Honeybees teach drones how to navigate
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 4-Jun-2026 22:15 ET (5-Jun-2026 02:15 GMT/UTC)
A scientific team consisting of roboticists from Delft University of Technology and biologists from Wageningen University (both The Netherlands) and Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany) present: “Bee-Nav”, a robot navigation strategy inspired by honeybees. It allows even very small robots to travel far away from home and return successfully, using a neural memory of only 42 kilobytes. In a new environment, the robot first performs a short learning flight near home, just as honeybees do. After that, it can travel away for hundreds of meters and still find its way back. Bee-Nav enables lightweight, safe robots to navigate on their own, opening the door to applications such as butterfly-like drones monitoring greenhouses. The research also offers new insight into how flying insects may find their way home.
The human eye is not merely an optical window to the world, but also a "micro-display" of systemic microcirculation and neural activity. In the current era of big data, the rapid expansion of multi-source and multimodal ophthalmic datasets presents unprecedented opportunities. A critical scientific question emerges: how can Artificial Intelligence (AI) unlock the hidden potential embedded within these vast and heterogeneous datasets?
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The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrographs (UVS) instruments aboard ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft and NASA’s Europa Clipper made unique observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in late 2025. SwRI leads the UVS instruments on both spacecraft, simultaneously imaging both hemispheres of the comet and detecting the comet’s ultraviolet emissions.
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Harnessing solar energy to produce usable power is not new, but the technology is constantly evolving and improving. A major development in recent times is the use of perovskite solar cells (PSCs), which are low-weight, highly efficient, flexible solar cells using perovskite (typically a metal-halide material with a specialized structure) crystal structures to absorb light. Though a promising concept, improvements are necessary for PSCs to be able to reach their full potential. Researchers approach these improvements by introducing an additive, 1H-indole-3-carbohydrazide (1H-CBH) to effectively alleviate the main obstacle of PSCs, which are defects leading to loss of energy and efficiency in the cell.
Brain-computer interfaces are moving beyond simple device control toward more dexterous robotic assistance. A new review highlights how noninvasive neural decoding, deep learning, and shared autonomy are helping robotic devices better interpret user intent, reduce control burden, and support future assistive technologies for people with motor impairments and the general population.