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We’re all quite familiar with how intelligent an individual can be when compared to the thick-headedness that is often displayed by mob mentality, a phenomenon that can make the collective intelligence of groups appear to be a hopeless throwback to more primitive times. But conversely, history has also seen numerous examples of large groups surpassing a problem that the collective is faced with — so long as the group is collectively focused on the question at hand.

The question is, how do we provide that focus for large groups, so that the collective wisdom that can come from that emerges more reliably? The answer to that, according to a new Silicon Valley startup, is bees.
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A researcher at Western University’s Nanofabrication Facility in Ontario, Canada, has built the world’s smallest snowman, measuring an extremely petite 3 microns tall. To put this in perspective, a human hair will typically be 50-75 microns (or micrometers) thick.

The tiny snowman was made using a stack of silica spheres — water crystals would be far too large for a sculpture of this stature. Each of the three globes is a mere 0.9 microns (0.0009 millimeters) in diameter. The arms and carrot-like nose are made from platinum, and the facial features were carved using the lab’s new focused ion beam.
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The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration has released its annual Arctic Report Card, assessing the state of the climate above 60º north, and region’s grades are not good: higher temperatures, lower snow and ice cover, and alarming biological activity marred the report’s findings.
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