[ExI] Neonicotinoid pesticides 'damage brains of bees' reports

[Bryan Bishop]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 5:25 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Scientists have found that two types of chemicals called
> neonicotinoids and coumaphos are interfering with the insect's ability
> to learn and remember.

Is this the source of the decline in the bee population? If so, it
seems like one viable way to begin fixing the bee population drop is
to start raising bees with small amounts of the poison in their
environment, then breed the ones that can survive increasingly larger
doses. You would have to start with doses that are less than the doses
they are currently experiencing (which apparently they can't survive
with). There's no guarantees in this method, but maybe within a
sufficiently large population of bees there might be enough variation
on whatever receptors to find something that can
increasingly-better-catch the neonicotinoid contaminants.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507