Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow

Australia has opened the world’s largest indoor, climate-controlled bee flight-testing facility. But this is nothing to do with colony collapse disorder. The facility is part of the Queensland Brain Institute and is designed so that scientists can study the behaviour, brain function and brain development of the bees (press release).

“Studying how bees control their flight speed, avoid collisions, and orchestrate smooth landings is providing valuable insights into the design of biologically inspired vision systems for unmanned aerial vehicles,” says Mandyam Srinivasan of the QBI.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Srinivasan was quoted saying “Our research will hopefully increase our knowledge of brain functioning, which will in turn lead us to finding new and effective ways to treat brain disorders like Parkinson’s disease, strokes, Alzheimer’s and depression”.

According to the press release, bees have a higher brain centre that can expand five to six times in volume over the course of their adult life, which (similar to the vertebrate brain) involves the production of new nerve fibres, nerve synapses and new nerve cells. This makes bees a good research model, and easy to study if you have the new A$2.5 million All Weather Bee Flight Facility.

“Importantly, from a neuroscience perspective, while the bee brain is only about the size of a sesame seed, it has many of the characteristics of the human brain, including complex behaviours such as advanced memory and learning” says Perry Bartlett, director of the QBI.

For some of the discoveries about bees that Srinivasan has already been involved in, see here.

Image: Getty