Signal in the Noise

In this episode, we are joined by Barbara Webb and Anna Hadjitofi. Barbara runs the Insect Robotics lab at the University of Edinburgh, and Anna is a PhD student at the School of Informatics at the university. She is interested in studying and understanding the neural mechanism of the honeybee waggle dance. They join us to discuss the paper: Dynamic antennal positioning allows honeybee followers to decode the dance.

Guests

Barbara Webb: Barbara Webb runs the Insect Robotics group at the University of Edinburgh where she has been Professor of Biorobotics for the last ten years. She has published influential articles about the use of robot models to enhance understanding of how animals, particularly insects, are able to interact successfully with the world. Her recent work has focussed particularly on the brain mechanisms that underlie sophisticated navigation and learning in foraging insects such as ants.

Anna Hadjitofi: "Anna Hadjitofi is a PhD researcher at the University of Edinburgh, interested in the neural circuits underlying communication in honeybees. She has a background in neuroscience and computing. Prior to her PhD, she worked in data science and AI-related research positions at Microsoft Research (Cambridge) as well as the Alan Turing Institute (London). "