Should be: ...Tested for Impaired Cognition
Yeah. How could 1950's science fiction be so wrong?
My stupid butt imagined new mutant superpowered insects like the Brain from Pinky and the Brain
Well, to be fair, that's what that stupid title is designed to make you think
Show pitch: Pinky and the Brain but the Brain is a brain bug from Starship Troopers.
I was thinking Rachni[0][1]
[0]: https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Rachni
[1]: origins have to start somewhere
They only seem to be testing individual bees though, not the hive mind.
Is there any scientific basis for some kind of shared collective thought I don’t know about? In other words, what’s the “hive mind” if not the collective result of individual minds?
Changes in behaviour in the individual level might result in an apparent cognitive decline for that individual, but could still benefit the hive as a whole.
I was asking about the concept of “hive mind”. Is the concept accepted as a “thing”, has it ever been measured in any way, and if yes, what is it?
Yes, it's the idea that the colony exhibits behaviour with a level of intelligence impossible for any of the single bees. Things like choosing the location of the nest or managing the temperature of the nest, there's various decisions "made" by the colony as a kind of emergent property of the behaviour of the individual bees who themselves don't have the capacity to think at that level. The various aspects of colony behaviour have all been individually studied by quite a few people and groups, yes.
I think you are missing the point of the question, and it revolves around calling it a mind capable of decisions.
Am I? I just mentioned there's research that shows a colony of bees can make decisions that individual bees are incapable of. What am I misunderstanding?
Crowds of people, as an average, are more accurate at guessing the number of beans in a jar at a county fair than individual people, but not because there's such a thing as cognition manifesting at the group level in any literal sense.
I think you're making an interesting point, but I think you're attempting to point to a hive mind like it's the only pertinent topic when it comes to cognition of bees, as if testing for cognitive capabilities of individuals was a misunderstanding. But it's not a misunderstanding, it's part of what I think is some pretty explosively important research testifying to insect, cognition and even consciousness. At least speaking for myself, if the research holds, for me it necessitates a mind-blowing reevaluation of the internal lives of at least some insects.
If human society changed so that average individual intelligence decreased, but the human race as a whole acted more intelligently, did human intelligence increase or decrease?
Why are they testing a whole brain instead of individual neurons? What is a brain if not the collective result of individual neurons?
The comparison only works if the concept of a “hive mind” is as accepted and defined as the concept of a brain, which is quite literally what I was asking.
"Hive mind" conjures ideas of an omnipresent, all-controlling intelligence to me like startrek's borg, but I think this is more about the idea of a "superorganism" [0] like some bees and most ants where the group exhibits traits and "behavior" and "decisions" as a whole, beyond the ability of any single, specialized individual. Less superintelligence and more emergent behavior and complexity.
Nitpick: the article mentions that the bees are tracked with QR Codes, but I find that hard to believe, given the space constraints. In one photo it looks like it is an ArUco marker.
2mm QR codes according to the article:
> The protocol used at Fukushima is automated. Each bee is equipped with a 2-mm-wide QR Code which is read by a camera, activating the opening of the maze.
But yeah, doesn't look like a QR code at all, are there possibly different variations of QR codes? Haven't heard about that myself.
I can imagine the journalist referring to all Matrix Codes as "QR".
This is it. All matrix codes are now commonly referred to as “QR Codes”. I’ve noticed this especially at airports where both passengers and gate agents refer to the “QR codes” on boarding passes. (Which are IIRC Aztec codes)
Boarding passes are typically Aztec, but don‘t have to be. IATA allows other types as well: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/1dccc9ed041b4f3bbdcf8ee86...
In China the normal word is 二维码 "two-dimensional code".
is a barcode a one-dimensional code?
Yes - even though it obviously has visual height the data only runs in one dimension. For the 2D codes like QR the data is in both directions, which is why orientation often comes up in their design.
Anyone remember these?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode
Haven't seen one in ages.
We have something similar in Barcelona (maybe entire Spain? Apparently called NaviLens, colored squares rather than triangles) all around public transit points. They're used for blind people to navigate the public transit system :)
> As users sweep their environment with a smartphone, audio cues allow them to find and center the tag in the phone’s field of view. A shake of the wrist prompts the details contained within the tag to be read out (visually impaired people are often holding a guide dog or cane with their other hand). https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/06/135057/these-col...
Never saw one of those in the wild. But I have seen NaviLens codes (on cereal packaging), they use color as well: https://www.navilens.com/en/
they’re at every new york subway station. i don’t know why.
Surprised that they are still there.
It’s an old Microsoft standard. I’m pretty sure that MS rolled it up, years ago, so they may not be valid, anymore.
They are Navilens, new thing: https://www.mta.info/accessibility/innovations/navilens
Ah. That makes sense. Different look, though. The Microsoft ones used triangles.
There‘s MicroQR, which is just a single finder pattern of a regular QR code, with some adjoining data. But it doesn’t look like one.
possibly BEEtag? https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
TIL: Wikipedia does not have a standalone article for ArUco markers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARTag
There's something called a bCode...
Nitpick: QR code is widely used as a generic term for matrix barcodes.
>Although the results of the study have yet to be published, scientists are already reporting a decline in insect cognition in the contaminated area of Fukushima Prefecture.
Troll-tier conclusion: Human presence improves cognition in insects
Scientific research causes cancer in mice.
That's actually a fact; there are specific bloodlines prone to cancers.
I can see a direct relation in this test, but it may be my lack of imagination or knowdledge...
Anyway, animals in islands without predators lose escape hability, in particular the dodo.
The conclusion is (emphasis mine):
Although the results of the study have yet to be published, scientists are already reporting a decline in insect cognition in the contaminated area of Fukushima Prefecture. "We can see correlations," Armant says. "However, a causal link with radioactive contamination has not yet been established. But since the area is no longer inhabited, it is unlikely that the effect is due to factors such as pesticides."
So, when people leave the area, insect cognition decline, therefore human presence improves cognition in insects.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Bees
Have we tried increasing cognition by selective breeding. Get mice best at maze to breed 100 descendants and repeat it few times, with varying food supply and survival difficulties.
This gets you mice that are better at navigating mazes. The connection between that and general cognition or learning capacity is not as robust as you would hope. Just as likely they simply have better peripheral vision or something.
Whoever has put the tag on that hornet in the last photo is a hero in my eyes. Things people do for science...
The Green Hornet!
Perfect fodder for a horror movie script.
> Each bee is equipped with a 2-mm-wide QR Code
I'm not sure why but this sentence feels vaguely menacing.
Gives s whole new meaning to mobile storage.
See also: Benn Jordan's 'I Saved a PNG Image To A Bird' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCQCP-5g5bo
we should send contaminated insects to Mars
Future research should also test for induced meta-insect superpowers.
"Fukushima was a massive disaster. It was also Arthur Buzzby's origin story."
If the bees were exposed to radiation, shouldn't we be testing them for super-powers?
this isn't reddit
OR try getting teenagers stung by them.
The power to make honey and die after using your stinger?
The Fantastic 4,000 versus Wasp Man!