Bier i Roskilde weblog

Bier trænet op til at stikke snabelen ud, når de lugter eksplosiver. Nu kan de blive sat ind i Irak.

Amerikanske våbenforskere siger, de har trænet bier op til at genkende eksplosiver, melder nyhedsbureauet Reuters.

Projektet kan ifølge forskerne få betydning for sikkerheden i både USA og Irak.
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Ved at udsætte insekterne for duften af eksplosiver, og derefter belønne bierne med sukkervand, blev de lært op til at genkende flere typer sprængstof - fra dynamit til C-4.
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Opdagelserne kommer efter et 18 måneder langt forskningsprojekt.

Læs artiklen i Aftenposten.

Mens medier verden over har omtalt artiklen i Nature 26. okt. om kortlæggelsen af honningbiens arveanlæg, kan man faktisk også finde artiklen, de taler om, på internettet: den originale artikel i Nature.

Et par leder-artikler i Nature behandler perspektiverne i en sammenligning mellem bier og mennesker: Plan bee, From hive minds to humans og Genomics: How to make a social insect.

Læs artiklen hos Fox News:

The discovery of the oldest bee fossil supports the theory that bees evolved from wasps, scientists reported Wednesday.

The 100-million-year-old fossil was found in a mine in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar (Burma) and preserved in amber.

Amber, which begins as tree sap, often traps insects and plant structures before they fossilize.

"This is the oldest known bee we've ever been able to identify, and it shares some of the features of wasps," said lead author George Poinar, a researcher at Oregon State University. "But overall it's more bee than wasp, and gives us a pretty good idea of when these two types of insects were separating on their evolutionary paths."
The quarter-inch fossil shares traits of the carnivorous wasp, such as narrow hind legs, while exhibiting branched hairs on its leg, a characteristic of the modern bee that allows pollen collection.

Around the same time the bee was trapped, plants that rely on mechanisms other than the wind to spread their seeds started expanding and diversifying.

Prior to that, the world was mostly green with conifer trees that depended on the wind for pollination.

"Flowering plants are very important in the evolution of life," Poinar said. "They can reproduce more quickly, develop more genetic diversity, spread more easily and move into new habitats. But prior to the evolution of bees they didn't have any strong mechanism to spread their pollen, only a few flies and beetles that didn't go very far."

The study is detailed in Oct. 27 issue of the journal Science.

Læs hele artiklen hos Fox News:

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By looking at variations in genetic markers from 341 bees, researchers found that the common honey bee, Apis mellifera, originated in Africa and migrated to Europe at least twice.

"The migrations resulted in two European populations that are geographically close, but genetically quite different," said lead study author Charles Whitfield of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "In fact, the two European populations are more related to honeybees in Africa than to each other."
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Ugebladet Ingeniøren 3/11:

Efter bananfluen og moskitoen er honningbien det tredje insekt, som har fået sit genom sekventeret. I sammenligning med de to øvrige insekter har honningbiens genom udviklet sig langsommere. Forskerne kan også nu konkludere, at honningbien, Apis mellifera, stammer fra Afrika og er spredt til Europa og Asien i to separate omgange. Nature 26. oktober 2006.