Sunday, December 16, 2007

Bees

Disappearing bees? A strange hexagonal shape on Saturn? The two may be connected. Bees famously do a 'waggle dance' to tell the rest of the hive where pollen is to be found. This dance has been often observed, but never explained. Barbara Shipman is a theoretical mathematician whose father is a bee scientist. She studied the 'dance' and found it similar to the behaviour of subatomic particles called quarks. It has been suggested that both behave as if they somehow exist in a six-dimensional universe.
Teresa

Dear Teresa,
Hmmmm. And aren't honeycombs hexagonal, too?

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