Heavily protected crews in Washington state worked Saturday to destroy the first nest of so-called murder hornets discovered in the United States.
The state Agriculture Department had spent weeks searching, trapping, and using dental floss to tie tracking devices to Asian giant hornets, which can deliver painful stings to people and spit venom but are the biggest threat to honeybees that farmers depend on to pollinate crops.
The nest found in the city of Blaine near the Canadian border is about the size of a basketball and contained an estimated 100 to 200 hornets, according to scientists who announced the find Friday.
Crews wearing thick protective suits vacuumed the invasive insects from the cavity of a tree into large canisters Saturday. The suits prevent the hornets' 6-millimeter-long stingers from hurting workers, who also wore face shields because the trapped hornets can spit a painful venom into their eyes.
The tree will be cut down to extract newborn hornets and learn if any queens have left the hive already, scientists said. Officials suspect more nests may be in the area and will keep searching. A news briefing was planned Monday on the status of the nest.
Despite their nickname and the hype that has stirred fears in an already bleak year, the world’s largest hornets kill at most a few dozen people a year in Asian countries, and experts say it is probably far less. Meanwhile, hornets, wasps, and bees typically found in the United States kill an average of 62 people a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.
The real threat from Asian giant hornets — which are 2 inches (5 centimeters) long — is their devastating attacks on honeybees, which are already under siege from problems like mites, diseases, pesticides, and loss of food.
The invasive insect is normally found in China, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, and other Asian countries. Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia are the only places the hornets have been found on the continent.
The nest was found after the state Agriculture Department trapped some hornets this week and used dental floss to attach radio trackers to some of them.
The theme of Bill and Melinda Gates' annual letter for 2019 is "surprise." The letter, released Tuesday, acts as a roadmap for how the Gates Foundation plans to invest in technology that will help make the world a better place in the years to come. And, as Melinda Gates told Cheddar in an interview, it starts with poop.
There's a dearth of research to back up the abundance of miraculous health claims tied to CBD ー but that won't stop celebrities from endorsing it. CBD, or cannabidiol, is a component of cannabis or hemp with little to no psychotropic effects. It is purported to have an array of applications to treat everything from epilepsy to anxiety, pain, depression, and sleeplessness. When Congress and President Trump signed the latest version of the Farm Bill into effect, they also legalized hemp, and thereby CBD derived from hemp.
More than 50 years after the psychedelic Summer of Love, psilocybin, the psychoactive component in magic mushrooms, is having a moment. Researchers at leading universities have been conducting research on the purported medical benefits of mushrooms for years, but as studies yield promising results, the opioid epidemic persists and sentiment warms toward cannabis, mushrooms are earning a lot more attention. Lawmakers and psychotropic advocates have concurrently advanced separate measures in Oregon, Colorado, and, most recently, Iowa, that attempt to loosen restrictions on these hallucinogenic fungi.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Feb, 6, 2019.
Millions of people around the world are getting ready for the Super Bowl on Sunday. And while the day is all fun and games, there's still a serious discussion happening about player safety. Now, two leading sports brands have teamed up to design new, state-of-the-art equipment using 3D printing. Joe DeSimone, co-founder and CEO of Carbon, stopped by Cheddar with more on how technology is making football more safe, head to toe.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Feb. 1, 2019.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019.
Canopy Growth is planning its entry to the U.S. on the back of the new Farm Bill ー and aims to establish a hemp "hub" in New York, according to CEO Bruce Linton."New York is setting up a pretty progressive approach and we have an earlier first license under that system so we can actually create a hub," Linton told Cheddar on Tuesday.
Meditation app Headspace is zen about its future. Coming off a profitable year in 2018, with more than $100 million in revenue, CEO and co-founder Rich Pierson told Cheddar on Monday that the company is looking to continue its domination of the digital meditation space by pushing into healthcare and international markets.
