[ExI] this might sting your interest

[BillK]

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Ben Zaiboc  wrote:
>
> I'd be cautious about this.  The article says ""In
> nature, bees have to link hundreds of flowers .."
>
> and
>
> "The team used computer controlled artificial flowers
> to test whether bees would follow a route defined by
> the order in which they discovered the flowers or if
> they would find the shortest route"
>
> Did they use hundreds of computer controlled
> artificial flowers?  And did the bees visit every one?
> And if the problem is so hard to solve using a
> computer, how did the researchers actually know that
> the bees found an optimal solution?
>
>


They used four artificial flowers. Started with one then added the
others and analysed the paths. At least one comment suggested the bees
might have been following the stronger scents rather than computing
paths.

More research required. Where's my milion grant?


BillK