bees

Members of a honey bee colony in Cuba.Photo: YAMIL LAGE/AFP (Getty Images)In the 1970s, laboratory honey bees generally lived for over a month. But now, according to new research published in Scientific Reports, lab-kept bees only live about two weeks.The halving of the insects’ lifespan (from 34.3 days in the 1970s to 17.7 days in the 2010s) is just the latest worrying sign for a species that plays a crucial role in our environment. Honey bees have suffered huge population losses in recent years.The recent findings came…

Fertilizers may change the way flowers 'look' to bees and discourage them from pollinating, a study suggests.Flowers attract bees using small electric fields that bees can learn to recognize. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS Nexus on Wednesday, found that the fertilizers change these electric fields and bees seem to find these changes very weird.Flowers lure bees with electric chargesIn the study, scientists investigated whether the fertilizers affected the color, smell, or electric charge of the…

A number of studies have already shown that synthetic chemicals can harm the bees that are vital to the pollination of plants. New research now additionally indicates that fertilizers may disrupt bees' ability to identify flowers, reducing the likelihood of the insects landing on them.Not surprisingly, bees are able to differentiate flowers from other objects based largely on factors such as color and odor. That said, the specific strength of electrical fields produced by plants (which the bees can detect) also plays a…

It never stood a chance. Photo: Koen Van Weel (Getty Images)First, it came for the crypto shills and startups and then, the Silicon Valley legacy brands. Now, the dreaded 2022 tech layoffs are sinking their talons into birds. No, not that bird. We’re talking about drone-killing eagles.After a five year trial, Geneva police announced this week they would end their so-called, anti-drone “eagle brigade,” due to uncertain effectiveness and concerns for the animals’ safety. Now, the program’s two raptors, reportedly named…

A dangerous robot army of bees can be created with this AI-based tool Scientists have developed an AI-based robot that is capable of communicating with animals including elephants and whales – it can even be used to create a dangerous robot army of bees. Artificial intelligence could take control of whole groups of animals – it’s already worked with bees. A German research team has developed an AI which is capable of ‘speaking’ with—and even controlling⁠—wild animals. Smart algorithms are…

Evidence is mounting that insects experience pain in a similar way that we do. Now, a clear demonstration of play in bumble bees suggests pleasure may be part of the lived experience of these tiny animals too."It goes to show, once more, that despite their little size and tiny brains, they are more than small robotic beings," says behavioral ecologist Samadi Galpayage from the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).Galpayage and colleagues created a playground of sorts for 45 buff-tailed bumble bees (Bombus…

First-ever study shows that bumble bees ‘play’. The experiment, in which bumble bees rolled wooden balls, was the first time that object play behavior has been shown in an insect.Bumble bees play, according to new research published in the journal Animal Behaviour.  It is the first time that object play behavior has been shown in an insect, adding to mounting evidence that bees may experience positive ‘feelings’.Numerous experiments were set up by a team of researchers, who were led by scientists from Queen Mary…

In 2017, scientists in the UK carried out research suggesting that the small brain of the bumblebee may be more sophisticated than we realize, demonstrating how they could be trained to roll balls into a hole to score a sugary reward. The team has now delved deeper into the realm of entomological cognition with a new study demonstrating how the insects play with balls even when there’s no reward involved, constituting what they say is first-of-a-kind evidence of play behavior in insects.In their earlier experiments where…

ASTRONOMY Iran’s world-class telescope sees first light In a major milestone for Iran’s scientific community, astronomers announced last week that the $25 million Iranian National Observatory (INO) is operational. They said the resolution of the first images—showing Arp 282, a pair of galaxies some 319 million light-years from Earth—was better than expected. Iranian scientists first proposed building the INO 2 decades ago, and to complete it, they had to surmount…

Playtime isn’t just for children. Lab-kept bumble bees roll small wooden balls around for no apparent purpose other than fun, a new study reveals. The finding supports evidence that bees experience pleasure, researchers say, highlighting the importance of protecting them in the wild and treating them well when they’re kept in hives. “It is super cool,” says Elizabeth Tibbetts, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who was not…