SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the B-Movie-but-every-pun-is-a-donation-to-a-flower-exchange-program-for-stingless-Bs dept.
James Cook University scientists have discovered a common honey bee disease can be deadly to native Australian wild bees and can be transmitted by flowers—the first time this link has been made.
JCU's Associate Professor Lori Lach oversaw the study investigating the susceptibility of Australian stingless or "sugar bag" bees to Nosema ceranae—a parasite that causes European honey bees to become less active, develop an increase in appetite, and die prematurely.
"Pathogen spillover from bees kept by bee keepers to wild bee populations is increasingly considered as a possible cause of wild pollinator decline. Spillover has been frequently documented, but not much is known about the pathogen's virulence in wild bees or how long pathogens can survive on a flower," said Terence Purkiss, the honors student who conducted the study.
[...] "About two thirds of the flowers exposed to infected European honey bees were found to be carrying Nosema ceranae spores. In every case, at least one stingless bee that foraged on the flowers contracted the pathogen. What this means is that wild bees can be infected with the disease by sharing a flower with an infected European bee ," said Dr. Lach.
Five out of the six stingless bee hives the researchers monitored over five months tested positive for the pathogen at least once.
Pathogen spillover from Apis mellifera to a stingless bee[$], Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1071)
(Score: 1, Troll) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 07 2019, @10:20PM (3 children)
STDs spread through sex, skin diseases spread through skin to skin contact, apex predator diseases passed up the food chain, pond dwelling creatures' diseases spread through water, what other astounding scientific "discoveries" await in today's publication pile?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 08 2019, @12:17AM (1 child)
Exactly, just like it's obvious that fire rises, earth sinks, air is the substance of life, and water allows motion. Just look around you.
Less facetious, there is lots of "obvious stuff" which can be either true or false. If you are cold, are you more likely to become sick? Does honey or vinegar attract more flies? Does popping your knuckles cause arthritis? Do red-light cameras decrease traffic accidents? Do violent cartoons and video games cause people to become more violent?
There are literally countless "common sense" things, of which countless are actually false. It's really silly to dismiss somebody committing basic research unless it really is trivial "water is wet" type research which has been done multiple times before. It's these verification and failure to verify that science makes progress.
Unless you prefer to live in a world where, "it's obvious people will never be able to fly."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 08 2019, @10:40AM
Maybe it's the headline's fault, something more along the lines of: "bees' disease can spread between wild and domestic populations, staying virulent on flowers for up to 48 hours" would seem more interesting than headlines along the line of "extensive sun exposure causes sunburn and eventual melanoma", "lack of sleep reduces attentiveness of students in class", and "posts from anonymous cowards are tedious and boring."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 08 2019, @03:43AM
Or Israelite moon landers, as one of the yesterday's publication pile [soylentnews.org] revealed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford