Bees chase car for over 24 hours to rescue their queen

May 26, 2016

London, May 26: In an incredible ordeal, a 65-year-old grandmother was followed by a huge swarm of bees for more than 24 hours while driving her car home from a nature reserve in the UK, attempting to rescue their queen.

bees

Carol Howarth was amazed when a swarm of over 20,000 bees flew down onto her vehicle, covering the back end of the car.

The unusual incident happened shortly after she had parked her car in the town centre of Haverfordwest, West Wales, before going shopping at lunchtime last Sunday. A team of three beekeepers, a national park ranger and members of the public helped to capture and contain the swarm inside a cardboard box.

Howarth told the Telegraph that she had "never seen anything like it."

Pembrokeshire Coast National Park ranger Tom Moses raised the alarm when he spotted the swarm on the car.

Concerned that the insects might be destroyed with pesticide, Moses contacted two members of Pembrokeshire Beekeepers' Association, who came to help capture the swarm. "As I drove past I noticed this big brown splodge on the back of a car.

"I had seen swarms before settle on things like this but never one as large as this," Moses said.

After returning to her car, Howarth drove home believing the problem had been resolved, only to discover on Monday morning that the swarm had followed her and were again covering the car.

She was then forced to contact the beekeepers, who finally managed to remove the swarm for good.

"One theory was that the queen was trapped in my car and the swarm were following," Howarth said.

"But they couldn't find the queen anywhere so I've no idea if that was right. Apparently bees can swarm at this time of the year and it is a very strong instinct for them to follow the queen," she said.

"I still don't really understand why because they couldn't see the queen anywhere. Perhaps they just like the heat of my car," Howarth added.

Moses said members of colonies often follow their queen bee if she moves hives. And queens moves hives if the hives are disturbed — say, by humans. Or by the arrival of another queen bee.

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News Network
March 18,2020

San Francisco, Mar 18: Facebook said a bug in its anti-spam system temporarily blocked the publication of links to news stories about the coronavirus. Guy Rosen, Facebook's vice president of integrity, said on Twitter Tuesday that the company was working on a fix for the problem.

Users complained that links to news stories about school closings and other information related to the virus outbreak were blocked by the company's automated system.

Later on Tuesday, Rosen tweeted that Facebook had restored all the incorrectly deleted posts, which also covered topics beyond the coronavirus.

Rosen said the problems were unrelated to any changes in Facebook's content-moderator workforce. The company reportedly sent its human moderators home this week because of the coronavirus outbreak.

A representative for Facebook did not immediately respond to questions on the status of Facebook's content moderators, many of whom do not work directly for the company and are not always able to work from home.

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Agencies
January 7,2020

Washington, Jan 7: Facebook will ban deepfake videos ahead of the US elections but the new policy will still allow heavily edited clips so long as they are parody or satire, the social media giant said Tuesday.

Deepfake videos are hyper-realistic doctored clips made using artificial intelligence or programs that have been designed to accurately fake real human movements.

In a blog published following a Washington Post report, Facebook said it would begin removing clips that were edited--beyond for clarity and quality--in ways that "aren't apparent to an average person" and could mislead people.

Clips would be removed if they were "the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning that merges, replaces or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic," the statement from Facebook vice-president Monika Bickert said.

However, the statement added: "This policy does not extend to content that is parody or satire, or video that has been edited solely to omit or change the order of words."

US media noted the new guidelines would not cover videos such as the 2019 viral clip -- which was not a deepfake -- of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that appeared to show her slurring her words.

Facebook also gave no indication on the number of people assigned to identify and take down the offending videos, but said videos failing to meet its usual guidelines would be removed, and those flagged clips would be reviewed by teams of third-party fact-checkers -- among them AFP.

The news agency has been paid by the social media giant to fact-check posts across 30 countries and 10 languages as part of a program starting in December 2016, and including more than 60 organisations.

Content labeled "false" is not always removed from newsfeeds but is downgraded so fewer people see it -- alongside a warning explaining why the post is misleading.

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Agencies
January 4,2020

Washington D.C: One of the greatest spectacles of modern art is still thriving in the Australian outback as confirmed by satellite imagery of NASA. The Marree Man is a massive geoglyph depicting an aboriginal hunter, that spans over 2.6 miles in the Southern Australian region.

Discovered by a pilot in 1998, its origin still remains a mystery even to this date.

The Marree Man was given a new lease of life in 2016 when a group of people from the neighboring town of Marree plowed its lines to avert its fading due to erosion.

After NASA shared the image of the art-work that was taken in June, the efforts of the good samaritans turned out to be a total success, reported CNN Travel.

The restoration team believes that the refurbished Marree Man would last longer than its original version.

According to NASA, "They [the team] created wind grooves, designed to trap water and encourage the growth of vegetation. They hope that eventually, the man will turn green."

In a previous article, CNN reported that an entrepreneur by the name of Dick Smith took upon himself to unravel the geoglyph's mystery in 2016. His team combed through all the available evidence but couldn't find anything conclusive.

In 2018 he even offered a 5,000 Australian dollar reward for anyone who knows the identity of its creator.

Nobody turned up with an answer but it was speculated that unknown artist lives in Alice Springs or even might be an American.

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