Dancing Bee Communication

On "Show me the honey" in the September 19-25, 2009 issue of New Scientist (Rethinking the bee's waggle dance in the online version), Caroline Williams reported that recent research indicates that the meaning and implication of the dancing communication of honey bee may well be overblown.  According to the article, new findings show that few bees actually follow the direction to look for the reported food source.  Some researchers even questioned whether the other bees were able to understand the full details of the directions from the dance.

To me, it seems strange that nature would select, generations after generations, bees that waste their energy dancing.  Flying is an energy intensive act, dancing for no particular purpose would be a waste and evolution would have selected bees colonies without dancers.

In the same article, Alex Brockmann is reported as saying that we don't really know what the receiving end is doing with such dancing communication.  I wonder if the dance could actually be a victory dance, just like how those who score a point in a soccer game go running about in the field to show off their achivement.
A dancing bee is perhaps showing others that he was able to find a food source, and the more he wiggles his abdomen, the further away he had to fly to get to the food.  After such show off, maybe he would be given a bigger portion at dinner?  To avoid cheaters, nature has evolved that some individuals would be checked to ensure that he was not lying.  As such, the communication has to convey the angle and distance of the food source.  Few bee would actually go out to seek the same source, but maybe the policing bee will go after random reports to ensure there are no cheaters.  If such a scenario is true, then evolution would indeed allow for the extra energy in the dancing report, as well as the intricacies needed to develope such a complex mechanism for a pinhead brain to be able to calculate distance and angle accurately.

Celiac Disease, Schizophrenia and MegaVitamins?

On the August 2009 issue of Scientific American, Alessio Fasano wrote an article that shed insights on Celiac Disease (CD).  CD is an disease due to indigestion of gluten which trigger the body to attack its own cells in certain individuals with a genetic predisposition.  Fasano argues that there maybe a significant number of people who may have a mild version of CD and goes undetected.  In such individuals, their intestine reacts to gluten and becomes inflamed.  Absorption become disrupted and malnutrition follows.  Such condition could cause a number of conditions, from anemia, osteoporosis, joint pain, to epilepsy and schizophrenia.

From a different source, Abram Hoffer et al  had been a big advocate of mega-vitamins to treat schizophrenia (in a practice proponents call orthomolecular medicine).  Many doctors had dismissed such treatment as quackery, that it does not pass double-blind trials, and that if mega-vitamins could cure schizophrenia, then there would be no need for anti-psychotic drugs like Risperidone and Haloperidole.

My speculation is that, perhaps, those that have mild Celiac Disease and suffers from malnutrition and develop schizophrenia may be the population that responds well to the mega-vitamin treatment.  Imagine every schizophrenia patient be checked for Celia Disease, and an elimination of gluten would actually cure them!  This would be especially good since many caring family member with mental illness are "forced" to dope them with medications since they often refuses to take them, claiming they are not sick.  But CD and gluten free diet would steer them into a completely non-stigmatized avenue to cure and remove the trust problem!

My two cents on science

Things that I read that makes me ponder...  maybe this will be my scratch-pad of possible thesis should I go back to grad school :)