1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,680 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio Pay 2 00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:09,799 Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Lauren Vogo bam here with a classic episode 3 00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:13,160 Speaker 1: of the podcast. A lot of non human animals are 4 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:15,320 Speaker 1: smarter than we give them credit for, and can be 5 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:19,760 Speaker 1: taught all kinds of things if properly motivated. In this one, 6 00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:26,799 Speaker 1: we explore how researchers have made educational inroads with bees. Hey, 7 00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:31,640 Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vogebam here. Back in two entomologists Joe 8 00:00:31,720 --> 00:00:35,040 Speaker 1: Lewis and Jim Tomlinson joined in a project that for 9 00:00:35,159 --> 00:00:38,120 Speaker 1: the first time uncovered the ability of an insect to 10 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:42,080 Speaker 1: learn through association. It was at the time not only novel, 11 00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:45,080 Speaker 1: it was an out and out revelation. An insect, in 12 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:48,120 Speaker 1: this case, the parasitic wasp, which feeds on and eventually 13 00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:52,040 Speaker 1: kills certain agricultural pests, could learn in a most basic 14 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:57,160 Speaker 1: way I think Pavlov's dogs, except smaller and buzzier. From 15 00:00:57,200 --> 00:01:00,360 Speaker 1: that study and other similar research by for example, ARPA, 16 00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:03,840 Speaker 1: the U S Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, 17 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:06,840 Speaker 1: we have spun forward to the point where honeybees now 18 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:10,640 Speaker 1: have successfully sniffed out long buried land mines in Croatia. 19 00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:13,399 Speaker 1: That's a long way from some thirty years ago, when 20 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:16,640 Speaker 1: Louis and Tomlinson released their findings in Nature magazine, to 21 00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:20,720 Speaker 1: the astonishment of many. Louis said, you talk about training 22 00:01:20,720 --> 00:01:23,320 Speaker 1: in insect period and you get the look the I 23 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:27,119 Speaker 1: start narrowing. It just doesn't make sense. So how did 24 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:30,160 Speaker 1: they start making sense of it? Let's talk about associate 25 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:33,480 Speaker 1: of learning. The whole idea behind this is fairly simple, 26 00:01:33,720 --> 00:01:36,240 Speaker 1: even if no one dreamed decades ago that insects could 27 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:39,640 Speaker 1: do it. With pav Love's dogs, when an outside stimulus 28 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:42,640 Speaker 1: a bell is often sided, was associated with food, the 29 00:01:42,720 --> 00:01:46,759 Speaker 1: dogs salivated. The dogs learned intuitively that the bell meant 30 00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:51,080 Speaker 1: food was coming for the Lewis Tumlinson wasps. Various odors 31 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:54,640 Speaker 1: that the wasps didn't normally recognize, like vanilla or chocolate, 32 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:57,520 Speaker 1: or mixed with something that was associated with the pests 33 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:00,600 Speaker 1: that these parasitic wasps were trying to make their hosts. 34 00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:04,560 Speaker 1: After a very short time, the wasps associated the vanilla 35 00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:07,360 Speaker 1: or whatever with the insects that they wanted to attack, 36 00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:10,679 Speaker 1: and thus would fly toward the odor. It took less 37 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:13,680 Speaker 1: than five minutes to train the wasps, which like bees 38 00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:16,639 Speaker 1: and dogs, have all factory senses. Thousands of times more 39 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:20,919 Speaker 1: powerful than a humans. As the studies continued, new researchers 40 00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:25,640 Speaker 1: linked the smell of various chemical compounds and explosives to food. Today, 41 00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:28,440 Speaker 1: honey bee trained for just two days could associate the 42 00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:33,000 Speaker 1: smell of explosives with food and seek out that smell too. 43 00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:36,320 Speaker 1: Big advantages to training insects to track odors rather than 44 00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:39,440 Speaker 1: say a dog. They learn faster, and there's a lot 45 00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:42,440 Speaker 1: more of them to teach. But releasing a swarm of 46 00:02:42,440 --> 00:02:45,400 Speaker 1: wasps or bees onto a battlefield or even a now 47 00:02:45,520 --> 00:02:48,240 Speaker 1: quiet meadow in Croatia that may be littered with minds 48 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:52,240 Speaker 1: has its challenges. Of course, tracking the insects is foremost 49 00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:55,919 Speaker 1: among them. It's impossible, as Timlinson points out, to put 50 00:02:55,960 --> 00:02:58,720 Speaker 1: ships on each of them, and you can't, as Louis says, 51 00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:02,320 Speaker 1: put Alisha on a bee. Still, scientists can trace the 52 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:05,560 Speaker 1: insects movements in at least small numbers through devices like 53 00:03:05,639 --> 00:03:09,760 Speaker 1: drones and webcams, and something early researchers called a wasppound. 54 00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:13,840 Speaker 1: Lewis's waspound, about the size of a large coin, contains 55 00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:17,120 Speaker 1: five wasps, a tiny camera, and a computer fan that 56 00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:19,600 Speaker 1: pulls air through a small hole in the bottom of 57 00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:23,040 Speaker 1: the device. When the hound comes near the target, smell 58 00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:26,560 Speaker 1: the wasps. Lewis says, cluster around that little hole, like 59 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:31,000 Speaker 1: pigs to a trough. Another problem researchers face is scale. 60 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:33,760 Speaker 1: Training one wasp or one b at a time can 61 00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:37,000 Speaker 1: be laborious. Scientists have come up with methods to train 62 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:40,760 Speaker 1: more than that, but insects, like people, learn at different rates, 63 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,720 Speaker 1: so mass learning is not as accurate. In addition, bad 64 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:48,360 Speaker 1: weather or anything that disrupts the insexibility to smell can 65 00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:54,040 Speaker 1: cause difficulties. Research is continuing. Tomlinson and Lewis never envisioned 66 00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:57,720 Speaker 1: be snifficg out bombs. Tomlinson is a professor of entomology 67 00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:00,640 Speaker 1: at Penn State and Lewis a retired fessor and a 68 00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:04,560 Speaker 1: research entomologist with the U S Department of Agriculture in Tifton, Georgia. 69 00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:08,000 Speaker 1: They were looking for ways to control pests biologically rather 70 00:04:08,040 --> 00:04:11,440 Speaker 1: than with pesticides, and in fact they were very successful 71 00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:15,200 Speaker 1: at it. Along with UK scientist John Pickett, Lewis and 72 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:18,680 Speaker 1: Tomlinson won the two thousand eight Wolf Prize for Agriculture, 73 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:21,479 Speaker 1: considered by many as a type of Nobel Prize in 74 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:25,240 Speaker 1: the field. From the official announcement, on the Wolf Foundation website. 75 00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:28,480 Speaker 1: They were awarded the prize quote for their remarkable discoveries 76 00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:32,960 Speaker 1: of mechanisms governing plant insect and plant plant interactions. Their 77 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:36,599 Speaker 1: scientific contributions on chemical ecology have fostered the development of 78 00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:42,480 Speaker 1: integrated pest management and significantly advanced agricultural sustainability. Whether their 79 00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:45,599 Speaker 1: work eventually will help form the basis of a widespread 80 00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:48,360 Speaker 1: practical use of bees and wasps in sniffing out bombs 81 00:04:48,440 --> 00:04:52,120 Speaker 1: or drugs remains to be seen. Even they have some doubts. 82 00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:55,640 Speaker 1: Tomlinson said, you can train insects to find a mine, 83 00:04:55,800 --> 00:04:58,280 Speaker 1: that's not a problem. But then you release them into 84 00:04:58,320 --> 00:05:00,719 Speaker 1: the field to find a mine. How do you track 85 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:03,560 Speaker 1: them unless someone comes up with a small chip so 86 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:06,120 Speaker 1: that you can track them with some electronic means. I 87 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:08,839 Speaker 1: don't see how in the world you can use them, 88 00:05:08,880 --> 00:05:11,159 Speaker 1: and says Louis, to move it from the lab to 89 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:13,600 Speaker 1: the actual field, you have to scale it up and 90 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:16,200 Speaker 1: refine it. But we clearly can see that it can 91 00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:19,599 Speaker 1: be practical in development. It's technically feasible. It's all on 92 00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:23,080 Speaker 1: valid science. The ability is there. It's about the demand 93 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:25,800 Speaker 1: for it and putting the infrastructure in place for that. 94 00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:29,200 Speaker 1: Scientists have been trying to find ways to harness the 95 00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:33,039 Speaker 1: remarkable power of smell for years. Bees, some believe, have 96 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:36,560 Speaker 1: such strong abilities that they can smell out illnesses, even cancer. 97 00:05:37,040 --> 00:05:40,080 Speaker 1: A Spanish designer went so far as developing a prototype 98 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,320 Speaker 1: bowl complete with honey bees that you can breathe into 99 00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:45,279 Speaker 1: to see how the bees react as a sort of 100 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:48,839 Speaker 1: proto diagnosis, and tests are being done in California with 101 00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:57,960 Speaker 1: cancer detecting dogs too. Today's episode is based on the 102 00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:01,000 Speaker 1: article these are smart, but try training them at home 103 00:06:01,040 --> 00:06:04,320 Speaker 1: on houstuffworks dot Com. Written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff 104 00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:06,120 Speaker 1: is a production of by Heart Radio in partnership with 105 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:08,119 Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot Com and is produced by Tyler 106 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:11,279 Speaker 1: Playing and Ramsey Young. For more podcasts my heart Radio, 107 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:14,120 Speaker 1: visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 108 00:06:14,160 --> 00:06:15,480 Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.