Extraterrestrial

Scientists develop 'universal language' to help them talk to aliens

By T.K. Randall
January 14, 2026 ·  49 comments

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) Scientists in Australia have come up with a novel new approach to the problem of communicating with alien life - a 'universal language' based on core mathematical principles.

The unexpected inspiration behind this idea was the humble honey bee - a species that has independently developed its own unique and complex form of communication.

If humans could find a 'language' that can be used to communicate with bees, such a system might also be able to offer us a way to speak to aliens as well.

"Because bees and humans are separated by about 600 million years in evolutionary time, we developed very different physiology, brain size, culture," study co-author Dr Adrian Dyer told Mail Online.To bridge this divide, the researchers decided to use mathematics - perhaps the closest thing we can get to a true 'universal language' as it works the same everywhere in the universe.

In a series of experiments, the team was able to demonstrate that bees can learn to solve basic addition and subtraction problems (in exchange for sugar water) and even have the ability to associate abstract symbols with numbers - effectively learning a primitive form of numerals.

"When we tested bees on mathematical type problems, and they could build an understanding to solve the questions we posed, it was very interesting, and convincing that an alien species could share similar capabilities," wrote Dr Dyer.

"Now we know maths can be solved by bees, we have a solid basis to think about how to try to communicate with alien intelligence."

Source: Mail Online | Comments (49)

Tags: Alien, Extraterrestrial