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Bees, affirmations, and AI flood models: three ways science is testing what minds can do
The Point by Modern Sciences - July 29, 2026
Don Smith
July 29, 2026
By The Modern Sciences Team | July 29, 2026 |
It’s almost August indeed, Cultivators of Curiosity!
Issue 29 of The Point by Modern Sciences keeps circling a useful question: what happens when intelligence has to work under strange conditions?
One article uses bees as a stand-in for alien minds and asks whether mathematics could carry meaning between species with no shared language. Another takes a hard look at positive affirmations and finds that useful self-talk is usually more grounded than upbeat slogans. A third shows how AI may help coastal cities anticipate rising seas and dangerous storm surges faster than conventional models. Together, these stories point to a practical idea: the most useful forms of intelligence are often the ones that help us cross distance, whether that gap is between species, between thoughts, or between today’s shoreline and tomorrow’s risk.
MATH AND THE SCIENCES
Can we use bees as a model of intelligent alien life to develop interstellar communication?
Bees are emerging as a surprising model for intelligent alien life and interstellar communication. In a new thought experiment, researchers argue that honeybees may help scientists test whether mathematics could work as a universal language between species that share no common words, biology, or evolutionary history. The idea draws on bee cognition, alien contact scenarios, and a question that still feels wide open.
The Point:
Bees provide a useful stand-in for aliens: Honeybees and humans split more than 600 million years ago, yet both evolved communication and social cooperation. That makes bees a practical way to test how an intelligent but very different species might respond to mathematics.
Mathematics looks promising as a bridge: The article points to repeated scientific and fictional uses of numbers, symbols, and sequences as contact tools because they are less dependent on shared language than ordinary speech. That gives mathematics a plausible role in any attempt at interstellar communication.
The experiments support the idea, but do not settle it: Bees have learned simple arithmetic, recognized patterns, and connected symbols to quantities, suggesting numerical thinking can emerge in tiny brains. The open question is whether alien minds would build mathematics in the same way or develop something closer to a different dialect.
HEALTH AND THE BODY
Do positive affirmations work? A psychologist unpacks the evidence
Positive affirmations may sound simple, but the evidence behind them is more complicated than social media suggests. A psychologist reviews the research and finds that self-talk can help in some settings, especially when it is compassionate or creates distance from difficult feelings. The bigger lesson is that useful inner speech is usually realistic, flexible, and far less glossy than a slogan.
The Point:
The benefits are real but limited: A 2025 review found that positive affirmations can improve wellbeing, self-image, and connection with others, but the average effect is small. That means they may help as one tool, not as a universal fix.
The risks are easy to miss: When affirmations become a way to suppress hard feelings, they can turn into toxic positivity and make people less likely to seek help. In unsafe situations, relentless optimism can also blur judgment and mute important warning signs.
Better self-talk is usually more grounded: The article highlights self-compassion and third-person language as more useful approaches because they create distance from emotion without pretending it does not exist. Those methods may be especially helpful when stress, shame, or uncertainty are already high.
TECH
Can AI help coastal cities prepare for rising seas and extreme events?
Artificial intelligence may help coastal cities prepare for rising seas and extreme storm surges. Researchers report that an AI emulator can predict rare flooding events with high accuracy and much faster than traditional physics-based models, which could make climate adaptation planning more practical. The challenge now is proving that the system stays reliable across a wider range of future conditions.
The Point:
AI can accelerate flood forecasting: The emulator reproduces extreme storm surge events far faster than physics-based simulations, which makes it easier to test many future scenarios. That speed matters because rare coastal disasters are exactly the kind of events planners need to understand before they happen.
The model has practical climate value: New York City serves as a high-stakes test case because it combines dense population, critical infrastructure, and a history of damaging storm surge, including Hurricane Sandy. By matching those kinds of events, the AI system shows promise for adaptation planning.
Confidence still depends on broader testing: The authors say the main limits are transferability, uncertainty, and performance outside the conditions used for training. Until those gaps are narrowed, the model is best seen as a powerful decision-support tool rather than a finished answer.