"Honeybees can communicate with others from far-off continents by learning to interpret their dance moves, scientists have found."

I'm afraid I can't think of even the most tenuous link between this article and web development or our industry, it's just the best thing I've read in the papers all week.

Cross species communication doesn't happen all that much (unless you count how many times your pet dog induces you to yawn a week) so it's pretty exciting when it does.  Especially when this involves the deployment of jazz hands (or wings oscillating wildly, which is almost the same thing).

Honeybees find food sources by sending out intrepid explorer bees to find flower food or die trying.  If they return, they have to do a little dance to let other worker bees know in which direction it lies and how far to travel.  Different honeybee species dance in a variety of manners (the French precariously carrying a baguette under one wing, for example).

Amazingly, if you put a bunch of Eurasian honeybees and Asian honeybees together in a hive, the latter species manage to learn the formers' funky dance moves in a jiffy - leading them to the same food sources!  Brilliant!!!

You can read the proper articles about honey bees here and here.  For more stories about shaking pandas and cannibalistic ladybirds, go here and here.

Sources
Guardian
Science Daily
Null Hypothesis
Animal of the Week

... came to a head last night in Focus New Media's TP Tournament 2008!

Lots were drawn and as luck would have it, our two new directors ended up being in the same team.  Not a fair match we thought at first... that is, until Jim and I managed to run away with a scorching lead!

With questions ranging from the inventor of cat's eyes to the identity of David Chatto's mother-in-law it wasn't an easy game. 

The best thing I realised early on was that Jim is the font of ALL knowledge and I'd ended up on the right side of the board.  A runaway victory was had to the chagrin of our respective bosses - who we now know are rather weak on Geography questions!

With MD Simon playing impartial quizmaster, buying the pizzas and serving up the beers it was generally a brilliant way to spend a balmy Tuesday evening.

Watch this space for news of our newly formed pub quiz team!