Greco: Sorry to say that at this time, there are no cures for any viral disease -- not one, nada, none. We do have vaccines which will prevent some viral diseases, but I don't think there are any for bees yet. If CCD really is viral, we may be faced with the necessity of finding resistant strains of bees, or instituting scrupulous controls to prevent the spread of the virus to healthy hives, but there's no real hope of "curing" it.

Hello Paalexan ... "The short version of all those disagreements being that whenever you have high hobbyist interest in a taxonomic group, some of the hobbyists want to recognize all variation at the species level, which leads to large numbers of spurious species." I agree but at the same time taxa are being divided by new data which in a morphological or better yet a "visual sense" are very simalar .. example : the breakup of the genus Opuntia. This makes new taxa a bit "spurious" to the serious hobbyist. Also .. I think ... the motivation to accept new nomenclature differs between taxonamist and hobbyist. To the taxonamist new names often demonstrate scientific progress of some kind .. to the hobbyist confusion as to who is called what now ?? To the hobbyist the cost of accepting new names are not justified by the benafits. In this sense the taxonamist is the "splitter" and creator of too many "needless" taxa. In addition groups like Cactii and Orchids are also fairly complex in morphology and have been researched considerably more then other taxa and to no ones fault one would expect a long nomenclatural history. All this is complicated by variabilty introduced by cultivation. Lastly .. Who really is the taxonamist ? Does anyone or a single group really have the final word ? A hobbyist could very well bethe "expert". I would guess that in many groups of plants it is much easier for a single expert or small group of experts to agree and set nomenclature. In other popular groups of plants their is a very large audience that needs to agree on who is called what and why. More chance for disagreements and even intentional "revolts" against name changes. Just some more thoughts ... good chatting with you .. thanks for the Journal references ... very helpful !! Good Day ...

I always thought it was a bumbling flight or a Brownian motion; I'll look again, if the temperature ever hits 70. I hope it's a lolloping flight, it sounds better! Perhaps that entomologist naming rule applies to other areas of science as well. After all, Einstein's name isn't "relativity". It may be that lepidoptera taxonomy is a gentleman's game, like golf. In other words, I don't know! Well, thanks for the list-kudos; maybe it will help promote more use of the scientific names on this forum. Also, note that many of the genus and species words are not Latin; there are Greek words sprinkled in. Even the word "taxonomy" has Greek origins. An amusing word-play list of scientific names

Sorry for leaving you questions unanswered for so long. I googled "John Brooke" for hints of what he might be getting at but came up with only variations of the statement quoted above. At this point, I'm not even sure what "cultural meaning" means. So, we might as well discuss ID. This article in today's NYTimes about the Board's redefinition of "Science" is alarming. It takes care of the problem with muddling the distinction of science and faith, making them one in the same. What if the U.S. Supreme Court is left to decide this issue? Yikes! Philosophers Notwithstanding, Kansas School Board Redefines Science By DENNIS OVERBYE Published: November 15, 2005 Once it was the left who wanted to redefine science. In the early 1990's, writers like the Czech playwright and former president Vaclav Havel and the French philosopher Bruno Latour proclaimed "the end of objectivity." The laws of science were constructed rather than discovered, some academics said; science was just another way of looking at the world, a servant of corporate and military interests. Everybody had a claim on truth. The right defended the traditional notion of science back then. Now it is the right that is trying to change it. On Tuesday, fueled by the popular opposition to the Darwinian theory of evolution, the Kansas State Board of Education stepped into this fraught philosophical territory. In the course of revising the state's science standards to include criticism of evolution, the board promulgated a new definition of science itself. The changes in the official state definition are subtle and lawyerly, and involve mainly the removal of two words: "natural explanations." But they are a red flag to scientists, who say the changes obliterate the distinction between the natural and the supernatural that goes back to Galileo and the foundations of science. The old definition reads in part, "Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us." The new one calls science "a systematic method of continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena." Adrian Melott, a physics professor at the University of Kansas who has long been fighting Darwin's opponents, said, "The only reason to take out 'natural explanations' is if you want to open the door to supernatural explanations." Here is a link that might be useful: nytimes