Bees? What bees?

Covered in bees!

Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.

When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite.

Most disturbing, bees that ate pollen contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless for bees as they’re designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like apples.

“There’s growing evidence that fungicides may be affecting the bees on their own and I think what it highlights is a need to reassess how we label these agricultural chemicals,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study’s lead author, told Quartz.

Labels on pesticides warn farmers not to spray when pollinating bees are in the vicinity but such precautions have not applied to fungicides.

Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a west coast problem—California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth $4 billion.

In recent years, a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids has been linked to bee deaths and in April regulators banned the use of the pesticide for two years in Europe where bee populations have also plummeted. But vanEngelsdorp, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland, says the new study shows that the interaction of multiple pesticides is affecting bee health.

“The pesticide issue in itself is much more complex than we have led to be believe,” he says. “It’s a lot more complicated than just one product, which means of course the solution does not lie in just banning one class of product.”

Monday Monday....

El Nino incoming and what it will do to us.

We have to intervene!

Guns.  Guns will keep you safe... (just not the other guy.)

The world's 'poorest' president.

Everything you know about the Ukraine is wrong.

Makes me want to go out and plant more trees.

Music was her life blood and kept her alive.

What parents do to a baby's brain and what happens when they are not there in the development stage.

Oldest piece of rock in the world.

Daring to be a woman on the internet.

Thank you, Moon.

Come swim in the Pacific and get a tan without leaving the water!

New highly radioactive leak at Japan's Fukushima plant

TOKYO (Reuters) - The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant said on Thursday that 100 metric tons of highly contaminated water had leaked out of a tank, the worst incident since last August, when a series of radioactive water leaks sparked international alarm. 

Tokyo Electric Power Co told reporters the latest leak was unlikely to have reached the ocean. But news of the leak at the site, devastated by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, further undercut public trust in a utility rocked by a string of mishaps and disclosure issues.

Police work

Police Shoot And Kill An 80-Year-Old Man In His Own Bed Over Drugs That Weren't There

California police use taser on deaf man trying to communicate with them via sign language

Family says five Oklahoma police beat father to death after asking for ID

Update 2/19: Georgia Cop Shoots, Kills Teen Who Was Holding Up a Wii Controller

Update 2/20: Police Can’t Get Their Story Straight After a Deputy Fatally Shoots a Texas Woman

Update 2/22: After Video Goes Viral, Austin Police Defend Jaywalking Jogger Arrest

This and that

Lost in the last ten years.

And what we may have in the next ten.  And how we might be able to provide power.  And provide jobs.

Holy shit... San Francisco police out of control.

Caturday cat.  Kinda.

Polar vortex, my ass.

Revolutionizing the government.

The weirdness of those who attack birth control.

Making proper bread.

More Fukushima'd than ever....

Fukushima

Fukushima radiation levels underestimated by five times - TEPCO

TEPCO has revised the readings on the radioactivity levels at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant well to 5 million becquerels of strontium per liter – both a record, and nearly five times higher than the original reading of 900,000 becquerels per liter. 

Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission with a half-life of 28.8 years. The legal standard for strontium emissions is 30 becquerels per liter. Exposure to strontium-90 can cause bone cancer, cancer of nearby tissues, and leukemia.

All in a day's work..

1,500-year-old plague victims shed light on disease origins Study finds catastrophic diseases aren't things that evolve once – 'they actually evolve multiple times from different ancestors.'

Early Europeans had dark skin and blue eyes

Mailman tries to deliver the mail.

Cow terrorists.  And 19 animals that kill the most people (cows are on the list).

What happens when you fail your high school science class.

Survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing go on an adventure.

How businesses 'regulate' themselves.

Bag snaggers of New York.

Why can't we have hyper fast internet like Chattanooga?