Most Popular Bear with the Ladies

Zoo visitors got a surprise when this small bear rolled his foot-long tongue out of his mouth when it yawned. The bear measured only four feet long.

The Sun Bear may look bizarre to us, but it is perfectly designed for foraging for food - especially honey.

And he is very popular with the ladies!

Picture: VEARL BROWN / SOLENT

Sniffer Bees Trained to hunt down Terrorists

Meet the latest weapon in the war on terror - the humble honey bee.

Specially trained sniffer honey bees may be coming to an airport near you soon, thanks to a successful new prototype that is about the size of a handheld vacuum cleaner. The Vasor136, developed by Hertfordshire Company Inscentinel, and partially funded by the Home Office OSCT (Office for Security and Counter Terrorism), is creating a buzz after successful tests with the government.

Training the bees is simply a matter of bribing them with sugary treats. Mathilde Briens, Head of R&D at Inscentinel, explains: "It all revolves around training and reward, a classical Pavlovian conditioning of the honeybees. We expose the bees to the odour, say the smell of TNT explosive, for a few seconds and simultaneously give the bees a sugar syrup reward. After 4 or 5 exposures the bees associate the odour with the reward..."

The device holds six cassettes of six bees. The Female Worker bees are kept in optimum conditions in a filtered airstream until they reach the environment to be tested, e.g. near a suspected car bomb, or luggage at Heathrow

Honey! Bees overwhelm Turkey RTA crash scene

pa.press.net

Turkey van crash saw swarms of bees attack injured people and rescue workers

A van carrying beehives in Turkey has crashed into a truck, letting huge swarms of bees free to sting the injured and rescue workers at the scene.

In the end, about 20 people were taken to hospitals, six of them injured in the crash and the rest rescue workers who were stung by the bees, said the state-run Anatolia news agency.

One of the crash victims later died, but it was not immediately known if he had been killed by the impact of the accident or the insect attacks, said local Gov Ahmet Altinparmak.

The rescue workers - including local beekeepers summoned to the scene - used hoses, blankets and rags to try to ward off the bees. But it took about an hour for them to remove the crash victims from the chaotic scene, Anatolia said.

Naturalists Attempt to Encourage Bees to Breed

Beware the GSM crops

An old lady friend of mine and I were talking the other day and she, a great source of distorted facts and half-heard stories was voicing her concerns about 'GSM' crops and the possible 'threat of them spreading to mutate with the natives.'

I have to say that up to this point I was not concerned about the genetically modified (GM) crops currently being developed but I did see the dangers arising if the crops were able to communicate with each other over the GSM cell network. That's a much more serious issue and one that needs investigated.

It does bring to mind a 'War of the Wolds' scenario with mindless faceless cereal killers roaming the streets of rural 'wherever' looking for natives to mutate with. I could understand her fears but re-assured her that she would be safe by the seashore, at least, because plants don't like salt, with a few hardy exceptions. That's why you cannot put salt on cornflakes for fear of unbalancing nature and making your partner gag or laugh hysterically. The exception to this rule is, oats and porridge, which benefits from a cheeky wee pinch now and then, just like the folks that eat it.

So beware of the GSM crops. It would also explain why you can never get a phone signal when out in the country. I am not sure if, when in a 'crop circle' you can share the same telecom account or have to have individual ones. Your local Telecoms shop will be able to advise you here and if he is the one selling the crops all these accounts, it would also explain why he's making so much freakin' money. So give his Ferrari a good dunt when you pass it.

Be assured the one way to stop the onslaught of the GSM crops is to put them onto a roaming tariff and the whole 'taking over the planet, mutating' thing will just become unaffordable and go away.

My friend has now taken to wearing a hat made of aluminium foil when out walking in the country, just in case. It goes quite well with the aluminium bicycle clips she wears to stop the GSM bees from flying up her trouser legs. Personally I like the gentle humming ringtones of the bee's, the engaged tone of the trees and the speed dial sound of the rabbits. Communing with nature, put it on your list of family and friends this weekend.