Imagine you are negotiating with a documentary maker to film your expensive and precious home.

You are unsure about it, but are reassured that there are fixed procedures to follow; documents to sign and insurance policies to review. The producer seems genuinely concerned that you are happy with the filming process.

It’s bee season and now’s the time to go outside and observe these popular insects.

Bees hold a relatively special place in people’s affections – we have them to thank for honey, of course, and they’re also essential pollinators of many food crops and wild plants.

But most bees aren’t the snazzy hive-dwelling orange and black characters we know so well. In fact, there are around 20,000 species of bee globally and just seven of these are honeybees, and the vast majority of honeybee colonies belong to only one species: Apis mellifera.

As scientists, my colleagues and I are often told we need to engage the general public and decision makers, to use our expertise to inform public discourse and debates and to reach a far wider audience than just our professional colleagues.

I very much believe in the importance of doing this. This is, for instance, my 25th article for The Conversation. I’ve also written scores of articles for other popular venues such as New Scientist, Natural History, Yale Environment 360, Australian Geographic, the Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times, among others.

A growing body of advice suggests doing small amounts of moderate exercise can make a significant difference to your health.

As a tenured professor and mother of four young sons, I am constantly asked, “How do you do it?” What people mean is: “How can you have a full-time job and still manage child care and housework?”

I usually respond, “High-quality husband and high-quality child care, in that order.” From the outset, my husband, a full-time, clinical pharmacist, has been a committed partner in caring for our house and raising our children.

But I’ve learned that, with our equal division of housework and child care, he’s an outlier. There may be some like him, but our research group at The Ohio State University recently discovered that such husbands in dual-earner households are, indeed, rare.

Virtual reality (VR) equipment has tended to be cumbersome and expensive, all heavy headsets and awkward gloves.

Until recently it’s been beyond the reach of the home consumer, but with the appearance of Oculus Rift (since bought by Facebook), Microsoft’s HoloLens, and even DIY options such as Google Cardboard, it seems VR is coming to a living room near you soon.