Scientists at the University of Queensland’s brain institute have found through the study of honey bees that the brain has an advanced ability to isolate specific odours and recollect smells.
Fuentes, whose study was published in the Journal of Atmospheric Environment, used mathematical models to estimate how far fragrance molecules could travel. Fuentes and his team concluded that scent trails traveled up to 1,200 meters in pre-industrial times. Today, those same scents may waft for only up to 300 meters in urban pollution before bonding with ozone and other pollutants and losing their punch.
Air pollution interferes with the ability of bees and other insects to follow the scent of flowers to their source, undermining the essential process of pollination, a study by three University of Virginia researchers suggests.
Posted by eivindm | Posted in Australia, NZ, Oceania, Biology | Posted on 19-03-2008
Tags: research, scenting
Scientists at the Queensland Brain Institute are using bees’ noses to help develop a machine that can smell the difference between a good and a bad wine.
Families flocked to see the latest animated hit Bee Movie, but scientists from the University of Queensland’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) have long embraced the bee for very different reasons.
A Menikhinna resident’s abode where bees and wasps were reportedly trained to detect landmines, had been set on fire and thousands of these insects burnt to death, police said. The resident, Deeman Ananda has lodged a complaint to this effect, Wattegama Police said.
We have heard about bees sniffing for land mines. Now they may be used to small tuberculosis.
The buzz is honeybees could be useful to help soldiers detect toxic chemicals used in terror attacks or war.
Posted by eivindm | Posted in Biology, North America | Posted on 06-12-2006
Tags: explosives, scenting
An apparently unauthorized news release regarding the use of bees to detect certain explosives has drawn a rebuke from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Posted by eivindm | Posted in Biology, Misc | Posted on 27-11-2006
Tags: explosives, scenting
Here is another article about bees detecting bombs. I feel sorry for the bees though, when I see how they are strapped into a tube…
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