NEWS: Greatest Murder Mystery of Our Time

"Honeybee Killer Found by Army and Entomologists" - NY Times

If you pay attention to the news in the least, you may have heard over the pay several years that the American honeybee population has been on the verge of total collapse. Our bees keep dying, and no one seemed to know why. This New York Times article provides a brief overview of a paper published in the online science journal PLoS ONE explaining a possible cause for our honeybees' decline.

Working together, the scientists from the University of Montana and the United States military in Maryland (the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center) discovered a tag-team of fungus and virus that affects honeybee guts - possibly compromising their nutrition intake. Both fungus and virus were found in all of the killed colonies these scientists studied.

The article also delves into the interesting story of how these scientists united to share their work. Check it out!

Science Fair at the White House

"Today, President Obama will host the White House Science Fair celebrating the winners of a broad range of  science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions. The White House Science Fair fulfills a commitment the President made at the launch of his Educate to Innovate campaign in November 2009. That campaign aims to move American students from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math achievement over the next decade." (Find the announcement and a list of the exhibits that were on display HERE)

So President Obama has held good on his word to help restore science to the White House and America in general. In addition to the science fair held today, he has also named Dr. Subra Suresh as the new director of the National Science Foundation. An expert in nanotechonolgy and the Dean of the School of Engineering at MIT, Dr. Suresh is the first actual research scientist to hold this position in quite some time. Hurrah!