28 June 2023

The average bee is one hundred times brainier than me



Bees are astonishingly good at making decisions – and our computer model explains how that’s possible

Published: June 27, 2023 8.00am BST https://theconversation.com/bees-are-astonishingly-good-at-making-decisions-and-our-computer-model-explains-how-thats-possible-208189


Well, hype-headline to one side, the article includes a note about a bee's "tiny yet remarkable brain."

A honeybee brain possesses around 1 million neurons, which gives a neurons-to-mass ratio of 1,000,000n:0.0001kg, normalised to 10,000,000,000:1.

Human brains comprise around 10,000,000,000 neurons; and as an example, I am around 100kg. Presuming I have the average number of brain neurons (optimistic, but run with it), my neurons-to-mass ratio is 100,000,000:1.

On that measure, the average bee is one hundred times brainier than me.

No comments: