Tag: bees

This federal judge just sided with bees over bureaucrats

typhlonectes:

On Thursday, a federal appeals court struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of a pesticide called sulfoxaflor. Marketed by agrichemical giant Dow AgroSciences, sulfoxaflor belongs to a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which have been implicated by a growing weight of evidence in the global crisis in bee health. 

In a blunt opinion, the court cited the “precariousness of bee populations” and “flawed and limited data” submitted by Dow on the pesticide’s effects on beleaguered pollinating insects…

This federal judge just sided with bees over bureaucrats

currentsinbiology:

How bees naturally vaccinate their babies
  

When it comes to vaccinating their babies, bees don’t have a choice
– they naturally immunize their offspring against specific diseases
found in their environments. And now for the first time, scientists have
discovered how they do it.

Researchers from Arizona State University, University of Helsinki,
University of Jyväskylä and Norwegian University of Life Sciences made
the discovery after studying a bee blood protein called vitellogenin.
The scientists found that this protein plays a critical, but previously
unknown role in providing bee babies protection against disease.

The findings appear today in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

“The process by which bees transfer immunity to their babies was a
big mystery until now. What we found is that it’s as simple as eating,”
said Gro Amdam, a professor with ASU’s School of Life Sciences and
co-author of the paper. “Our amazing discovery was made possible because
of 15 years of basic research on vitellogenin. This exemplifies how
long-term investments in basic research pay off.”  

Caption: With the discovery of how bees naturally
vaccinate their babies, researchers can now develop the first vaccine
for insects. This vaccine could be used to fight serious diseases that
decimate beehives. This is an important development for food production. Credit: Christofer Bang

Source: currentsinbiology

termanal-velocity:

fidefortitude:

the-teapot-constellation:

it’s so cute when a really fat bumblebee comes and bops against the window and immediately bumbles away like oh deary me I am terribly sorry that wasn’t where I should have been going oh what a silly sausage I am

i love your take on the inner commentary of a bee because we all see these things differently. i always imagined that if bees had a conscious inner commentary it was of a really really faint angry screaming. the bee’s just going ‘FUCK FUCK FUCK I HIT A FUCKIN WINDOW SHIT FUCK I’M GONNA FUCK UP THIS FLOWER INSTEAD S H I T I HIT ANOTHER WINDOW F U CK’ except it’s really really faint because it’s small because it’s a bee

This is the kind of quality content I want to see on my dashboard