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Category: Science And Technology

  • Bumblebees Rolled Tiny Wooden Balls Because Apparently Recess Is Universal

    Bumblebees Rolled Tiny Wooden Balls Because Apparently Recess Is Universal

    Filed by Buster Barkley, lead correspondent

    Bumblebees have now added “rolling wooden balls for no obvious practical reason” to the list of activities science must investigate with a straight face.

    In a peer-reviewed study published in Animal Behaviour, researchers reported that buff-tailed bumblebees repeatedly rolled small wooden balls even when the activity offered no food and was not required to reach food. The research team concluded that the behavior met established criteria for animal play.

    This was not bee soccer. There were no goals, uniforms, referees, or lucrative transfer negotiations. There were simply bees and movable balls.

    The balls were optional, which is the whole point

    The researchers designed their experiments to test whether ball rolling was useful for immediate survival or whether the bees might be clearing clutter, looking for food, or performing mating behavior. Their observations did not support those practical explanations.

    Instead, ball rolling was voluntary, repeated but not rigidly identical, and initiated under low-stress conditions. The bees could travel through the setup without rolling anything. Some returned to the balls anyway.

    Buster Barkley presents an illustrated laboratory choice setup where bumblebees can pass through or interact with wooden balls.
    Editorial illustration of the experimental idea: the route and the ball area were separate choices.

    Younger bees were the busier players

    The study found age and sex differences. Younger bees rolled more balls than older bees, a pattern the authors compared with the greater frequency of play in younger mammals. Male bees spent longer on individual rolls than female bees.

    In another part of the research, bees learned to associate one colored chamber with access to movable balls. When later tested without the balls, they preferred the color that had been paired with rolling. The authors interpreted that result as evidence that the activity itself was rewarding.

    The finding matters beyond the obvious appeal of tiny insects choosing tiny toys. Play is often discussed in relation to mammals and birds. Evidence that an insect may engage in a positive, self-directed activity adds to questions about how scientists understand insect cognition and affective states.

    A careful conclusion, with excellent footage

    The paper does not say that every bee has a favorite sport, nor does it turn a laboratory behavior into a claim about all insects. It reports that these bumblebees’ ball rolling satisfied the behavioral criteria the researchers used for play.

    That is a measured scientific conclusion. It is also, by extraordinary good fortune, about bees playing with balls.

    Sources: Dona et al., “Do bumble bees play?” in Animal Behaviour; Queen Mary University of London research summary.

  • Mars Grew a Bear Face and NASA Brought the Geology

    Mars Grew a Bear Face and NASA Brought the Geology

    Filed by Professor Hoot, science and technology correspondent

    Mars has produced no confirmed bears, but it has produced an extremely committed bear impression.

    A high-resolution image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a circular surface feature that reads, at first glance, like a bear looking straight into the camera. The image was acquired on December 12, 2022, by the orbiter’s HiRISE camera and added to NASA’s photojournal the following January.

    The resemblance is real. The bear is not.

    NASA brought geology to a face-recognition contest

    NASA’s description breaks the face into three ordinary pieces of Martian terrain. Two craters form the apparent eyes. A V-shaped collapse structure supplies the nose. A circular fracture pattern draws the head.

    That last feature may have formed as material settled over a buried impact crater. NASA also notes that the “nose” could be a volcanic or mud vent, with nearby deposits potentially produced by lava or mud flows. Those explanations remain possibilities, not a final diagnosis.

    Professor Hoot explains how craters, a V-shaped collapse, and a circular fracture make a Martian hill resemble a bear face.
    Editorial illustration: Professor Hoot separates the bear-like impression into its geological parts.

    Your brain is doing helpful work a little too enthusiastically

    NASA calls the effect “ursine pareidolia.” Pareidolia is the tendency to find a familiar shape—especially a face—in an ambiguous pattern. It is why electrical outlets can look startled and why a distant hill on another planet can appear ready to ask who has been sleeping in its bed.

    The image itself is serious scientific work. HiRISE can resolve very small surface details from orbit, helping researchers study Mars at fine scale. The University of Arizona operates the camera, while NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project.

    The accidental portrait is therefore doing two jobs. It offers a memorable example of how the brain organizes visual information, and it draws attention to the real geology beneath the illusion.

    The official ruling

    Mars remains a bear-free planet as far as verified evidence goes. It does, however, have two crater eyes, one collapsed nose, and a circular outline with impeccable comic timing.

    Professor Hoot’s conclusion is precise: grin and bear it, then look again.

    Sources: NASA Science Photojournal: “A Bear on Mars?”; NASA: “A Bear on Mars?” image article.