Bees Do It II

Those bees!  It seems we just found out that they can count, and now here comes another challenge to traditional conceptions of the mind and who has one.  It turns out that bees can recognize individual faces:

A honeybee brain has a million neurons, compared with the 100 billion in a human brain. But, researchers report, bees can recognize faces, and they even do it the same way we do.

Bees and humans both use a technique called configural processing, piecing together the components of a face — eyes, ears, nose and mouth — to form a recognizable pattern, a team of researchers report in the Feb. 15 issue of The Journal of Experimental Biology.

You ever feel that bee you swotted has it in for you?  Well, that’s possible.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to disappear, one hopes

From CNN:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to unveil the Pentagon’s plan for rolling back the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding gay and lesbian service members on Tuesday [today]. 

Of course it has to get through congress, and they’ve made it clear that they don’t want to do anything  Obama wants to do.  So will there be opposition?

Here’s the kind of negative remarks CNN is reporting:

1.  “This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels,” McCain said.

Successful?  Probably not in the eyes of the 13,500 people who have been discharged for being homosexual since it was implemented.

2.  At least one member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps — has expressed reservations about repealing the law.  “Our Marines are currently engaged in two fights, and our focus should not be drawn away from those priorities,” Conway said in November through a spokesman.

3.  Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute said the real test will be in the barracks, with the rank-and-file members of the military.   “We can talk about this delicately or we can just be fairly direct,” O’Hanlon said. “There are a lot of 18-year-old, old-fashioned, testosterone-laden men in the military who are tough guys. They’re often politically old-fashioned or conservative; they are not necessarily at the vanguard, in many cases, of accepting alternative forms of lifestyle.”

I see, it’s the testosterone again. 

Of course, there are supporters, but CNN reports that their poll says the support in the country is lower that one might have hoped and expected:

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll in April 2009, 48 percent of Americans favored maintaining the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. Thiry-seven percent opposed the policy because they believed it treated homosexuals too harshly, while another 8 percent opposed it because they believed it treated homosexuals too leniently.