Mystery of the Dying Bees Solved

jamie points out news of a study attempting to explain the decline of honeybee populations across the US. As it turns out, the fungus N. ceranae that was thought to be killing off bee colonies had a partner in crime — a DNA-based virus that worked in tandem with N. ceranae to compromise nutrition uptake. From the NY Times: "Dr. Bromenshenk's team at the University of Montana and Montana State University in Bozeman, working with the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center northeast of Baltimore, said in their jointly written paper that the virus-fungus one-two punch was found in every killed colony the group studied. Neither agent alone seems able to devastate; together, the research suggests, they are 100 percent fatal. 'It's chicken and egg in a sense — we don't know which came first,' Dr. Bromenshenk said of the virus-fungus combo — nor is it clear, he added, whether one malady weakens the bees enough to be finished off by the second, or whether they somehow compound the other's destructive power. 'They're co-factors, that's all we can say at the moment,' he said. 'They're both present in all these collapsed colonies.'"

Comments

Headline

[ffreeloader]

So, the headline is: Mystery of the Dying Bees Solved.

The first sentence in the first paragraph says: jamie points out news of a study attempting to explain the decline of honeybee populations across the US.

I guess "attempting to explain" now means "solved". The English language sure is changing rapidly here on /..

Re:Now to bring them back

[JonySuede]

I'm willing to bet that the fungus and the virus were in separate regions at one point

I am pretty sure that your hypothesis is valid. However I do not see a way to test it, anyone has any ideas for an experimental setup?