Saving Honey Bees from Pesticide Death.

• Position: TOXINS - Microparticles that absorb ingested toxic residues - Brief article

Consider this: a grain of salt weighs 58,500 nanograms. It takes only 15 nanograms of pesticide to kill a honey bee. Over time, pollen tinged with tiny amounts of pesticides accumulates in a bee's body, reducing the lifespan of each bee in a colony, but researchers at Washington State University, Pullman, have developed a material that "acts as a magnetic microsponge that absorbs ingested toxic residues," says Waled Suliman, a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering.

The product, a powder, can be incorporated into a sugar solution that is fed to bee colonies. Each micro-particle is the size and shape of a grain of pollen, making them easily...