bees
Gadgets
Lawnmowers, Killer Bees and Fire: Five Tales of Mowing Madness
9:00AM Dan Nosowitz | Who knew a machine with razor-sharp blades spinning at 200RPM you’re supposed to sit on top of might cause injury or death? Here are gruesome tales of mowing mishaps—from this past month alone! More »
Vehicles
Nissan BR23C Bot Programmed To Avoid Attractive Women (and Other Obstacles)
12:00PM Wilson Rothman | As you can see in the video above, Nissan’s Biomimetric Car Robot Drive, or BR23C, was designed to avoid collisions by steering clear of oncoming objects, even if, as in this case, the object is a slender, particularly leggy Japanese woman. The science involved in this brand of collision avoidance was derived from bees, which steer away from anything that intersects an oval-like safety zone in front of them. Bees use 300ยบ field of vision; the BR23C uses laser range finders. Though Nissan hopes to implement this in cars sometime soon, the slow-moving tech still has a ways to go. [CNet; Motor Trend] More »
Science
Spider Attack Simulator: An Excuse For Scientists to Torture Bees
9:00AM Sean Fallon | I don’t know what’s going on over the pond, but it appears that September is robot spider month in the UK. First we saw the 50 foot robot spider that terrorised Liverpool, and now researchers from Queen Mary, University of London have developed a spider attack simulator that helps determine how bees avoid camouflaged predators. Although, I think its real purpose is to satisfy a juvenile urge to screw with their tiny little minds. More »
Science
No Health Insurance? Get Your Terminal Illness Diagnosed By Bees
8:15AM Adam Frucci | If you were concerned that you had cancer, would you go to see a doctor or would you consult some bees? I bet you said doctor, didn’t you? No fun! If you used one of Susana Soares “alternative diagnosis tools” you’d be relying on bees instead for some goddamned insane reason. More »
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Bomb Detector Powered by Bee Tongue
1:15AM Mark Wilson | A company named Inscentinel Ltd. has developed Vapour Detection Instrumentation with the promise of detecting explosives, cancer, drugs and basically anything you’d like to smell. And for this advanced olfactory detection, Inscentinel is deploying the world’s most advanced techniques—trained bee tongue. The company literally trains bees as a police force might train dogs. Using Pavlovian principles, the bees are given a food reward when they sniff, let’s say, cocaine. Over time, the bees are conditioned to stick out their tongues in hunger over the smell of this substance. More »
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