Apparently even the busy bee can have an off-day, a time when it's not, well, feeling the buzz. When that happens, researchers say, sick bees are a lot like sick people. They sort of bumble about.

Biologists at the University of Leicester in England divided a group of bumblebees into two sections: a healthy control group and a group that was injected with lipopolysaccharide, a substance that stimulates the bee's immune response (making it feel poorly) without actually infecting the insect with a disease.

The researchers discovered that the sick bees were less astute and clever than their unaffected peers. It took them more time to learn which of two kinds of artificial flower was seeded with sugar water, and they soon seemed to forget what they had just learned.

Eamonn Mallon, who headed the study, said the research isn't just about making bees miserable. “It has two important applications. Firstly, there is a lot of interest in the connections between the immune system and the nervous system in human biology. (This experiment shows) that these interactions also exist in the much more experimentally tractable insects.

“Secondly, there is concern about both the decline in wild bumblebee species and the effects of disease on the honeybee industry. It has been shown that learning is vitally important to how well a colony prospers. This effect of immunity on learning highlights a previously unconsidered effect of disease on colony success.”

VERBATIM

There is nothing particularly scientific about excessive caution. Science thrives on daring generalizations.

– ENGLISH EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGIST LANCELOT HOGBEN (1895-1975)

BRAIN SWEAT

Proprietors of an ice cream shop want to host a giveaway day to boost business. To avoid huge crowds, however, they don't want to broadly advertise the free ice cream cone day. Instead, they post three clues to the date:

The giveaway will be in the first week of a month without an A in it.

It will be on a day of the week that has a U in it.

The month has no E, but the day of the week contains an E.

Can you figure out when to go for your free cone?

BRAIN SWEAT ANSWER

The first Tuesday in July.

PRIME NUMBERS

66 – Percentage of U.S. water supply that is naturally filtered and stored by native forests

6 – Weeks apart that a pair of twins in India were born this year

5 – Percentage of carbon emission worldwide attributable to tourism

Sources: National Resource Council; District Headquarters Hospital, Phulbani, India; Harper's; Oxford University Centre for the Environment

'TRUE FACTS'

Jupiter's Little Red Spot is now as big as its Great Red Spot, and astronomers say a third Red Spot has appeared.

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE

The English theologian and crime writer Ronald Knox (1888-1957) once became embroiled in a debate with the evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964).

“In a universe containing millions of planets,” Haldane declared, “is it not inevitable that life should appear on at least one of them?”

Knox replied: “Sir, if Scotland Yard found a body in your (car) trunk, would you tell them: 'There are millions of trunks in the world, surely one of them must contain a body?' I think they would still want to know who put it there!”

BLOGOSPHERE

Science musings

sciencemusings.com/blog/

For 20 years, science writer and author Chet Raymo wrote gracefully and thoughtfully about the mysteries of the universe and the nature of nature in the pages of The Boston Globe; now he does it online.

QUIRKS OF NATURE

Water fleas cannot survive outside their liquid element, so how do they disperse from pond to pond? It's a question that had long perplexed biologists, but researchers at Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium think they've found an answer: Floating flea eggs catch inter-pond rides on another pond-dwelling insect called a backswimmer.

Backswimmers are also fliers, flitting between ponds in search of mates and food. The Catholic University scientists tested their hypothesis by putting a bunch of backswimmers in a bucket of water with 1,000 water flea eggs.

As the backswimmers eventually flew off, the researchers captured and examined them. Sure enough, trapped in the backswimmers' hairy abdomens were hitchhiking water flea eggs.

SURELY YOU'RE JOKING

A marine biologist had spent more than 20 years studying whale communication, laboriously translating whales' squeals and rumbles into English words. At a public lecture, the biologist announced that he had discovered that whales frequently talk to one another at great distances, as much as 300 miles apart.

“Given that enormous distance, what could they possibly have to say to one another?” asked a man in the audience.

“Well, as best I can figure, it's something like: Can you hear me now?”

ANTHROPOLOGY 101

In Java it was customary for women to put out house fires. The men busied themselves forming a cordon around the home to prevent opportunistic thieves from making off with valuables.

THIS WEEK IN SCIENCE

This week in 1903, the Ford Motor Co. began selling its first automobile: the Model A.