Background
Karl von Frisch was born on November 20, 1886 in Vienna, Austria. He was a son of Anton Ritter and Marie (Exner) von Frisch.
(We think of bees as being among the busiest workers in th...)
We think of bees as being among the busiest workers in the garden, admiring them for their productivity. But amid their buzzing, they are also great communicators-and unusual dancers. As Karl von Frisch (1886-1982) discovered during World War II, bees communicate the location of food sources to each other through complex circle and waggle dances. For centuries, beekeepers had observed these curious movements in hives, and others had speculated about the possibility of a bee language used to manage the work of the hive. But it took von Frisch to determine that the bees' dances communicated precise information about the distance and direction of food sources. As Tania Munz shows in this exploration of von Frisch's life and research, this important discovery came amid the tense circumstances of the Third Reich. The Dancing Bees draws on previously unexplored archival sources in order to reveal von Frisch's full story, including how the Nazi government in 1940 determined that he was one-quarter Jewish, revoked his teaching privileges, and sought to prevent him from working altogether until circumstances intervened. In the 1940s, bee populations throughout Europe were facing the devastating effects of a plague (just as they are today), and because the bees were essential to the pollination of crops, von Frisch's research was deemed critical to maintaining the food supply of a nation at war. The bees, as von Frisch put it years later, saved his life. Munz not only explores von Frisch's complicated career in the Third Reich, she looks closely at the legacy of his work and the later debates about the significance of the bee language and the science of animal communication. This first in-depth biography of von Frisch paints a complex and nuanced portrait of a scientist at work under Nazi rule. The Dancing Bees will be welcomed by anyone seeking to better understand not only this chapter of the history of science but also the peculiar waggles of our garden visitors.
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1953
(Over half a century of brilliant scientific detective wor...)
Over half a century of brilliant scientific detective work, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist Karl von Frisch learned how the world, looks, smells, and tastes to a bee. More significantly, he discovered their dance language and their ability to use the sun as a compass. Intended to serve as an accessible introduction to one of the most fascinating areas of biology, Bees (first published in 1950 and revised in 1971), reported the startling results of his ingenious and revolutionary experiments with honeybees. In his revisions, von Frisch updated his discussion about the phylogenetic origin of the language of bees and also demonstrated that their color sense is greater than had been thought previously. He also took into consideration the electrophysiological experiments and electromicroscopic observations that have supplied more information on how the bee analyzes polarized light to orient itself and how the olfactory organs on the bee's antennae function. Now back in print after more than two decades, this classic and still-accurate account of the behavior patterns and sensory capacities of the honeybee remains a book "written with a simplicity, directness, and charm which all who know him will recognize as characteristic of its author. Any intelligent reader, without scientific training, can enjoy it."―Yale Review
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801491266/?tag=2022091-20
1972
Karl von Frisch was born on November 20, 1886 in Vienna, Austria. He was a son of Anton Ritter and Marie (Exner) von Frisch.
Austria had several years of private tutoring at home. Then he attended a convent school of Piarist Fathers and Schottengymnasium. He also attended a Benedictine secondary school and received his doctorate at University of Vienna in 1910.
Austria started his career at University of Munich, Zoological Institute as a teacher in 1912. During World War I, he served as volunteer at a Red Cross hospital. In 1919, he became an assistant professor, and in 1950, was promoted to director of this University. He retired in 1958 but continued his researchs as a scientist. He also worked as a professor of zoology and director of Zoologic Institute at Rostock University, beginning in 1925. He was associated in the mid-1940s with University of Graz.
(Over half a century of brilliant scientific detective wor...)
1972(Examines the behavior and characteristics of arthropods a...)
1974(We think of bees as being among the busiest workers in th...)
1953He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1954 and a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959.
Austria married Margarethe Mohr on July 20, 1917. They had children: Johanna (Mistress Theodor Schreiner), Maria, Helen (Mistress Eckehard Pfluger), Otto.