The idea that flying insects might be naturally electrified – and that electric charges could be a significant factor in the pollination of plants – goes back nearly a century. (ref. Heuschmann, O. (1929), Über die elektrischen Eigenschaften der Insekten Haare, Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology, 10(4), 594- 664.) […]
Tag: bee
Bee’s Treefrogs In an Assault on the Cocktail Party Problem
Treefrogs often find themselves faced with the Cocktail Party Problem. Those who study the Cocktail Party Problem have their own complicated mess to make sense of: They try to understand how someone amidst a yacketing group can understand one particular conversation even though many other conversations are equally audible. This study sees treefrogs as possibly being […]
The bee dance of Michael Smith, scientist
You’ll not see anything quite like the bee dance created and performed by Michael Smith. Smith made this video and entered it into the 2011 Dance Your Dissertation competition: [vimeo]29611383[/vimeo] Here’s how he describes the action: In this dance, we see the first bee emerging from a trunk (her hive), and adopting a guarding stance. […]