Bidding Good Riddance to 2008

Hairy Frog Gustavocarra

Plus, more buzz on bees, revisiting a shuttle disaster, and other links.

• Colony collapse disorder, bees on coke, bees bullying caterpillars -- can't get enough on bees? Here's a series with the genius title of "Honey Laundering" on the ins and outs of the honey biz, complete with fraud, deception and contamination. Warning: you might have to find something else to put in your tea for a while after reading all this.
• A report on the Columbia space shuttle disaster focuses on safety measures such as seat restraints and helmets, even though the astronauts would not have survived if all procedures were followed.
• Babies are born with an innate sense of numbers -- unless they're "number blind."
• A reinsurance firm says the human and economic impact of natural disasters in 2008 was enormous, one of the worst ever. So if we factor in the financial crisis and non-natural disasters like the Mumbai attacks, is it fair to say 2008 was the crappiest year ever?
• I know the "best of" lists were last week, but I can't resist this one on the year's weirdest animals. I can't leave out this Wolverine-like frog who breaks its own bones to produce claws. Happy New Year!