{"id":296372,"date":"2017-02-24T19:51:02","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T18:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/honey-offside-trap-bees-taught-to-play-football-by-scientists-video\/"},"modified":"2017-02-24T19:51:02","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T18:51:02","slug":"honey-offside-trap-bees-taught-to-play-football-by-scientists-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/honey-offside-trap-bees-taught-to-play-football-by-scientists-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Honey offside trap: Bees taught to play football by scientists (VIDEO)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2017.02\/thumbnail\/58b050bdc36188dd568b458c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><time class=\"date date_article-header\">Published time: 24 Feb, 2017 17:50<\/time><\/p>\n<p>        We have been severely underestimating the brain power and capabilities of bumble bees, according to scientists who have taught them how to \u201cplay soccer.\u201d <\/p>\n<div class=\"article__text text  js-mediator-article\">\n<p>Through a series of experiments the bees were taught to roll a ball into a \u201c<em>goal<\/em>\u201d to gain a sugary reward, proving, the researchers say, that \u201c<em>many species have the capacity to envision how a particular object might be used to achieve an end<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0kfWcsWOmdY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The experiment was part of a study, <a href=\"http:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/355\/6327\/833\">published<\/a> in the journal Science, by a team at the Queen Mary University of London\u2019s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Our study puts the final nail in the coffin of the idea that small brains constrain insects to have limited behavioral flexibility and only simple learning abilities<\/em>,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qmul.ac.uk\/media\/news\/items\/se\/193087.html\">said<\/a> Professor Lars Chittka, project supervisor and co-author of the paper.<\/p>\n<p>The study also found bees learned quicker by observing a live demonstration featuring a \u201c<em>fake bee<\/em>,\u201d rather than a \u201c<em>ghost<\/em>\u201d method in which the ball was moved via a magnet.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hC9aSP9x0xE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/viral\/377344-honeybees-whooping-signal-surprise\/\">READ MORE: Honeybees love to \u2018whoop\u2019: Scientists discover vibrational signal is expression of surprise (VIDEO)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The full potential of the bees\u2019 intellectual flexibility came to the forefront when the insects were later presented with three balls and chose to go for the one closest to the goal, or when they were instructed to move a different colored ball to gain the reward.<\/p>\n<p>The impressive cognitive complexity of the insect is promising news for the future of other species and their ability to learn new behaviors if needed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Such unprecedented cognitive flexibility hints that entirely novel behaviors could emerge relatively swiftly in species whose lifestyle demands advanced learning abilities, should relevant ecological pressures arise<\/em>,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/355\/6327\/833\">says<\/a> the study.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6AgWUiDzuXA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/378524-bees-learn-soccer-goal\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published time: 24 Feb, 2017 17:50 We have been severely underestimating the brain power and capabilities of bumble bees, according to scientists who have taught them how to \u201cplay soccer.\u201d Through a series of experiments the bees were taught to roll a ball into a \u201cgoal\u201d to gain a sugary reward, proving, the researchers say, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":296373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-296372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}