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German airports use honeybees to test air quality
You could get one of those fancy gadgets to monitor air quality as you trundle about your neck of the woods, but if you're more concerned for the environment's well-being than your own, all you apparently need is an active beehive. Eight German airports are presently using honeybees to test the air for toxins by shipping their honey to a local lab -- and for four years running, that honey's tested just fine. Last year, Dusseldorf International Airport produced 200 jars of the stuff. We wouldn't pay extra for airport honey, mind you, but we suppose we'd give it a try...
NSF awards Harvard $10 million for robot bees (video)
When we heard that the National Science Foundation awarded $10 million to Harvard to make a swarm of robot bees, our first thought was: "We could do it for half the price." Then we remembered that the university has been down this path before, including its robot fly program (whatever happened to that thing?) and might be the better choice after all. What does the NSF and Harvard hope to get for all that time and money? Aside from insight into such areas as distributed intelligence, robotic flight, and energy storage, a swarm of these bad boys could be tasked to do anything from battlefield spying to pollination (which might be necessary, with the way that real bees are vanishing at such an alarming rate). The RoboBee project is slated to run for the next five years. Video after the break. [Via Switched]
Omlet Beehaus is a plastic beehive for the urban conservationist
Natural England needs you, dear urbanite, to put on your conservationist hat -- and beesuit, by the looks of it -- and start taking care of a small bee colony. Because, as you already know, you can't have healthy plant life without healthy insect populations to sustain it. At this point, a lot of us might be intrigued -- after all, who doesn't find the idea of homemade honey and a houseful of killer bees appealing? And all would indeed be well, but for the £465 ($790) price of the beekeeping unit, which renders the entire idea the exclusive preserve of the very wealthy and very bored and leaves us poor nature lovers looking on helplessly. Like a bee trying to fly through a window.[Via PhysOrg]
Bees terrorize GameStop employees, various New Yorkers
We've only got so many words here to explain a story of bee terror, and as such, we promise to keep the bee puns to an absolute minimum. Here goes nothing! At a GameStop this weekend in Union Square, NYC, a bee infestation forced the employees to shut down the store and call for help. One bee-leaguered eyewitness at the scene talked to ABC, saying, "When I got here, there was already like a thousand bees in there ... then they came out ... there were more ... they were like -- in a pack." No! Only four sentences in!The terror apparently continued for a number of hours while employees indoors anxiously awaited the NYPD "Bee Expert" (seriously), Tony Planakis. "I'm probably gonna be relying on scent ... the queen bee's scent ... it could take a half hour, an hour ... two hours ... I don't know," Planakis told ABC, hot on the queen bee's trail. It's not clear whether the GameStop employees were playing Buck Bumble inside or not, though we're inclined to suspect they were. [Image credit] [Via The Escapist]
March's Brew of the Month: Aromatic Honey Brew
It's brews like the Aromatic Honey Brew that make the whole Brew of the Month membership worth it. Sure, all of the bodily fluid/fume brews are pretty boring, but this month's brew? Beautiful. I can finally fulfill my lifelong dream: Get drunk while on fire and covered in bees. Alternate caption for the image above? I like my ale like I like my women. Covered in bees.I'm sure those of you that haven't tried this month's brew are pretty confused right now. What the hell am I talking about? Well, every Brew of the Month has a proc that goes off now and then when you're chugging down the booze. This month, the proc is a buff called Honey Touched. The sweet, sticky honey in the brew gets all over you, and you attract some friends. Horrible, stingy friends. Friends that put you under a Fear effect for 7 seconds. I think this rivals BigRedPriestess as my favorite Brew of the Month. If I'm gonna get wasted, I might as well do it in style. Mead and bees. Bees are stylish, right?As an extra little note, the fact that there's a new brew out means that it's the beginning of the month. If you're the sort of person that will take all the freebies you can get, you can pick up your free gems from the Consortium in Nagrand. They're Burning Crusade gems, but maybe you'll find some use for them.
Cellphones are dangerous/not dangerous, bee-friendly edition
As the saga continues, we've got yet another flip-flopped story rolling through in regard to the toxicity (or not) of cellphones to our environment. Just under a fortnight ago, a report based on an (admittedly lacking) research study claimed that Colony Collapse Disorder within bees was being encouraged by cellphone radiation. As expected, the researchers began living a life filled with Q&A sessions about the data, and now the "truth" is coming out. Essentially, the scientists are claiming that their data was "misinterpreted," and that the study actually looked at DECT phones and base stations, which transmit a "different frequency than mobiles." Furthermore, another member chimed in and boldly stated that their "studies cannot indicate that electromagnetic radiation is a cause of CCD." So that settles it -- until the next round of bickering begins, of course.[Via Guardian]
Cellphones are dangerous/not dangerous, bee killing edition
Apparently, we should all feel incredibly guilty for simply using our cellphones, as not only are we encouraging the growth of ear tumors within our bodies, but now we're hearing that radiation flying out from our mobiles are demolishing the world's supply of crops. All jesting aside, a controversial report is now claiming that "radiation from mobile phones are interfering with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving (and pollinating) species from finding their way back to their hives." The comically-named Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is reportedly being seen on a much larger scale in the US and Europe, and elusive "evidence" is purportedly backing these dodgy claims up. Backers of the shocking data are even going so far as to suggest that in the future, our refusal to set aside the cellphone could cause "massive food shortages as the world's harvests fail." Man, this sounds worse than Y2K, for sure.[Via Slashdot]
