Monthly Archives: May 2011

Traveling Salesman, er… Salesbee

Bumblebees can solve the classic “traveling salesman” problem, which keeps supercomputers busy for days. They learn to fly the shortest possible route between flowers even if they find the flowers in a different order, according to a new British study.

The traveling salesman problem is a  problem in computer science; it involves finding the shortest possible route between cities, visiting each city only once. Bees are the first animals to figure this out, according to Queen Mary University of London researchers.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/10/bees-solve-complex-problems-faster-than-supercomputers.html