Bees trained to detect Covid-19

And other stories from the stranger side of life

killer-bees-1.jpg

Researchers in the Netherlands have trained bees to identify samples infected with Covid. The scientists in the bio-veterinary research laboratory at Wageningen University gave the bees sugary water as a reward after showing them samples infected with Covid and no reward after being shown a non-infected sample. The bees would then spontaneously extend their tongues to receive a reward when presented with an infected sample.

Dracula’s castle offers Covid jabs

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Spacecraft finds ‘hum’ beyond solar system

A spacecraft has picked up a “hum” beyond our solar system. Voyager 1, a NASA vessel that is currently 14 billion miles away from Earth, has detected the sound of the universe. Astrophysicist Stella Ocker said: “It’s very faint and monotone because it’s in a narrow frequency bandwidth.” The spacecraft records the “constant drone” of plasma.

 
Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.