Monash Science Centre 2009 Lecture Series

Dr. Adrian Dyer

Position: ARC QEII Research Fellow

Department: Physiology

Areas of research: Bee Vision in Complex Environments (Vision Science)

Title of presentation: Colour visual processing in the miniature brain of bees

Brief summary of presentation: Studying bee vision allows us to get an insight into how an animal with a brain approximately 0.01% the size of the human brain solve complex problems. Despite their size, bees can see ultraviolet, blue and green light and process this information to see special ‘invisible’ patterns in flowers. Bee brains also have the ability to learn complex tasks like recognising faces, or navigating mazes, and modelling the way bees solve problems provides new insights into how to teach computer vision to solve complex problems.

Length: 25-45 min depending upon school requirements

Requirements: Projector and laptop for a Powerpoint (PC) presentation.

Target year level: Bee vision is interesting to all year levels (Yr 7 - 12).

Minimum and maximum audience size: min 20, no max.

Availability: Before July 2009, or after September 2009 as I will be in Germany for 3 months July-Sept. May is my best month for availability.