Sunday, April 1, 2012

Bee-n there, pollinated that


Science interests me. It is a human trait to want to know how shit works, and an engineering trait to find ways to exploit it so capitalists can make money from you. I came across an interesting article on the Discovery website about scientists at the University of Illinois looking into the risk taking behaviour of bees – I imagine because they have no beach to study the effects of bikinis and fun – and how it relates to risk taking behaviour in humans. (I’m sure there would be grants for the bikini study somewhere. Do Playboy offer a scholarship?)

At any point in every hive, 5-25% of bees are food scouts. These food scouts do not do the normal honey run like other bees. They are the hipsters of the hive; they will find a new source of food, tell all their friends, but never go back because all of their friends are now there and popular is uncool. I imagine using something similar to Facebook, maybe BeeBook, or checking in on OcelliBook if the bees knew the Latin name beach-lacking-scientists give for their face. (That is a case of trademark infringement Mark Zuckerberg’s lawyers would not want to touch… The Defence would like to release its opening statement your Honour. Attack my pretties!)

“You look at animals and they look really different and they act really different, but when you drill down deeper and look at the genomics, you find these deep commonalities” said Gene Robinson who is an entomologist, geneticist, and neuroscientist in charge of the study. The first thing I noticed when reading that quote is not the implications this find makes on what we believe makes humans human or that this man is obviously knee deep in bitches, is that he is a geneticist called Gene. That is like a Backhoe driver changing his name to Doug, or Footballer legally changing his name to “Sexual Assault”, or Chris Brown’s few remaining friends calling him “Punchy”.

Gene continues by saying “when you see this kind of result, you can say that personality is not a human invention”, I thought that would be obvious if you studied genes and was called Gene.

What the boffins did is find similarities between scouting bees, and other risk taking behaviour in mammals, including humans. People who are prone to alcoholism, gambling addictions, promiscuity, skydiving, Wall Street trading, or strip lawn bowls have a link to thrill seeking genes similar to those of the scouting bee. To translate, if scouting bees had a credit card, they would put it all on black while sculling vodka upside down after a bungee jump. Then they would post photos of their genitals on OcelliBook.

The interesting thing is that the scientists were able to tweak the genes patterns implicated in risk taking through experimentation, and increase the likelihood that the bees would become food scouts, and therefore increase the likeliness of them becoming risk takers. This is an amazing break through and good news for Gold diggers who are thinking about buying base jumping equipment for reluctant husbands.

 Now I don’t know what they mean by “tweaking genes”, but I believe it to be similar to “tweaking nipples”, and that’s the kind of science I can get behind, and probably more likely to get Playboy funding.

Check out what Hipster bees would look like at Pish Posh

15 comments:

  1. Tweaking genes makes me picture rednecks playing with wires and buttons.

    Connect this one to the blue one, then push the button and see what happens.

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  2. Trial and error is an effective troubleshooting method. We had one programmer at work who was notorious for this:

    "Okay, now watch this work. Shit. Okay, now watch this work. Shit, okay... now watch this work..."

    But I think this is what Scientists are all about:
    http://xkcd.com/242/

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  3. I like science too, and slightly off-topic, but isn't the world's bee population heading rapidly toward extinction? Thought I read an article about that a few years back/

    Hehe, also, Chicago has a pretty decent stretch of beach along Lake Michigan's shore. Plenty of bikinis to bee seen (although only for about two months out of the year).

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    1. Yeah that's true, the bee population is disappearing. In Australia it is not as bad because we have a native bee that doesn't have a stinger. You should keep bees and train them to attack

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    2. Fun fact: I had a friend who kept bees because he wanted his own honey. He had no idea what he was doing, and when he took me to see them (I was standing 10 feet away, mind you), they swarmed and madly attacked us. It was the first time I've ever been stung by bees, and I was pleasantly surprised, by not dying, to find out I'm not allergic.

      A few weeks after they migrated from his homemade comb, took over his neighbor's backyard, and the rest of his colony died.

      I cannot stress enough that he had no idea what he was doing.

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    3. Well, what other insect can we train to attack?

      ...

      Dung beetle?

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  4. Bad! You are so bad! There is a professional conversation happening in my office as I sit here reading your blog, and I am shaking with laughter trying not to explode!

    The geneticist named Gene was the first thing I noticed, too, which was the first laugh I had to stifle.

    Did you think maybe Gene the geneticist was being tweaked? Or maybe hoping to be tweaked? Just a thought.

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    Replies
    1. I think Gene is the kind of guy who gets off being a geneticist called Gene and in no need of tweaking. Knowing some scientists myself, they would all think of it as being on a level of awesome that many of us don't share.

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  5. He he. I love studying animal behavior. Hipster Bee Hive. HA.

    Punchy.

    I can't talk anymore.

    Stop it.

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  6. I'm drawing a picture based on this. Look for it on my blog soon ;)

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  7. You're right, this is one of the funniest ones you've done. Someone tell Bookman from Seinfeld.

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    1. The thing I love about me the most is how humble I can be.

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  8. Yeah I see a support group designed for the risk taking bees in the near future. The bright side is if they are able to tweak this risk taking gene then we will see a lot more interesting videos on youtube :)

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    Replies
    1. If only we could get bees to play pianos like cats, and then we can find the true meaning of happiness...

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