CATCHING A BUZZ

Researchers at Ohio State University have discovered that honeybees are the perfect subjects for studies into alcholism. Whereas most animals need to be tricked into drinking alcohol, honeybees, says Dr. Charles Abramson, will happily drink the equivalent of a human downing 10 litres of wine at one sitting. "We can get them to drink pure ethanol, and I know of no organism that drinks pure ethanol, not even a college student" he says. The idea of using bees came to him when he noticed that bees loved to forage around discarded wine bottles. (New Scientist)