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This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Annie Sneed.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是安妮·斯尼德。

It takes a big brain—a human brain—to do math. Or so you might assume. But scientists have found that other animals, such chimpanzees, monkeys, and even pigeons can perform some addition and subtraction¹. Now new research shows that honeybees—with brains the size of sesame seeds—can perform basic math.

做数学题需要用大脑——人类的大脑。或者你可以这样假设。但科学家发现，黑猩猩、猴子、甚至鸽子等其它动物也能做一些加法和减法。现在，新研究表明，大脑只有芝麻般大小的蜜蜂也可以进行基本的数学运算。

Researchers put honeybees through 100 trials to train them to add and subtract. They put the bees in a Y-shaped maze² and presented them with a certain number of either yellow or blue shapes. Yellow indicated the bee should subtract, while blue meant they should add.

研究人员让蜜蜂进行了100次试验，以训练它们做加法和减法。他们将蜜蜂放入一个Y字迷宫中，给它们展示特定数量的黄色或蓝色模型。黄色表示蜜蜂应该做减法，而蓝色表示蜜蜂应该做加法。

The bee then entered the "decision chamber," where it was presented with a correct answer on one side and an incorrect answer on the other side. If they picked the right answer they were re?warded³ with a sugary solution. If not, they got bitter tonic⁴ water. The researchers also put the bees through another test trial without a reward or punishment to make sure there weren't any scent⁵ marks influencing the bees' choices.At first the bees picked answers at random⁶. "You see that the ability of the bees to do it starts at about chance level, 50%, showing us the bees are just choosing randomly⁷. But over time, competence⁸ comes up to about 80%, so they actually start to perform quite well."

之后，蜜蜂进入“决策室”，里面一边放有正确答案，另一边放有错误答案。如果蜜蜂选择了正确答案，它们就能得到含糖溶液作为奖励。但如果选错答案，那它们得到的就是苦味的奎宁水。研究人员还让蜜蜂进行了另一项没有奖惩机制的试验，以确保没有任何气味标记影响蜜蜂的选择。超初，蜜蜂随机选择答案。“你可以看到蜜蜂的选择能力，开始时正确率与机会水平差不多，大约是50%，这表明蜜蜂只是随机选择。但随着时间的推移，它们的正确率上升至80%左右，可以说它们开始表现得非常好了。”

Scarlett Howard, one of the study authors and a postdoctoral research fellow in neurobiology and cognition at Paul Sabatier University in France. She says the bees were even able to add and subtract correctly when presented with a number they had never seen before. The study is in the journal Science Advances.

斯嘉丽·霍华德是这项研究的作者之一，也是法国保尔·萨巴蒂赫大学的神经生物学和认知学博士后研究员。她说，蜜蜂甚至能用从未见过的数字正确地做加减法。这项研究发表在《科学进展》期刊上。

"Things like this let us know there's a lot of complexity⁹ there and their brains might not be as simplistic as we once thought."

“这种事情让我们知道，现实中存在很多复杂性，蜜蜂的大脑可能并不像我们曾经认为的那样简单。”

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Annie Sneed.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是安妮·斯尼德。