6 ms·

Bees and flowers communicate using electrical fields, researchers discover

94 points by nonrecursive 14y ago

jeremyx 14y ago
What is more interesting to me, is the fact that flowers are beautiful and bees and people seem to universally recognize this. There is a sophisticated information exchange going with respect to how flowers evolved to attract pollinators. Co-evolution with information exchange across species. See David Deutsch's 'The Beginning of Infinity' for a fascinating discussion on objective beauty...
- evan_ 14y ago
  You don't think the just smell sugar? Soda cans aren't beautiful but bees seem to love them.
- kbutler 14y ago
  Coincidence - we like flowers, and admire bees. So we appreciate that bees are attracted to beauty. Replace bees with flies, and flowers with manure (or plants that seek to attract flies http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0602.htm http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0602.htm). Where's the objective beauty?
  - jeremyx 14y ago
    There is something more than that. There are many beautiful things, but flowers in particular seem to stand out as something that is recognized for their beauty regardless of culture, time or place. In the same way that people the world over, independent of one another, come up with the same conclusions about geometry and mathematics...
    - abraininavat 14y ago
      But not regardless of species. That both bees and humans find flowers beautiful is coincidence. That humans are similar to other humans in a way that crosses cultures is obvious to most.
- mjhoy 14y ago
  See also one of my favorites, Feynman's "Ode on a Flower": https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zSZNsIFID28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=... It only adds... I don't understand how it subtracts.
- networked 14y ago
  Flowers have evolved to look, smell and taste in a way that attracts pollinators, some of whom also happen to see colors and appreciate sweet things much like we do. While we, humans, find many wild flowers attractive because we share some of our preferences with their pollinators, some times [1] it's painfully clear that we're not the target audience. On the other hand, domesticated flowers you can buy as at a flower shop today were bred for centuries specifically to better satisfy human tastes, so it's no wonder we like them so much. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrion_flower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrion_flower
  - username3 14y ago
    Does anyone ever wonder if evolutionists are like people that want websites like Amazon for $1000 [1]? [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5222581 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5222581
    - networked 14y ago
      What do you mean by "evolutionists" and what similarity do you have in mind?
- samstave 14y ago
  Everyone here would like the documentary "the botany of desire"
- mercuryrising 14y ago
  The beauty of flowers to humans is a byproduct of awesome evolving for the eyesight of bees. Have you ever seen a flower like a bee sees it? Bees can see in UV as well as visible. The results are interesting, as it's nothing we would ever see when looking at a flower. Even dandelions are beautiful with UV. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-473897/A-bees-eye-view-How-insects-flowers-differently-us.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-473897/A-bees...
- evanb 14y ago
  There's a video of Deutsch giving a lecture which focuses on why flowers are beautiful, following much of the same line of reasoning as in `The Beginning of Infinity'. Worth a watch, if you've got an hour. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT7DFCF1Fn8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT7DFCF1Fn8
- fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
  What is more interesting to me, is the fact that flowers are beautiful and bees and people seem to universally recognize this. Almost as if flowering plants are related to food for both bees and apes....
jpdoctor 14y ago
> Plants are usually charged negatively and emit weak electric fields. On their side, bees acquire a positive charge as they fly through the air. ... > How then do bees detect electric fields? Why is the answer not as simple as: The bees feel an attractive force when they are near the flower?
- pygy_ 14y ago
  They have hairs on the whole surface of their abdomen (for bees), and all over their bodies (bumblebees. ). They probably feel the electric field gradient.
- kbutler 14y ago
  Because the attractive force is so small. The net force of the electric field plus gravity is likely very similar to just gravity. You may have rubbed a balloon on your hair, generating a static charge. You feel no attractive force toward the balloon, but your hair is pulled toward it, and your nerves can detect the changed angles of the hair.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- codeflo 14y ago
  Because the force would be vanishingly small compared to the mass of the bumblebee. That's why the article speculates that bumblebees sense the field acting on their hair, which is actually plausible.
- SagelyGuru 14y ago
  While it is true that hairs can sense small electrostatic forces better, I would not rule out the attractive force on the whole bee, whose mass is quite small. People are not generally aware that electrostatic force is 10^36 times stronger than gravity.
MichailP 14y ago
Wonder how they managed to measure such weak signals from the flowers. Also not sure if signal is the right term to use, because from the article it seems that no information (in conventional sense)is being transferred. Charged particle q (bumblebee) feels some force (F=q*E1 since we can neglect magnetic field) that is the consequence of static field E1 from flower :) Although it could also be the other way round, i.e. the bumblebee could produce field E2 etc.
ajuc 14y ago
It's more like flowers are external memory, and bees use them to send signals to each other. Just like ants do with pheromones.
antiterra 14y ago
Is it plausible that humans have at one point or another interfered with these electrical fields in a manner detrimental to bees? Systemically?
- Fishkins 14y ago
  There's (inconclusive) evidence that cell phones or cell phone towers are disrupting bees' lives. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/cellphones-contribute-bee-colony-decline-study-suggests/story?id=13597625 http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/cellphones-contribute-bee-c...
blendergasket 14y ago
I think there's a ton of this kind of communication going on that we don't realize. I have been a practitioner of QiGong for about 9 months and it has opened me up to a whole different dimension of information that is passed between living things. I think much more study is needed on these methods of energy transferrence between living organisms. These kinds of subtle communications make up a dimension of the human experience that can only be consciously experience by being actively cultivated and the main stream scientific community has bound itself to a set of ideological assumptions (IMHO inhereted from the Christian church) that deny the existence of these dimensions of human experience and so do not respect their cultivation or deem them worthy of study. This is going to become more of an issue the closer our technological interfaces interact with our senses. These assumptions about what we are, how we communicate, and how we interact with the physical/spiritual world form the base assumptions underlying the future course of our evolution and progress. What happens if by augmenting/modifying one sense we cut ourselves off from another that informs us subconsciously?
- purplelobster 14y ago
  Scientific research is by no means tied to Christian assumptions, I don't know where you're getting this conspiracy theory from. Do you think humans communicate with other things through electromagnetic fields? Then tell us of an experiment that shows this. What is the mechanism for this communication? Asian mysticism is deeply traditional and faith based, just a different kind of faith (placebo based). If these types of communications are so subtle that we're hardly aware of them, then that means that they are in fact weaker than the placebo effect. People are convinced they spoke to God and were abducted by aliens, why should I believe that you can sense subtle magnetic fields?
  - ante_annum 14y ago
    -In many ways, I think Christian assumptions bolster scientific research. Of course, there are the luddites, but I think that the concept that there is a rational, infinite God gives us two bases for research: 1) The universe is rational, and so we can apply strict logical rules to discover it, and 2) we will never run out of things to discover.
sbirchall 14y ago
Ah, time for one of my favourite ever articles: QUANTUM BEES! http://discovermagazine.com/1997/nov/quantumhoneybees1263 http://discovermagazine.com/1997/nov/quantumhoneybees1263

94 points by nonrecursive 14y ago

What is more interesting to me, is the fact that flowers are beautiful and bees and people seem to universally recognize this. There is a sophisticated information exchange going with respect to how flowers evolved to attract pollinators. Co-evolution with information exchange across species. See David Deutsch's 'The Beginning of Infinity' for a fascinating discussion on objective beauty...

evan_ 14y ago
You don't think the just smell sugar? Soda cans aren't beautiful but bees seem to love them.
kbutler 14y ago
Coincidence - we like flowers, and admire bees. So we appreciate that bees are attracted to beauty. Replace bees with flies, and flowers with manure (or plants that seek to attract flies http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0602.htm http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0602.htm). Where's the objective beauty?
- jeremyx 14y ago
  There is something more than that. There are many beautiful things, but flowers in particular seem to stand out as something that is recognized for their beauty regardless of culture, time or place. In the same way that people the world over, independent of one another, come up with the same conclusions about geometry and mathematics...
  - abraininavat 14y ago
    But not regardless of species. That both bees and humans find flowers beautiful is coincidence. That humans are similar to other humans in a way that crosses cultures is obvious to most.
mjhoy 14y ago
See also one of my favorites, Feynman's "Ode on a Flower": https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zSZNsIFID28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=... It only adds... I don't understand how it subtracts.
networked 14y ago
Flowers have evolved to look, smell and taste in a way that attracts pollinators, some of whom also happen to see colors and appreciate sweet things much like we do. While we, humans, find many wild flowers attractive because we share some of our preferences with their pollinators, some times [1] it's painfully clear that we're not the target audience. On the other hand, domesticated flowers you can buy as at a flower shop today were bred for centuries specifically to better satisfy human tastes, so it's no wonder we like them so much. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrion_flower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrion_flower
- username3 14y ago
  Does anyone ever wonder if evolutionists are like people that want websites like Amazon for $1000 [1]? [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5222581 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5222581
  - networked 14y ago
    What do you mean by "evolutionists" and what similarity do you have in mind?
samstave 14y ago
Everyone here would like the documentary "the botany of desire"
mercuryrising 14y ago
The beauty of flowers to humans is a byproduct of awesome evolving for the eyesight of bees. Have you ever seen a flower like a bee sees it? Bees can see in UV as well as visible. The results are interesting, as it's nothing we would ever see when looking at a flower. Even dandelions are beautiful with UV. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-473897/A-bees-eye-view-How-insects-flowers-differently-us.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-473897/A-bees...
evanb 14y ago
There's a video of Deutsch giving a lecture which focuses on why flowers are beautiful, following much of the same line of reasoning as in `The Beginning of Infinity'. Worth a watch, if you've got an hour. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT7DFCF1Fn8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT7DFCF1Fn8
fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
What is more interesting to me, is the fact that flowers are beautiful and bees and people seem to universally recognize this. Almost as if flowering plants are related to food for both bees and apes....

jpdoctor 14y ago

> Plants are usually charged negatively and emit weak electric fields. On their side, bees acquire a positive charge as they fly through the air. ... > How then do bees detect electric fields? Why is the answer not as simple as: The bees feel an attractive force when they are near the flower?

pygy_ 14y ago
They have hairs on the whole surface of their abdomen (for bees), and all over their bodies (bumblebees. ). They probably feel the electric field gradient.
kbutler 14y ago
Because the attractive force is so small. The net force of the electric field plus gravity is likely very similar to just gravity. You may have rubbed a balloon on your hair, generating a static charge. You feel no attractive force toward the balloon, but your hair is pulled toward it, and your nerves can detect the changed angles of the hair.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
codeflo 14y ago
Because the force would be vanishingly small compared to the mass of the bumblebee. That's why the article speculates that bumblebees sense the field acting on their hair, which is actually plausible.
SagelyGuru 14y ago
While it is true that hairs can sense small electrostatic forces better, I would not rule out the attractive force on the whole bee, whose mass is quite small. People are not generally aware that electrostatic force is 10^36 times stronger than gravity.

MichailP 14y ago

Wonder how they managed to measure such weak signals from the flowers. Also not sure if signal is the right term to use, because from the article it seems that no information (in conventional sense)is being transferred. Charged particle q (bumblebee) feels some force (F=q*E1 since we can neglect magnetic field) that is the consequence of static field E1 from flower :) Although it could also be the other way round, i.e. the bumblebee could produce field E2 etc.

ajuc 14y ago

It's more like flowers are external memory, and bees use them to send signals to each other. Just like ants do with pheromones.

antiterra 14y ago

Is it plausible that humans have at one point or another interfered with these electrical fields in a manner detrimental to bees? Systemically?

Fishkins 14y ago
There's (inconclusive) evidence that cell phones or cell phone towers are disrupting bees' lives. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/cellphones-contribute-bee-colony-decline-study-suggests/story?id=13597625 http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/cellphones-contribute-bee-c...

blendergasket 14y ago

I think there's a ton of this kind of communication going on that we don't realize. I have been a practitioner of QiGong for about 9 months and it has opened me up to a whole different dimension of information that is passed between living things. I think much more study is needed on these methods of energy transferrence between living organisms. These kinds of subtle communications make up a dimension of the human experience that can only be consciously experience by being actively cultivated and the main stream scientific community has bound itself to a set of ideological assumptions (IMHO inhereted from the Christian church) that deny the existence of these dimensions of human experience and so do not respect their cultivation or deem them worthy of study. This is going to become more of an issue the closer our technological interfaces interact with our senses. These assumptions about what we are, how we communicate, and how we interact with the physical/spiritual world form the base assumptions underlying the future course of our evolution and progress. What happens if by augmenting/modifying one sense we cut ourselves off from another that informs us subconsciously?

purplelobster 14y ago
Scientific research is by no means tied to Christian assumptions, I don't know where you're getting this conspiracy theory from. Do you think humans communicate with other things through electromagnetic fields? Then tell us of an experiment that shows this. What is the mechanism for this communication? Asian mysticism is deeply traditional and faith based, just a different kind of faith (placebo based). If these types of communications are so subtle that we're hardly aware of them, then that means that they are in fact weaker than the placebo effect. People are convinced they spoke to God and were abducted by aliens, why should I believe that you can sense subtle magnetic fields?
- ante_annum 14y ago
  -In many ways, I think Christian assumptions bolster scientific research. Of course, there are the luddites, but I think that the concept that there is a rational, infinite God gives us two bases for research: 1) The universe is rational, and so we can apply strict logical rules to discover it, and 2) we will never run out of things to discover.

sbirchall 14y ago

Ah, time for one of my favourite ever articles: QUANTUM BEES! http://discovermagazine.com/1997/nov/quantumhoneybees1263 http://discovermagazine.com/1997/nov/quantumhoneybees1263