Skip to content
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Menu
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Happy News

Scientists Taught Bees To Read Morse Code

A groundbreaking new study from Queen Mary University of London is the first to show that an insect can differentiate between different durations of visual cues, with bumblebees successfully learning to distinguish between Morse code style dots and dashes, an ability previously seen only in humans and other vertebrates including macaques and pigeons. Researchers built a special maze to train individual bees to find a sugar reward at one of two flashing circles, with short flashes or “dots” associated with sugar while long flashes or “dashes” were paired with bitter quinine that bees dislike. At each room in the maze the position of the dot and dash stimulus changed so bees couldn’t rely on spatial cues, forcing them to truly learn the difference between flash durations rather than locations.

After bees learned to go straight to the correct flashing circle paired with sugar, they were tested with flashing lights but no sugar present to confirm their choices were driven by the light duration rather than olfactory or visual cues from the reward itself. PhD student Alex Davidson expressed excitement at seeing the bees succeed, noting it’s remarkable they could accomplish this task since they don’t encounter flashing stimuli in their natural environment. Most of the bees went straight to the correct flashing light duration previously associated with sugar regardless of spatial location, clearly showing they had learned to tell the lights apart based solely on duration in brains smaller than one cubic millimeter. The surprising ability to encode and process time duration might be a fundamental component of the nervous system intrinsic to neuron properties, with implications for understanding complex cognitive traits in artificial neural networks that should seek biological inspiration for maximum efficiency.

PrevPreviousRescue Chihuahua Only Responds To Spanish
Next12 Year Old’s Response To Bullies Teaches Everyone A LessonNext

Recent Articles

Happy News

This Unusual Prison Program Is Changing Lives With FRAGRANCE

November 20, 2025

Illustrator Michael O’Shaughnessy brings an unusual collection of classic French perfumes and bespoke fragrances into prisons across northern England, asking incarcerated men to smell each scent and share what memories it triggers in a project that’s unlocking something profound behind bars. The simple premise of his Perfume Stories workshops can

Read More
Happy News

This Simple Act Of Kindness For A Snake Goes Viral

November 20, 2025

A safari guide in Hoedspruit, South Africa spotted a mildly venomous Red-lipped Snake in the garden and decided to relocate it to a safer spot, but when he gently placed the snake onto a plant something completely unexpected happened. Instead of slithering away like snakes typically do after being handled,

Read More
Happy NEws

Daycare Rewilded Its Yard And Children Got Healthier Immediately

November 20, 2025

A groundbreaking study at Humpula daycare center in Lahti, Finland showed that when 75 children were exposed to nature-like elements five times a week, their body’s microbes diversified dramatically and offered powerful protection against diseases transmitted through the immune system. The study published in Science Advances in 2021 found that

Read More
« Previous Next »
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2025 HappyNews.