From Wired UK:
The researchers found that thrill-seeking is not limited to humans and other vertebrates. The brains of honeybees that were more likely than others to seek adventure exhibited distinct patterns of gene activity in molecular pathways known to be associated with thrill-seeking in humans.
The findings present a new perspective on honeybee communities, which were thought to be highly-regimented and comprised of a colony of interchangeable workers taking on a few specific roles to serve their queen. [...]
Robinson and his team studies two behaviors that looked like novelty seeking: scouting for new nest sites and scouting for food. When a colony outgrows its living quarters, the swarm must hunt for a new home. Around five percent of the swarm goes hunting for new lodgings. These “nest scouts” are around 3.4 times more likely than their peers to also become food scouts, researchers discovered.
“There is a gold standard for personality research and that is if you show the same tendency in different contexts, then that can be called a personality trait,” Robinson said.
Wired Science: Honeybees May Have Personality
(via James Governor)
Photo by Gilles San Martin
From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/PcNU6B_BCqw/
After a 13-year nap, cicadas are waking up in the South, and with them comes an ear-splitting mating call that will soon fill the air across the southern U.S.
The 13-year cicadas of what is known as Brood XIX (the 19th brood) have been living underground since 1998. That was the last time they held their famous two-month, above-ground mating frenzy.
Brood XIX, also known as the Great Southern Brood, is the country’s largest group of 13-year cicadas, stretching across 12 states, including Missouri, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Illinois. Already rising in some parts of Georgia, they should all be hatched by mid-May.
Mother Earth News: 13-year cicadas wake up, prepare to swarm
I’ve been using cicadas sounds in my live performances. Here’s my favorite site for cicada recordings.
From http://technoccult.net/archives/2011/05/11/cicadas-wake-up-from-13-year-slumber-prepare-to-swarm/
The oriental hornet has built-in “solar cells” that generate electricity from sunlight—a first in the animal kingdom, according to a new study.
Scientists already knew that the hornet species, for unknown reasons, produced electricity inside its exoskeleton, according to study leader Marian Plotkin of Tel-Aviv University.
Plotkin’s late mentor Jacob Ishay made the discovery after observing that the insect is active when the sun is most intense—unusual for hornets.
Plotkin and colleagues recently went a step further by examining the structure of the hornet’s exoskeleton to find out how the electricity is produced.
Their research revealed that pigments in the hornet’s yellow tissues trap light, while its brown tissues generate electricity. Exactly how the hornets use this electricity is still not entirely understood, Plotkin noted.
National Geographic: Solar-Powered Hornet Found; Turns Light Into Electricity
From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/rZv6eXCrsT0/
What’s interesting is that this doesn’t seem to be a result of “swarm intelligence” – individual bees can somehow make these calculations:
Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London and Royal Holloway, University of London have discovered that bees learn to fly the shortest possible route between flowers even if they discover the flowers in a different order. Bees are effectively solving the ‘Travelling Salesman Problem’, and these are the first animals found to do this.
The Travelling Salesman must find the shortest route that allows him to visit all locations on his route. Computers solve it by comparing the length of all possible routes and choosing the shortest. However, bees solve it without computer assistance using a brain the size of grass seed. [...]
Co-author and Queen Mary colleague, Dr. Mathieu Lihoreau adds: “There is a common perception that smaller brains constrain animals to be simple reflex machines. But our work with bees shows advanced cognitive capacities with very limited neuron numbers. There is an urgent need to understand the neuronal hardware underpinning animal intelligence, and relatively simple nervous systems such as those of insects make this mystery more tractable.”
PhysOrg: – Bumblebees can find the solution to a complex mathematical problem which keeps computers busy for days
(via Fadereu)
From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/sQ9clD06_ZE/
My wife’s said that insects are the food of the future. But some are embracing that future voluntarily already. San Francisco-based “chef and artist” Phil Ross is bringing insects and worms to fine diners in San Francisco and New York, with unexpected results.
You really want to go green? Try this. “I have my month’s meat growing in my office,” Mr. Ross said. “It’s taking up almost no space, it’s organically raised, it’s as fresh as I want it to be and the waste from it is garden compost.”
Mr. Ross first brought a group of San Franciscans together to chow down on cooked insects a year ago, and he was surprised when the guests started buzzing around him for raw samples. “I was like, ‘O.K., go for it,’ ” he said. “And then that just led to this very weird erotism moment when people were practically hugging each other while eating these live insects.” The spirit of the moment overflowed, leading, in a few cases, to groping and kissing in a corner.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he said.
New York Times: Waiter, There’s Soup in My Bug
(via David Forbes)
Be sure to check out the slideshow.
From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/xW9n05oOlSA/
For decades, selflessness — as exhibited in eusocial insect colonies where workers sacrifice themselves for the greater good — has been explained in terms of genetic relatedness. Called kin selection, it was a neat solution to the conundrum of selflessness in what was supposedly an every-animal-for-itself evolutionary battle.
One early proponent was now-legendary Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson, a founder of modern sociobiology. Now Wilson is leading the counterattack. [...]
The researchers offer their own alternative theory, based on standard natural selection, but with a twist: After starting with a focus on a single founder, selection moves to the level of colony. From this perspective, a worker ant is something like a cell — part of a larger evolutionary unit, not a unit unto itself.
“Our model proves that looking at a worker ant and asking why it is altruistic is the wrong level of analysis,” said Tarnita. “The important unit is the colony.”
Wired Science: E.O. Wilson Proposes New Theory of Social Evolution
From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/C52f-2WIgZI/
