Bumblebees navigate new turf without a map
The insects can quickly calculate the best route between flowers
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/345298/title/Bumblebees_navigate_new_turf_without_a_map
Having spent a lot of time researching optimization, evolving programs and machine learning, this is quite interesting to me. I am almost interested enough to dig out the primary research and try to produce an algorithm that encompasses the bee behavior (but not quite; lack-o motivation has been a serious problem for me for quite a while now). Though computers are getting faster and faster, there are still problems that cannot be resolved by brute-force computation (and some that theoretically can never be resolved no matter what performance is achieved) and I am interested in areas where humans currently deal with those situations through ‘best guesses’, ‘gut feeling’ and ‘experience’ and attempt to provide computational solutions that are at least as good as what the humans turn out.
Too bad I can’t get anyone to pay me to do that sort of thing…
