Tuesday 30 April 2013

Bee Lucky!

Houston, we've got a problem. Honeybees are dying in their millions. They are essential pollinators of most of the foods we eat. Scientists think that a particular kind of pesticide, called the neo-nicotinoids are to blame. But these pesticides are essential to protect our food from bugs. So; what to do?

Notice that some honeybees are NOT dying. Do they have particular genetic mutations that are more resistant to the pesticides? If they do, we need to encourage the more resistant bees to breed together and produce lots of little pesticide-resistant baby bees don't we?

A simple application of evolutionary theory to the rescue?