Honey bees are an invasive species. They were brought to the Americas in the 1600's. Now people are panicking about colony collapse and trying to save this invasive species. I thought that is how nature works, life seeks out new and better environments to grow in. Does it matter if a bee is blown across the ocean by a hurricane or carried over by a Spaniard? Or if a mussel makes to the great lakes on the bottom of a tanker or on a piece of drift wood?

Ah, I must have misread the slogan. It was Hope for Change.

This is great news for the US as we have lost the ability to put a person in space. So no big deal that the NASA-Congress Bureaucracy can't get our next gen rocket system off the ground.

It would be interesting to catalog all of Slashdots 'incredible solar tech invented!' stories from 20010 and see how much of it actually made it into solar panels and exactly how much it actually improved them. Could also do the same for medical "break throughs".

Dark matter, the Ether of the 21st century.

The number of people on food stamps has more than doubled since 1990. I guess people on food stamps are more likely to keep incumbents in office than scientist so the money goes to them. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs-images/43xxx/SNAP_Infographic_4_18_2012.png Note we went from spending under 20 billion in 1995 to 70 billion in 2010. The shortfall mentioned in the article that is forcing the shutdowns is 75 million.

Insert Sara Palin joke

So NASA now can build a green building but cant deliver a person to the space station. Yay.

I seem to remember a few past slashdot articles on what is causing colony collapse. The causes ranged from cell phones to a DNA-based virus to fungus and now pesticide. What gives me pause about this current theory is that it is linked to the much maligned by the left high fructose corn syrup. How many people would believe a scientific study that linked cancer to abortions? Not many, you would want to know more about the politics of the people doing the study than their scientific credentials. Welcome to science of the 21st century!