What happens when there is no leader? Starlings, bees, and ants manage just fine. In fact, they form staggeringly complicated societies -- all without a Toscanini to conduct them into harmony. This hour of Radiolab, we ask how this happens.

We gaze down at the bottom-up logic of cities, Google, and even our very own brains with fire-flyologists, ant experts, neurologists, a mathematician, and an economist.

***There is No Lord of the (Fire)Flies. We begin in Thailand, watching fireflies glow in glorious synchrony, lighting up miles of mangrove trees like Christmas trees.

***The Invisible Hand

***The Unconscious Toscanini of the Brain. How does the brain produce a thought? For neuroscientists, this is the Mount Everest of questions.

[August 13, 2007]