Emergence of Macroscopic Directed Motion in Water Systems

http://phys.org/news/2013-11-swarming-video.html
"A team of researchers from several facilities in France has devised a means for modeling coordinated swarming behavior in a controlled environment. (...) To get the balls moving the researchers applied a small electric charge. Doing so caused chaotic movement at first, but as time passed, the researchers observed that the balls formed a swarm that moved around the track as a single entity."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...73.html#videos
Emergence of macroscopic directed motion in populations of motile colloids, Antoine Bricard, Jean-Baptiste Caussin, Nicolas Desreumaux, Olivier Dauchot, Denis Bartolo, Nature 503, 95–98 (07 November 2013)

I suggest that the microscopic mechanism triggering the swarm moving "around the track as a single entity" may be similar to that triggering the "waterfall" described in an old paper of mine:

http://www.wbabin.net/valev/valev2.pdf
August 12, 2004, Biased Thermal Motion and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Pentcho Valev: "What if one punches a small hole in one of the plates, just above the surface of the pool? Will the lifted water leak through the hole and fall, thereby dissipating its potential energy as heat? If this happens, one will have a perpetual macroscopic cycle capable of producing work.. Needless to say, such a cycle contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. No matter how weak the waterfall is, theoretically it can rotate a waterwheel..."

The "floating water bridge" is based on the same molecular mechanism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1At3Gcd-No
Floating Water Bridge - Elmar Fuchs (SETI Talks)

Pentcho Valev