8 year old scientists

[Clickbeetle]

A class of 8-10 year olds published their school project in Biology Letters, a respected science journal.  Complete with graphs colored in with colored pencils.  They have remarkably good spelling and grammar, though.


http://gawker.com/5715860/eight+year+olds-publish-study-in-respected-science-journal


It sounds like a joke, but if you click on the link in that article you can get the full paper.


Here are some of my favorite quotes:

If they [the bees] could solve it [the puzzle], it would mean that they are really smart, smarter than we thought before, which would mean that humans might have some link with bees.

To get ready to do the experiments ... We then watched the David Letterman videos of ‘Stupid Dog Tricks’, in which dogs were trained to do funny things.

Probably the only scientific paper to reference David Letterman ever. 

We then put the tube with the bees in it into the school's fridge (and made bee pie :)).

(e) Training phase 2 (‘the puzzle’ … duh duh duuuuhhh)

Otherwise they [the bees] might fail the test, and it would be a disaster.

So we conclude that the bees did not solve test 1 by only going to the middle flowers of each quadrant (‘dah dahhh dahhhhhh’).

It tells us that bees can learn to solve puzzles (and if we are lucky we will be able to get them to do Sudoku in a couple of years' time).

We thank ... the George Inn—where the manuscript was written—for the free Cokes for the children (and pints for others).

I have to say for a bunch of kids though, it is a reasonably well-done experiment.  Now why can't all the kids on GTM be more like those kids?

[Pwnator]

That's one long abstract (my abstracts are about half that length). o_O

And I think they had a tenured writer or a teacher do some minor editing (with 25 co-authors, errors should be practically non-existent). It also looks unusually professional for a paper without much jargon.

If only our teachers were that enthusiastic. >.<

[NFX]

I just love the idea of getting bees to do Sudoku puzzles. XD

[Naryar]

That's quite well made for kids. If only all were doing interesting things like that rather than, hmm, "YOU AI'D IT WRONG"

If they [the bees] could solve it [the puzzle], it would mean that they are really smart, smarter than we thought before, which would mean that humans might have some link with bees.

That, however, is failing it. Intelligence has developed in many branches of the animal kingdom without link to other intelligent species.

Convergent evolution.

[Urjak]

If they [the bees] could solve it [the puzzle], it would mean that they are really smart, smarter than we thought before, which would mean that humans might have some link with bees.

I take further issue with this quote. The apparent spacial recognition ability wasn't learned IMO, the bees possessed it from the start. They simply used trial and error (and previous knowledge regarding suitable plant colors and shapes) to get the best food. This in no way proves they are intelligent (bees have quite low intelligence as far as we know), it simply means they are good at finding food.

[kill343gs]

Probably the only scientific paper to reference David Letterman ever. 

I used the Muthbusters as a source last semester.

[Enigm@]

Will It Float? is another great scientific resource.