Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
41–50 of 139 posts
Re: Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
#42When I think of insects, I see them as tiny microcontrollers. In my head bees have a little shift register to measure time. While ants have control over each limb, they mostly move by rotating two tripods one at a time. It's like they turn on an output for three legs, turn off the output, and then turn on the output for the other three legs. Ants can walk backward, though, so perhaps it is more like a half-bridge rec…
I read a paper long ago (so there's no chance of my recalling the source!) and one of the takeaways was that in a cockroach one of the neural ganglia basically had a binary "run!" mode that was flipped on instantly if sense nerves very close to it were triggered. So when researchers tapped or blew air on the rears of the roaches the roach in question would sprint away, its powerful legs being efficiently driven at fu…
That is so cool.
> "Ahhh! Why am I suddenly running and where am I going to steer this runaway body?"
I wonder if it's tied to the optical sensors to steer toward darker places.
Re: Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
#43Lots of bees are dying suddenly, for multiple reasons. Here is a (sensationalized) summary:
https://youtu.be/qWsBZbnt_4A?si=3AcS7IdGT41gF598
Professional nerds in silicon valley and beyond might consider whether they can help, and how.
My understanding from long conversations with a beekeeper who has lost millions of bees, including entire colonies remote from agricultural and residential pesticides and artificial colony technology (which are some of the hypothesized causes blamed) is there is a mix of a) pathogens, and b) global supply chain homogeny distributing the pathogens mixed into various agricultural products eg mulch and soil, and c) environmental factors to include possibly RF which have been observed to destroy previously healthy colonies very quickly and then also scramble or interfere with the colony division/expansion process where a queen starts over. To include in some cases the queens apparently getting lost and/or leading astray their entire swarm of minion bees during the fragile process of relocating. This getting lost is apparently a new puzzling phenomenon.
Anyway, it would be bad if large fragile ecosystems upon which many species including ours depend, were deprived of key pollinators. There is probably some very smart insightful person or team here on HN who could help and profit from helping on a global scale.
Edit. Typos
Re: Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I promise this isn’t a trap, it’s just my curiosity as a “flexitarian”. What (mostly) keeps me from eating animals is my mind wandering sometimes when making a protein choice about how they ended up there, wherever I am, not by choice. Are you vegan?
You can’t avoid the reality that’s your life depends on something else dying. Either plant insect or animal How and why you draw the line on what is acceptable to kill is mostly arbitrary I’d argue a mushroom or a bee are more “conscious” than most chickens
You think that a mushroom is more capable of intelligent thought and emotion driven decisions than a chicken?
lmao
Re: Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
#45Lots of bees are dying suddenly, for multiple reasons. Here is a (sensationalized) summary: https://youtu.be/qWsBZbnt_4A?si=3AcS7IdGT41gF598 Professional nerds in silicon valley and beyond might consider whether they can help, and how. My understanding from long conversations with a beekeeper who has lost millions of bees, including entire colonies remote from agricultural and residential pesticides and artificial co…
Professional nerds are already working on the problem of helping bees pollinate. Their solutions are not that popular yet. https://www.beevt.com/
More professional nerds should be working on keeping bees healthy, but that's probably outside the purview of tech nerds.
Re: Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am no expert at all in this topic! So please take this with a grain of salt. I just have the feeling (maybe wrongly) that the love and focus for bees is having detrimental/ unwanted effects on the ecosystem. Here some more articles / discussions: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44505552 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44792207 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668879
Why won’t you let „the ecosystem“ decide that on its own ? It’s much older than you and you are not its lega guardian. If the ecosystem (of which we are a part) decides it wants more honey bees than that’s what it shall get.
If we're a part of the ecosystem, then deciding to be honey bees' legal guardian _is_ the ecosystem deciding that on its own, no?
Re: Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
#47That's interesting, given that scientists don't even know what the "time" is. But if that study helps finding those answers, I guess it is just fine to continue the push.
Re: Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Growing up on a farm taught me that animals are absolutely able to think and learn. Not in the same way as humans, but I'm fully convinced there are degrees of consciousness. Watching new calves play in spring meadows is one of the most purely joyful things you can ever see. They have best friends and will avoid playing with other calves until their friend comes to play with them.
Thanks for this memory. I had similar experience watching spring lambs and swore off mutton/lamb/etc same day.
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Re: Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love bees and ants, but I love bees the most. I would recommend people to study the behavior of bees and ants. Additionally, honey, propolis, etc. are super healthy, and we can thank bees for that.
Agreed! Bees are my favorite social insect (we share a love of hexagons, for one thing) and they seem to be especially intelligent.
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Re: Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
#50> Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects We have no idea what other insects can do this or when they got the ability. Sounds more like a first in Scientists. (tongue somewhat in cheek)
this might be more of "it's hard to find a behavioral experiment that proves you're using time" rather than "it's hard to find an animal that uses time"