Tag Archives: trained

Study: Bumblebees Can Be Trained to Understand Basic Morse Code

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Bufftail Bumblebee (Western bumblebee): A recent study reveals that humans can determine foraging locations by analyzing variations in the length of visual cues.

The ability to process temporal information is essential for animal behaviors like foraging, mating, and avoiding predators. Although circadian rhythms are well-studied, there’s limited knowledge on how insects perceive durations in the second to subsecond range. Davidson and colleagues sought to assess the buff-tailed bumblebee’s (Western bumblebee) ability to distinguish between light flash durations in free-foraging tasks. Image credit: Miriam.

In Morse code, a brief flash or “dot” signifies the letter “E,” while a prolonged flash or “dash” indicates the letter “T.”

Previously, the capability to differentiate between “dots” and “dashes” was recognized solely in humans and certain vertebrates like macaques and pigeons.

Alex Davidson, a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London, and his team examined this ability in the Western bumblebee.

They designed a specialized maze to train the bumblebees to identify a sugar reward among two flashing circles, marked by long and short flashing intervals.

For instance, if a short flash, or “dot,” was linked with sugar, a long flash, or “dash,” would be associated with a bitter substance that bumblebees typically avoid.

Within each section of the maze, the locations of the “dot” and “dash” stimuli were altered, preventing the bumblebees from relying on spatial cues for their choices.

After mastering the task of approaching the flashing circles paired with sugar, the bumblebees were tested with flashing lights devoid of sugar, to determine if their selections were driven by visual cues instead of olfactory ones associated with sugar.

The results indicated that the bumblebees effectively learned to distinguish between light durations, as the majority headed straight to the “correct” blinking light duration that had been previously linked to sugar, irrespective of its spatial location.

“We aimed to investigate if bumblebees could distinguish among these various durations, and it was thrilling to observe them succeed,” Davidson noted.

“It’s astonishing that they excelled in this task, given that bumblebees encounter no blinking stimuli in their natural habitats.”

“The ability to track the duration of visual stimuli might imply enhanced temporal processing capabilities that have evolved for various functions, including spatial movement tracking or communication.”

“Alternatively, this impressive skill for encoding and processing time could be a fundamental feature of the nervous system, reflective of neuronal properties. Only further research can clarify this.”

The neural mechanisms that facilitate the tracking of these durations are still largely unclear. Current mechanisms known to align with solar cycles and seasonal changes are too slow to account for the distinction between dashes and dots of varying durations.

Numerous theories suggest the existence of either a singular or multiple biological clocks.

The revelation of insects’ capacity to differentiate between light flash durations will enable researchers to test various models using these “miniature brains” that measure less than a cubic millimeter.

“Numerous complex animal behaviors, including navigation and communication, rely on temporal processing capabilities,” comments researcher Elisabetta Versace from Queen Mary University of London.

“To explore the evolution of such abilities, adopting a comprehensive comparative approach across a range of species, including insects, is crucial.”

“Insect processing times highlight their utilization of minimal neural resources to accomplish complex tasks.”

“This insight holds implications for characteristics such as complex cognition in artificial neural networks, which should take cues from biological intelligence while striving for efficiency and scalability.”

This result was published in the Journal on November 12, 2025 in Biology Letters.

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Alexander Davidson et al. 2025. Bumblebee duration identification in the Western bumblebee. Biol. Let 21(11):20250440; doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0440

Source: www.sci.news

Trained Giant Rats: A Potential Game-Changer in the Fight Against Poaching

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There’s a saying: “Never stay more than 6 feet away from a mouse.” Although I’m here BBC Science Focus, we concluded that this measurement is inaccurate, but may soon become more accurate for those involved in illegal wildlife trade (IWT).

The research team used the anatomical structures of endangered animals such as pangolin scales, elephant ivory, and rhinoceros horns on African giant pouch rats to provide a low-cost detection system to prevent illegal smuggling. I trained myself to be able to distinguish scents.

– Hmmmm – Swarms of rats have been shown to be able to identify these items even when hidden inside other materials, and to remember their smells even after months of no exposure.

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Why rats?

this is not the first time Apopo The Tanzania-based nonprofit organization tasked with conducting this study recognizes the potential of a super rat workforce.

The organization aims to provide low-tech, cost-effective solutions to pressing humanitarian challenges across Africa and has previously developed the HeroRATS technology to detect landmines and the pathogen that causes tuberculosis. I trained the pack.

Dr. Isabel Zottofirst co-author of new research Published in frontiers of conservation science, It helped to identify the potential for IWT detection in rats.

“There is an urgent need to strengthen cargo inspection, as existing inspection tools are expensive and time-consuming,” Schott explained.

“The APOPO rat is a cost-effective odor detection tool that can easily access tight spaces, such as cargo inside packed shipping containers, and can also be lifted high to block ventilation systems in closed containers.”

rat boot camp

The new research rats, Kirsty, Marty, Attenborough, Irwin, Betty, Teddy, Ivory, Ebony, Desmond, Thoreau, and Fosse, have undergone several rigorous training stages.

They first learned to “nose” a target’s scent for a few seconds to acquire a flavored pellet. Next, we discussed common scents used to hide wild animals in real-life human trafficking, such as electrical wires, coffee beans, and detergent.

The final step was retention training, where I re-experienced scents I had not been exposed to for 5 and 8 months respectively. Despite several months of no exposure, the rats showed perfect memory retention scores, suggesting that their cognitive retention performance is similar to that of dogs.

By the end of the training, eight of the rats were able to identify four commonly smuggled wild animals among 146 non-target substances.

Why now?

Statistics on IWT (defined as the illegal capture, killing, or harvesting of animals or plants) have become increasingly bleak in recent years. of wild animals of the world fund (WWF) estimates that it is currently the fourth largest illicit trade in the world, with a value of more than £15 billion a year.

They also estimate that around 55 African elephants are killed for their tusks every day, amounting to more than 20,000 a year. It also found that rhino poaching increased by 9,000 percent in South Africa between 2007 and 2014.

While this clearly has a negative impact on wildlife populations, a 2019 study found that world bank It also estimates that long-term global losses to ecosystems affected by IWT are approximately $1-2 trillion (£700-1.5 trillion) per year.

Evaluation of crime

Scientists involved in the new detection study have already identified the next steps for the HEROrat project. The idea is to develop methods that allow rats to operate within ports, which are likely to be hotspots for smuggled wildlife.

To this end, the rats are outfitted with custom-made vests (possibly inspired by Virgin Atlantic’s iconic red flight attendant uniforms). When they pull a small ball attached to the chest of their vest with their paws, it makes a beeping sound. In this way, the rat can alert the handler when it detects a target.

“The vest is a great example of hardware development that can be useful across a variety of settings and tasks, including shipping ports to detect smuggled wildlife,” the co-authors said. Dr. Kate Webb.

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

AI trained on extensive life stories has the ability to forecast the likelihood of early mortality

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Data covering Denmark’s entire population was used to train an AI that predicts people’s life outcomes

Francis Joseph Dean/Dean Photography/Alamy Stock Photo

Artificial intelligence trained on personal data covering Denmark’s entire population can predict people’s likelihood of dying more accurately than existing models used in the insurance industry. Researchers behind the technology say it has the potential to have a positive impact on early prediction of social and health problems, but must be kept out of the hands of large corporations. There is.

Sune Lehmann Jorgensen The researchers used a rich Danish dataset covering the education, doctor and hospital visits, resulting diagnoses, income, and occupation of 6 million people from 2008 to 2020.

They converted this dataset into words that can be used to train large-scale language models, the same technology that powers AI apps like ChatGPT. These models work by looking at a set of words and statistically determining which word is most likely to come next based on a large number of examples. In a similar way, the researcher’s Life2vec model can look at the sequence of life events that form an individual’s history and determine what is most likely to happen next.

In the experiment, Life2vec was trained on all data except for the last four years of data, which was kept for testing. Researchers took data on a group of people aged 35 to 65, half of whom died between 2016 and 2020, and asked Life2vec to predict who lived and who died. This was 11% more accurate than existing AI models and life actuarial tables used in the financial industry to price life insurance policies.

The model was also able to predict personality test results for a portion of the population more accurately than AI models trained specifically to do the job.

Jorgensen believes the model has consumed enough data that it has a good chance of shedding light on a wide range of topics in health and society. This means it can be used to predict and detect health problems early, or by governments to reduce inequalities. But he stresses that it can also be used by companies in harmful ways.

“Obviously, our model should not be used by insurance companies, because the whole idea of ​​insurance is that if some unlucky person suffers some kind of incident, dies, loses their backpack, etc. ‘Because we share the lack of knowledge about what to do, we can share this burden to some extent,’ says Jorgensen.

But such technology already exists, he says. “Big tech companies that have large amounts of data about us are likely already using this information against us, and they are using it to make predictions about us. It is.”

Matthew Edwards Researchers from UK professional institutes the Institute of Actuaries and the Faculty of Actuaries say that while insurers are certainly interested in new forecasting techniques, the bulk of decision-making is based on a type of model called a generalized linear model. The research is done using AI, which he says is rudimentary compared to this research. .

“If you look at what insurance companies have been doing for years, decades, centuries, they’ve taken the data they have and tried to predict life expectancy from that,” Edwards said. “But we are deliberately conservative in adopting new methodologies, because when we are creating policies that are likely to be in place for the next 20 or 30 years, the last thing we want is to make any significant mistakes. . Everything can change, but slowly because no one wants to make mistakes.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com