UK bee industry abuzz with mite resistant breed
A British beekeeper said on Wednesday he may have discovered a strain of honey bee immune to a parasite that has been gradually wiping out populations of the vital insect worldwide.
Scientists have been trying to find a way to fight the pesticide-resistant Varroa mite.
But now a retired heating engineer who has spent 18 years searching for a mite-resistant breed may have made a breakthrough.
Ron Hoskins, 79, from Swindon in southern England, says he has managed to isolate and breed a strain of bees which “groom” one another, removing the mites.
A British environmental consultancy estimates bees pollination of just apples, pears, plums and raspberries creates $308.4 million a year in crop value.
The hybrid we will not be seeing in the U.S. – Honda Jazz Hybrid Will Get Paris Premiere
The Honda Fit compact car — called the Jazz everywhere in the world but in North America — has long seemed to be an obvious choice for hybrid power. Now Honda’s agreed: the Jazz will get a hybrid engine in 2011, but it won’t be for sale in the United States.
The Jazz Hybrid, announced this week and to be on display next month at the Paris motor show, will borrow the same Integrated Motor Assist system and CVT gearbox that are in the Insight and Civic Hybrid. Fuel economy and emissions data, also to be announced in Paris, were expected to be very close to those models.
Honda Jazz
That’s OK we will still have the Fit (which looks similar) and hybrid Insight ( just based on looks I tend to slightly favor the Insight over the Prius). In addition the U.S. will have the sporty two seat hybrid Honda CR-Z which went on sale Tuesday.
Smallest frog in Asia discovered in Borneo
Researchers on an expedition in Borneo have found a new and very tiny species of frog.
Male adults of the new species, named Microhyla nepenthicola, grow to approximately one centimetre in length.
The researchers first discovered the diminutive red and orange amphibian on an expedition to Kubah National Park in 2004.
They have now described the discovery in the journal Zootaxa.
The team found the frog when it emerged from a small pitcher plant, Nepenthes ampullaria, in which it lives.
The Microhyla nepenthicola adult size is about one centimeter. The diameter of a penny is 1.9 cm. Odd they should live in pitcher plants which are among the few carnivorous plants. The fluids inside the pitcher plant have digestive enzymes in them. The frog seems to take advantage of this – without being digested itself – feeding off the decomposing organic matter in the plant.
Another denier of the catastrophic consequences of global warming – who seems utterly oblivious to science of any kind – might be the next senator from Alaska – Leading AK GOP U.S. Senate Candidate Joe Miller: ‘We Haven’t Heard There’s Man-Made Global Warming’
A 2009 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States found that “97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets” of the IPCC’s conclusion that man-made greenhouse gases are responsible for the planet warming.
Skeptical Science, using data from several government agencies that monitor the global climate, created this graph demonstrating how the rise in carbon dioxide has closely tracked a rise in global temperature over time..
Just in time for the holiday season, another anti-science zealot making decisions about public policy and the environment.
tangledwing 
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