Home

On:

Insects are invading people’s ears in the U.K. 82-year-old Ron Packer heard a high-pitched hum in his hearing aid that turned out to be an attack by a swarm of wasps. And Patricia McLeod had to go to the doctor to have a large moth removed from her ear.

Packer disturbed a wasp’s nest while gardening. When the wasps attacked him, they swarmed around his hearing aid. He was eventually stung 8 times. He says, “They stung me at the front and back of my hearing aid area and really homed in on it. I was badly stung and was left with a boxer’s cauliflower ear. I couldn’t wear the hearing aid for a few days or sleep on that side.”
read more

On:

Why is that fruit in the grocery store looks wonderful buttastes so dull and flavorless? Are you tired of buying amelon, waiting until it seems ripe, then cutting it openonly to find it’s tasteless? It’s hard to select good fruit,since we can’t tell whether or not it’s any good until weeat it. British scientists think we should leave it up to bees.

In a program backed by Sainsbury’s Grocery Stores, “sniffer”honey bees are being used to judge the ripeness and flavorof fruit before it arrives at the store. Bees have theability to detect airborne molecules in concentrations ofless than one part per billion. An earlier study using fruitflies proved that insects can tell if a single cherry tomatoin a large shipment is spoiled.
read more