding to 24 as early as next fall, up from 10 currently.

The new efforts aim to counteract a "brain drain" caused by the exodus of large numbers of women from these fields in the prime of their careers. While 41% of highly qualified scientists, engineers and technicians in lower-tier jobs are female, more than half eventually quit midcareer, based on research by the Center for Work-Life Policy's Sylvia Hewlett and others, published last year in the Harvard Business Review. Women in these fields face isolation, extreme job pressures and long hours; they often become most discouraged about 10 years into their careers -- just as family pressures also tend to intensify.

Still, after years at home, many women scientists and engineers yearn to return to research and development. Last November, Honeywell launched a hiring program with an extensive training and mentoring component for engineers who have been out of the work force, in partnership with the Society of Women Engineers. The company has received hundreds of resumes and plans to begin hiring soon, says Lee Woodward, a vice president. Among the applicants: Karen English, an Alpharetta, Ga., product-development scientist. After six years at home with her daughter, now 12, Ms. English is excited about her prospects; "everything looks possible," she says.

BBN Technologies, a 700-employee research concern in Cambridge, Mass., is stepping up recruiting efforts to lure at-home professionals back to work, with plans to start holding luncheons for ex-employees this year, says Susan Wuellner, vice president, human resources. The networking seems to be working: Barbara MacKay, an engineer who rejoined BBN in 2007 after five years at home, now is recruiting another at-home mom to the company, Ms. MacKay says.

On a larger scale, IBM offers an extended-leave programme that enabled Tami Garneau, a software product manager in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to return to work there amid the economic gloom of last October, after an extended leave with her two children.

Despite the sagging economy, "IBM was fully receptive," allowing her to work from home, she says. "That transition back in was great."

Internationally, General Electric has launched a programme called Restart in its Bangalore, India, research center, offering flexible work and other incentives to lure female technologists back to work after having children, a spokesman says. And the British government is funding a 12-week on-ramping programme in Bradford, England, and recently began handing out re-training grants, says Annette Williams, director.

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Hopes of quick rebound in China fade

Hopes of Quick Rebound in China Start to Fade
Despite an Increase in Bank Lending, Steel Prices Fall, Demand for Exports Shrinks and Consumers Buy Fewer Foreign Goods

By Andrew Batson, 26 February 2009

http://www.wsj.com/

BEIJING -- Hopes for an early recovery in China's economy are starting to unravel, undercutting the optimism that has helped to make the country's stock market the world's best performer this year.

In recent weeks, some companies and investors had seized on a surge in bank lending and an upturn in steel prices -- a key indicator in China's industry-heavy economy -- as signs that a massive government stimulus program was already taking hold.

But now steel prices are falling again, and closer examination of the recent bank data suggests that many of the loans won't immediately fuel economic growth. Meanwhile, trade has continued to contract, as demand for Chinese exports from the U.S. and Europe wanes, and Chinese companies and consumers, in turn, buy fewer foreign goods.

The upshot is that a real pickup in China's economy could still be several months away, or longer. That's bad news for a global economy in which China is the only major power still growing.

"It would be a mistake to think that China could decouple from the rest of the world, or carry the rest of the world on its shoulders," said Bruce Kasman, chief economist for J.P. Morgan. "A sustained recovery in China is dependent on better news globally."

China's government has put about 230 billion yuan ($34 billion) into stimulus projects so far, with more to come. Many economists think it will take time for that jolt to work its way through the economy, and don't expect major effects to show up until around the second half of this year.

Local companies, more optimistic about the stimulus package, began bidding up steel prices and freight rates in December. Investors did the same with Chinese stocks: The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index at one point this month was up 30% for the year, though it has come down a bit since.

By the beginning of February, steel prices had gained about 15% from November lows. China is the world's largest consumer of the metal, and the run-up in prices got a lot of attention.

But much of that steel was stockpiled, rather than immediately used in factories or construction sites.
Inventories of some steel products rose more than 30% in January from December, the China Iron & Steel Association said in a report last week.

"Recent additions to inventories by dealers and users have led to a rebound in steel market prices ... [but] the steady increase in inventories will affect the stable operation of the steel market later on," it said.The anticipated demand hasn't yet materialized, and those inventories are weighing on the market.

Average steel prices dropped 6.3% last week, after falling 3.2% the week before, according to Mysteel, a Shanghai-based research firm.

Getting a solid read on the Chinese economy has been particularly difficult in recent weeks because the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday fell earlier this year than in 2007, distorting annual comparisons of key indicators in January.
Other data reinforce the sense that economic activity has yet to revive.

Industrial output in the business hub of Shanghai fell 12.7% from a year earlier in January -- even after adjusting for the holiday. Nationwide, industrial statistics haven't yet been published for January.

Also, imports nationwide fell 43.1% in January from a year earlier -- a drop that, allowing for the holiday impact, suggests slowing demand in China.

"Domestic demand for imports is still very weak, as the housing-construction slump continues, and the fiscal stimulus-induced investment demand has yet to come through," said UBS economist Wang Tao.

The huge expansion in lending in January -- banks made 1.62 trillion yuan in new loans, twice as much as last year -- was widely seen as a positive sign.

But other data on deposits suggest companies are hoarding their cash rather than spending it, so those loans may not be immediately fueling economic growth.

Further doubts have been raised by the unusual nature of recent loans. Short-term bills accounted for 42% of new corporate lending in January, or 623.9 billion yuan, three times the already elevated level of November and December, and 10 times October's figure.

Because companies can borrow those bills for a lower interest rate than they earn on deposits, some economists think the surge comes more from financial engineering than actual borrowing.

"Recent monetary and credit data do not reflect real economic demand," said Ha Jiming, chief economist of China International Capital Corp.

Meanwhile, major Chinese port operators are reporting even lower volumes of containers coming through in February than in January, Citigroup analysts Ally Ma and Brian Lam wrote in a report this week.

Based on those data and other indicators, an annual decline of 20% or more in Chinese exports in coming months "seems inevitable," the analysts wrote.

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Slumdog Millionaire

'Slumdog' Success Gets Mixed Reviews in India

by Niraj Sheth (New Delhi) and Eric Bellman (Mumbai)

www.wsj.com

As "Slumdog Millionaire" took home eight Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, many Indians rejoiced in its success amid hopes that movie talent they have long taken pride in may now be more appreciated world-wide.

While few in Dharavi, the sprawling Mumbai slum where much of the film was shot, had seen the Oscar awards show or the film, most were happy their neighborhood -- and Indian talent -- were at last getting some international attention. "Our Dharavi is now famous in the whole of the world," said S.G. James, a contractor who lives in a two-story home next to a railroad in Dharavi. "Of this, we are proud."

Middle-class Indians from more-posh neighborhoods also welcomed the awards. "I'm thrilled, and I think it shows how much the rest of the world is interested in India," said Sonam Sethi, a 21-year-old marketing student in New Delhi, while shopping in the upscale Greater Kailash market.

On the red carpet in Hollywood, Indian actress Freida Pinto, who stars in the movie as the main character's love interest, smiled when asked in an interview with Indian television channel NDTV how she felt about the movie's overwhelming success. "I never, never, never imagined something like this could happen," she said.

(In the U.S., the Oscar's TV audience rose from 2008's record low.)

Indians have long considered Indian music composer A.R. Rahman on par with any in Hollywood. So his award for best original score had particular resonance among film buffs in India.

Certainly, many Indians have been reluctant to claim the film, which stars a British-born Indian actor and was directed by a British director, as their own. Some have protested the use of "Slumdog" in the title as derogatory.

In late January, a Mumbai-based welfare group for slum dwellers organized protests outside the home of Anil Kapoor, an actor in the film. The protesters held signs reading "I am not a dog" and "Poverty for Sale."

"We have a dog's life but we are not dogs," said Mr. James from Dharavi, who was opposed to the film until he learned it was about overcoming the stigma of being from the slums. "Maybe now something will be done for the slum people."
Mr. James has overcome many of the hurdles depicted in the film: poverty, homelessness and riots. His sons are educated and live in the suburbs, but he plans never to leave, he says. After more than 30 years in Dharavi, he says he doesn't even hear the trains every 15 minutes.

On the streets of the slum, one politician, Sanjay Nirupam, a former member of Parliament, staged an impromptu celebration on news of the film's awards, lighting firecrackers and handing out sweets.

He told a crowd of almost 100 that "Slumdog Millionaire" could bring more money to the neighborhood, as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would want to invest in the vibrant area.

"The slum dwellers should not be called slumdogs; they should be called slumlions," he told the crowd.

Not everyone was so optimistic. Kiran Jaiswal, 21, said she could never afford to go to a movie and wouldn't understand one in English, anyway. Sitting on the ground with her mother and grandmother next to the fetid pool used for one of the scenes in the movie, she said her neighborhood needs schools and jobs, not rags-to-riches dreams.

"If they can spend all this money on a movie, why can't they take care of the children?" she asked. "No one taught us how to speak English like those guys in the movie."

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Animal Behaviour: decisions, decisions

Animal behaviour
Decisions, decisions
Feb 13th 2009 by Mary Evans

What people can learn from how social animals make collective decisions

DICTATORS and authoritarians will disagree, but democracies work better. It has long been held that decisions made collectively by large groups of people are more likely to turn out to be accurate than decisions made by individuals. The idea goes back to the “jury theorem” of Nicolas de Condorcet, an 18th-century French philosopher who was one of the first to apply mathematics to the social sciences. Now it is becoming clear that group decisions are also extremely valuable for the success of social animals, such as ants, bees, birds and dolphins. And those animals may have a thing or two to teach people about collective decision-making.

Animals that live in groups make two sorts of choices: consensus decisions in which the group makes a single collective choice, as when house-hunting rock ants decide where to settle; and combined decisions, such as the allocation of jobs among worker bees.

Condorcet’s theory (The Condorcet candidate or Condorcet winner of an election is the candidate who, when compared with every other candidate, is preferred by more voters. This was named after the 18th century mathematician and philosopher Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, the Marquis de Condorcet) describes consensus decisions, outlining how democratic decisions tend to outperform dictatorial ones. If each member of a jury has only partial information, the majority decision is more likely to be correct than a decision arrived at by an individual juror. Moreover, the probability of a correct decision increases with the size of the jury. But things become more complicated when information is shared before a vote is taken. People then have to evaluate the information before making a collective decision. This is what bees do, and they do it rather well, according to Christian List of the London School of Economics, who has studied group decision-making in humans and animals along with Larissa Conradt of the University of Sussex, in England.

The runaway queen
In a study reported in a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, researchers led by Dr List looked at colonies of honeybees (Apis mellifera), which in late spring or early summer divide once they reach a certain size. The queen goes off with about two-thirds of the worker bees to live in a new home leaving a daughter queen in the nest with the remaining worker bees. Among the bees that depart are scouts that search for the new nest site and report back using a waggle dance to advertise suitable locations. The longer the dance, the better the site. After a while, other scouts start to visit the sites advertised by their compatriots and, on their return, also perform more waggle dances. The process eventually leads to a consensus on the best site and the swarm migrates. The decision is remarkably reliable, with the bees choosing the best site even when there are only small differences between two alternatives.

But exactly how do bees reach such a robust consensus? To find out, Dr List and his colleagues made a computer model of the decision-making process. By tinkering around with it they found that computerised bees that were very good at finding nesting sites but did not share their information dramatically slowed down the migration, leaving the swarm homeless and vulnerable. Conversely, computerised bees that blindly followed the waggle dances of others without first checking whether the site was, in fact, as advertised, led to a swift but mistaken decision. The researchers concluded that the ability of bees to identify quickly the best site depends on the interplay of bees’ interdependence in communicating the whereabouts of the best site and their independence in confirming this information.

This is something members of the European Parliament should think about. In the same journal, Simon Hix, also of the London School of Economics, and his colleagues examined their voting and concluded that, as might be expected, it was along party-political lines even though the incentives to do so were far less than at national parliaments. Dr Hix and his colleagues reckon that European parliamentarians share the collection of information but, unlike the honeybees, they do not necessarily progress to investigating the issues for themselves before taking a vote.
There is danger in blindly following the party line, a danger that the honeybees seem to avoid. Condorcet’s theory fails to consider whether there is an inbuilt bias among a group that comes together to consider a problem. This “groupthink” occurs when people copy one another.

According to Dr List: “The swarm manages to block and prevent the kind of groupthink that can bedevil good decision making.” Dr List adds that people demonstrate this kind of bad decision-making when investors pile into a stock and others follow, creating a bubble for which there is no good reason.

Another form of groupthink occurs when people are either isolated from crucial sources of information or dominated by other members of the group, some of whom may have malevolent intent. This too has now been demonstrated in animals. José Halloy of the Free University of Brussels used robotic cockroaches to subvert the behaviour of living cockroaches and control their decision-making process. In his experiment, reported in an earlier issue of Science, the artificial bugs were introduced to the real ones and soon became sufficiently socially integrated that they were perceived as equals. By manipulating the robots, which were in the minority, he was able to persuade the cockroaches to choose an inappropriate shelter—even one which they had rejected before being infiltrated by machines. Could this form the basis of a new way of catching them?

The way animals make collective decisions can be complex. Nigel Franks of the University of Bristol, in England, and his colleagues studied how a species of ants called Temnothorax albipennis establish a new nest. In the Royal Society journal they report how the insects mitigate the disadvantages of making a swift choice. If the ants’ existing nest becomes threatened, the insects send out scouts to seek a new one. How quickly they accomplish this transfer depends not only on how soon the ants agree on the best available site but also on how quickly they can migrate there. When a suitable place is identified, the scouts begin to lead other scouts, which had remained behind to guard the old nest, to the new site. The problem is that if the decision is reached rapidly, as it might have to be in an emergency, then relatively few scouts know the route. It would then take much longer to train all the scouts needed to achieve the transfer, which involves carrying the queen, the workers and the brood to the new nest.

Dr Franks and his colleagues identified a type of behaviour called “reverse tandem runs” that makes the process more efficient. During the carrying phase of migration, the scouts lead other scouts back along the quickest route to the old nest so that more scouts become familiar with the route. Thus the dynamics of collective decision-making are closely entwined with the implementation of these decisions. How this might pertain to choices that people might make is, as yet, unclear. But it does indicate the importance of recruiting active leaders to a cause because, as the ants and bees have discovered, the most important thing about collective decision-making is to get others to follow.

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