2023届高三英语二轮复习每日阅读打卡 DAY 7 （选自New Scientist）

每日阅读打卡DAY7(选自New Scientist) Bumblebees can teach each other how to open a puzzle box When researchers taught a bumblebee to push a lever for a reward,the knowledge spread through its colony,hinting that these insects have a kind of minimal culture Bumblebees can teach each other how to solve a puzzle box,and they prefer the method their sisters teach them rather than those they learn on their own.This adds to evidence that these insects are capable of social learning,and they use it to share trends and sustain cultures over time. Researchers ran a series of experiments in which 10 colonies of buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris)had to solve a puzzle box to access a sugary solution inside.There were two possible solutions-push a red lever clockwise,or push a blue lever anticlockwise.Each colony had a designated demonstrator bee who was privately taught one of the two ways to open the box by a human trainer.Then, demonstrators were reintroduced into their colonies and the entire group had the opportunity,for 3 hours each day over six to 12 days,to crack the code for sweet goodness. The bees used the trick they were taught by their colony mates more than 98 per cent of the time,even when more than half of them figured out the other lever worked just as well."Even when they found the easy altemative,they still flipped back to the demonstrated behaviour,"says Alice Bridges at Queen Mary University of London. That was really crazy.” In colonies where no bee was taught by a human how to solve the puzzle,the insects managed to open the box only a handful of times. These results suggest that behaviour can be spread in groups of bumblebees through social leaming and be maintained over time,like cultural trends."That's exactly what we mean when we talk of the transmission of culture in animal communities," says Andrew Whiten at the University of St Andrews in the UK,who wasn't involved in the work. What is the puzzle box that 10 colonies of buff-tailed bumblebees had to