All in the Mind - The Big Buzz-ness of Small Brains

Think that ant your about to step on is not conscious? Ever wondered what the hell a fly is thinking as it buzzes and buzzes around your head? Do you, like me, think that wasps are inherently evil and must perish? Hold on - not so fast! You may not change your mind, but at least you'll know more about those little brains.

The big buzz-ness of small brains

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Wait! Before you reach for the insect spray - listen to this show. From robotic crickets to bees that see in the dark, meet a couple of neuroethologists probing the incomprehensibly small, but surprisingly brilliant, brains of bugs.

Show Transcript

Guests

Barbara Webb
Reader
Institute of Perception, Action & Behaviour,
Head, Insect Robotics Lab
School of Informatics
University of Edinburgh
Scotland
http://www.ipab.inf.ed.ac.uk/cricketlab/

Eric Warrant
Senior Scientist
The Lund Vision Group
Department of Cell and Organisme Biology
Faculty of Science
Lund University
Sweden
http://www.lu.se/o.o.i.s/7262

Further Information

All in the Mind blog
Comment on the program, and join presenter Natasha Mitchell in the All in the Mind Blog.

Publications

Title: Insect orientation to polarized moonlight
Author: Marie Dacke, Eric Warrant, Dan-Eric Nilsson, Clarke H. Scholtz, Marcus Byrne
Publisher: Nature, Vol 424, 2003
URL: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v424/n6944/full/424033a.html

Title: Nocturnal Vision and Landmark Orientation in a Tropical Halictid Bee
Author: Eric J. Warrant, Almut Kelber, Anna Gislén, Birgit Greiner, Willi Ribi and William T Wcislo
Publisher: Current Biology, Volume 14, Issue 15, 1309-1318, 10 August 2004
URL: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(04)00562-7

Title: Seeing in the dark: vision and visual behaviour in nocturnal bees and wasps
Author: Eric J. Warrant
Publisher: Journal of Experimental Biology 211, 1737-1746 (2008)
URL: http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/211/11/1737

Title: Scotopic colour vision in nocturnal hawmoths
Author: Almut Kelber, Anna Balkenius & Eric J. Warrant
Publisher: Nature 419, 922-925, 31 October 2002
URL: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v419/n6910/full/nature01065.html

Title: Warm Eyes Provide Superior Vision in Swordfishes
Author: Kerstin A. Fritsches, Richard W. Brill and Eric J. Warrant
Publisher: Current Biology, Volume 15, Issue 1, January 2005, pp 55-58
URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com

Title: A model of non-elemental associative learning in the Mushroom Body neuropil of the insect brain
Author: Jan Wessnitzer, Barbara Webb, and Darren Smith
Publisher: Proceedings of the International Conference on Adaptive and Natural Computer Algorithms, 2007
URL: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/bwebb/publications/icannga.pdf

Title: Animals versus animats or why not the real iguana?
Author: Barbara Webb
Publisher: Insect Robotics Group, 2007
URL: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/bwebb/publications/Webb_THS-ALife.pdf

Title: New neural circuits for robot phonotaxis
Author: Richard E. Reeve, Barbara H. Webb
Publisher: The Royal Society, Volume 361, Number 1811, October 15, 2003
URL: http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/6uf5tdqa91mv6e9n/

Title: New technologies for testing a model of cricket phonotaxis on an outdoor robot
Author: Richard Reeve, Barbara Webb, Andrew Horchlerb, Giacomo Indiveric and Roger Quinn
Publisher: Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Volume 51, Issue 1, 30 April 2005, Pages 41-54
URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com

Title: Nocturnal bees learn landmark colours in starlight
Author: Hema Somanathan, Renee Maria Borges, Eric James Warrant and Almut Kelber
Publisher: Current Biology, Volume 18, Issue 21, 11 November 2008
URL: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(08)01100-7

Title: Robot Phonotaxis in the Wild: a Biologically Inspired Approach to Outdoor Sound Localization
Author: A.D.Horchler, R.E. Reeve, B.H. Webb, R.D. Quinn
Publisher: Presented at 11th International Conference on Advanced Robotics, 2003
URL: http://biorobots.cwru.edu/publications/ICAR03_Horchler_WhegsASP.pdf

Presenter

Natasha Mitchell

Tags: All in the Mind, The Big Buzz-ness of Small Brains, Natasha Mitchell, Psychology, brain, insects, consciousness, Barbara Webb, Eric Warrant, neuroethologists, robotic crickets, bees that see in the dark