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A honeybee tells two from three. Science News:

In the tests, a bee zoomed along a meter of tunnel and then through a hole marked with a reference pattern, such as two blue dots. Once through the hole, the bee had to choose between two exits, each marked with a pattern. If the bee chose the exit marked with the same number of elements as the reference pattern, she ended up in a little chamber with a reward.

Researchers trained about 20 bees to distinguish between two or three blue dots. Bees plateaued at about 70 percent correct choices. The researchers then presented the bees with increasingly tougher challenges. One reference pattern with three dots led to a choice between different patterns, either two fat dots or three skimpy ones, having the same total areas. Or bees had to choose the right number of elements even when researchers used confusing icons.

Bees could distinguish between two and three, and could also tell between three and four when matching to a three-element pattern. But presenting a four-element pattern was going a little far. This time bees didn't distinguish between four and three.

Timeshare Operators To Pay FTC $1.2 Million For Do Not Call Violations

...Many of the calls All In One made were to consumers who had filled out entry forms for sweepstakes to win vacation packages and other high-ticket items. While the entry forms had a fine-print waiver on the back that the defendants claimed gave them the right to call consumers on the Registry, the Commission disagreed.

In that complaint, the agency stated that the form would not lead a reasonable consumer to expect that by completing it, they would receive a call from the seller about its timeshares and other vacation offerings, and that it did not constitute either "express agreement" or an "established business relationship" under the DNC provisions....

Teleportation Milestone Achieved Live Science,

Scientists have come a bit closer to achieving the "Star Trek" feat of teleportation. No one is galaxy-hopping, or even beaming people around, but for the first time, information has been teleported between two separate atoms across a distance of a meter -- about a yard.

Polaroid Fans Try Making New Film for Old Cameras. NYT Bits blog:

André Bosman, a former Polaroid employee, and Florian Kaps, a former manager of the Lomographic Society, an online community for film enthusiasts, solicited financing from private donors to purchase the remainder of the film manufacturing equipment from Polaroid. The two also leased the company's factory in the Netherlands for their effort, cheekily called 'The Impossible Project."

Mr. Bosman and Mr. Kaps recruited a team of 10 film technicians, chemists and engineers - most of whom were employed at Polaroid during its heyday - to collaborate on inventing a new instant film pack. Mr. Kaps estimates that the venture has enough money to finance production for one year, and his goal is to begin manufacturing by 2010.

theuncoolhunter.com: A hot pink Web site, and it's all downhill from there.

 Tags  bees Do Not Call

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