Scientists have shown that bees have some surprising math skills. Now, new study shows that bees can even be trained to tell the difference between odd and even numbers. Before this, humans were the only animals known to have this ability.
In 2018, researchers in Australia discovered that bees could understand the idea of “zero”. The researchers were perplexed, since only a few animals, like dolphins, monkeys, and some birds, had shown that they understood zero. Later, the same scientists showed that bees could be trained to add and subtract (减).
In the study, researchers divided honeybees into two control groups. They showed bees cards containing printed shapes that numbered from one to ten. One group was trained to fly to even-numbered cards, which earned them a sugar water treat if they successfully completed the task. If they flew to an odd-numbered card, they received a sour liquid. The second group had a similar approach, but the numbers were reversed(相反的). An odd card would earn them a sweet treat and an even card would give them a sour liquid. Researchers continued this lesson until the bees succeeded at least 80% of the time.
Then, they added a new challenge. They had the bees choose between cards with 11 and 12 shapes on them. The bees had never seen these numbers in their training. Even so, they succeeded 70% of the time.
The reason for this study is that the scientists believe that studying bee brains might help us learn how to build better and faster computers. After all, a bee’s brain is about 86,000 times smaller than a human brain. How does it handle such complicated ideas? Unless the brain structures for processing numbers aren’t so complicated. Then, the scientists built an extremely simple computer system with just five connections called neurons(神经元) , and they were able to train it to tell the difference between even and odd numbers up to 40.
【小题1】What does the underlined word ‘‘perplexed’’ in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Tolerant | B．Creative | C．Puzzled | D．Discouraged |
| A．By mixing the two drinks. | B．By drawing the right shapes. |
| C．By removing correct numbers. | D．By landing on specified cards. |
| A．Finding potential technology innovations. |
| B．Teaching bees different means of learning. |
| C．Speeding the learning behavior of humans. |
| D．Training bees to serve mankind more easily. |
| A．Bees Calculate Numbers like Humans | B．Scientists Train Bees to Count Numbers |
| C．Odds and Evens Are Significant to Bees | D．Bees Can Learn Odd and Even Numbers |
