Bees have the reputation of being incredibly organized and spending their days making sure our food ecosystem is functioning. Neither is accurate. Unless you are an almond farmer in California and rented bees that were delivered in giant trucks, they have no impact on your food, and they are also not working non-stop for the hive.

Instead, they may be genetically wired to beg for food.

Male bees -“drones” - actually cannot digest pollen, the most important source of protein for bees. To avoid starvation, they depend on worker bees feeding them a pre-processed paste that workers make from pollen. It's not a communist love-fest, though, drones instead must convince workers to provide the food.

Over time, they evolved to be able to beg.

While 2025 will arguably not be remembered as a very positive year for humankind, for many reasons - first and foremost, raging wars and raising inequalities -, as we near its end some have tried to find good things to say about this particular revolution of our planet around the Sun. 
And who am I to blow against the wind? I have to tell you, 2025 for me has been a formidable year. But before I go into a list of achievements, let me paint this rosy picture in broad strokes. 

Professional achievements

You’re in your mid-40s, eating healthy and exercising regularly. It’s the same routine that has worked for years.

Yet lately, the number on the scale is creeping up. Clothes fit differently. A bit of belly fat appears, seemingly overnight. You remember your mother’s frustration with the endless dieting, the extra cardio, the talk about “menopause weight.” But you’re still getting your periods. Menopause should be at least half a decade away.

So what’s really going on?

High blood pressure is an important risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease and premature death. Medication can reduce those risks so it makes sense that if someone is prescribed an angiotensin receptor blocker like Losartan continue to take it.

Yet people don't. A new cohort from Sweden using over 341,000 participants found that fewer than half were on their medication up to three years later. It can't be cost, their health care is overwhelmingly subsidized. It may be side effects.

The Monday after New Year's is colloquially called Divorce Day, but it's more than marriages ending. Lots of people in longer relationships, and certainly seasonal holidates, just want to get through the holidays before pulling the plug. That Monday this year is January 5th.

Alone may be better, something better may be out there as well, but it may also be the case that one or both people simply have unrealistic expectations that their TV movie fantasy should be reality.

Christmas can be hard. For some people, it increases loneliness, grief, hopelessness and family tension, and the festive season has a way of turning ordinary concerns into urgent ones. Not because something terrible is guaranteed to happen, but because more is often at stake: money, time, family dynamics, travel and expectations.

A large study found a small but consistent dip in people’s wellbeing in the run-up to Christmas. One psychological process that often shows up under this pressure is worry.

A small, icy moon of Saturn called Enceladus is one of the prime targets in the search for life elsewhere in the solar system. A new study strengthens the case for Enceladus being a habitable world.

The data for those new research findings comes from the Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004-2017. In 2005, Cassini discovered geyser-like plumes of water vapor and ice grains erupting continuously out of cracks in Enceladus’ icy shell.

Desire to have a short-term companion for the holidays - a "holidate" - is common enough that it gets its own portmanteau but the reasons may not always be positive. A survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association found that 43 percent of U.S. adults report stress levels during this time of year high enough it makes the season difficult to enjoy.

The pressure is all the usual stuff some people struggle more than others over, like money and difficult families, but they are magnified in this narrow window of time. It may be why Thanksgiving is the source of so many angry, depressing movies. 

A recent survey by found that over 28 percent of adults claim they have an intimate, even romantic relationship, with an LLM (Large Language Model), colloquially deemed Artificial Intelligence - "AI".(1)

It seems plausible because 41 percent of people believe in psychics and ghosts.

What may be surprising is the demographics of the people embracing this new technology. It isn't young people, they know it's not real, it is Baby Boomers. Not only are they fine with AI relationships, over 50 percent say they can engage in a romantic relationship with an AI guilt-free.

Ford is the latest company to take a massive write-off on current electric car production- nearly $20 billion. Because making them would be even more costly.