What Can a Blob-eating Game Teach Us About Biblical Plagues?

Swarming behavior has always fascinated physicists, biologists, and behavioral scientists alike--as well as anyone who's seen a sky-darkening flock of starlings twist into its mesmerizing shapes. It's hard not to wonder how such elegantly concerted behavior arises on the fly, or how on earth the birds keep from running into one another. But birds aren't the only things that swarm like this, and while the idea of The Birds acting as a collective is scary enough to merit a Hitchcock film, this mig...