Is the honeybee crisis a hoax after all? - BBC Science Focus Magazine

Kids learn in grade school that honeybees “create” a new queen bee by feeding a larva royal jelly. A new study find that the young bee’s diet may be only part of what crowns her queen. The chemical makeup of a small “room” in the hive where she grows up also appears to play a key role. Most honeybee larvae develop in identical six-sided chambers, or cells, inside the hive. But these common quarters aren’t quite fit for a queen. Actually, they aren’t big enough. So when a hive needs a new queen, worker bees develop some larger peanut-shaped cells. The workers then put a fertilized egg in each of these special rooms and feed it a nutritious substance commonly called royal jelly.

Flowering plants in pollinator gardens, agricultural fields, and residential landscapes often grow alongside weeds that are controlled with herbicides. Honeybees regularly visit these same areas while collecting nectar and pollen, raising questions about what happens when they are exposed to weedkillers during their daily foraging. A Virginia Tech study found that glyphosate, a widely used herbicide, can interfere with honeybee foraging and may undermine the long-term stability of colonies. The research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and a graduate student grant from the university's Department of Entomology.

AustraliaAqua Paradiso was an exhibition curated in 2022 by the National Asian Culture Center (ACC). This contemporary art project brought together 11 artists from Asia and around the world to explore the theme of “water” from aesthetic, philosophical, and ecological perspectives. The exhibition took place over a three-month period at ACC in Gwangju, offering a multilayered examination of the primordial  nature of life contained within water and its relationship with human society. Aqua Paradiso now continues in 2026 as a touring exhibition at Korean Cultural Centres in India and Australia. This edition features three of the Korean artists who took part in the original exhibition: Hyewon Kwon, Boo Jihyun, and Eunhae Jung (eco orot). Each uses a different visual language to approach the responsiveness and dynamics of water and the transformative sensibilities of the Anthropocene era. More than just a resource or part of the backdrop, the exhibition looks at water as a sensory presence and ecological actor. Ancient civilizations viewed water as the emotional product of transcendent deities, harboring feelings of the sublime in the face of its overwhelming majesty.

A Japanese spacecraft rocketed toward Mars on Tuesday on a quest to explore its mysterious moons and bring back samples. Five of the world’s space agencies joined forces for the five-year mission that will attempt to land a robotic prospector plus a rover on Phobos, the larger and closer of Mars’ two pint-sized moons. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which is leading the bold sampling effort, launched the spacecraft before dawn from the country’s main spaceport on Tanegashima Island. Officials declared success an hour later when the spacecraft separated as planned from the rocket’s upper stage. Flight controllers burst into applause and jumped to their feet, shaking hands and embracing. No one has managed to get samples from Mars or its moons yetWhile NASA has successfully landed nine spacecraft on Mars over the past 50 years and China scored a 2021 touchdown, no one has ever reached Phobos or its sidekick Deimos. And no one has managed to fetch samples from Mars, let alone its moons. If successful, bits of dust, soil and rocks from Phobos will arrive on Earth in 2031.

HHMI investigator Harmit Malik is uncovering the evolutionary rules that guide genetic conflicts—competitions between different entities trying to maximize their success at the expense of another. Credit: Robert Hood The Malik Lab thrives on competition. But for HHMI investigator Harmit Malik and his team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, it's the genomes—not the people—that are in conflict. The lab studies rapid evolution—the genetic changes that happen in a species over a few generations rather than thousands of years. These fast changes are often fueled by genetic conflicts—competitions between different entities trying to maximize their success at the expense of another.

Haiyi Zhang1,2 na1, Yawei Li1,3 na1, Xinhong Zhao1, Yujie Zhao1, Jinchao Gu1, Hao Pan1, Aijun Liu1, Jiangguo Lin4, Yuanyuan Peng5, Lijun Wang5, Huantian Zhang6 & … Jiahui Cao1 We’re sharing this article early to provide faster access to peer-reviewed, accepted research. It is citable and carries a permanent DOI. This version is subject to further edits and will be replaced automatically by the final Version of Record. All legal disclaimers apply.