Bumblebee and honeybee populations have been declining quickly over the past couple of decades. This event has been dubbed the Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. Beekeepers and researchers have been baffled, unable to determine what causes this sudden declination.

But just last week, researchers at the University of Stirling, UK and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) conducted two separate studies that point to the culprit: commonly used pesticides, which have been proven to damage the bees’ central nervous systems and homing abilities (learning and memory skills for remember the paths to the plants) and affects the birth of queens for colony growth.

The decline is believed to have been caused specifically by neonitinoid insecticides (which is a class of chemicals), which have been used since the early 90s. The bees pick up the pesticide along with the pollen and transfer it to other plants and bring it home to their hives, making other bees susceptible to the poison.

“Some bumblebee species have declined hugely,” Dave Goulson of the University of Stirling in Stirling, U.K. says in the  AAAS news release. “For example in North America, several bumblebee species which used to be common have more or less disappeared from the entire continent. In the U.K., three species have gone extinct.”

The study at Stirling University worked with bumblebees, a couple colonies of which were exposed to low levels (low enough to not be fatal) of the chemical imidacloprid – which is found in many brands such as Gaucho, Conguard, and Xytect – while a couple more were not. The researchers weighed all of the hives separately to determine how much each would grow by the end of the experiment.

They placed the bumblebees in an enclosed space outdoors for six weeks so they could go about their business in natural conditions. It turned out the exposed colonies gained less weight. The hives were 8-12% smaller. The population decreased as wells the amount of honey/nectar. Also, these hives contained 85% fewer queens (2 queens compared to 14 produced by unexposed colonies) in comparison to the unexposed hives.

The researchers in Avignon, France worked with honeybees. They gave one colony nonlethal doses of thiamethoxam, another chemical found in pesticides. Next, they tagged honeybees with radio-frequency identification microchips to track them. Following the experiment, the researchers found out that the colonies with the infected bees were 2 to 3 times more likely to die than nonexposed colonies. The pesticides were believed to have greatly damaged the bees’ homing systems, reducing the amount of nectar brought the colonies.

The INRA researchers conducted a second study in which they produced a mathematical model of the dynamics of honeybee populations. When the failure of the homing abilities was incorporated, the model predicted honeybee colonies would be impossible to recover at a certain point.

In addition to the honeybees and bumblebees, all other kinds of bees pollinate major vegetable and fruit crops as well as flowers. Because of their waning populations, farms would face dilemmas for the lack of pollination, which would instigate a decrease in the development of crops.

“There are obviously big question marks as to whether the safety testing that was done on these was really adequate,” Goulson adds.

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Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is rolling out in theatres on June 29, 2011, but will it live up to the hype? The first Transformers movie was an enormous hit. Even people who do not like Michael Bay’s blow’em up action style had a pretty enjoyable time watching the first movie. It was clear and had a straightforward story that had nice, subtle comedic tones to it. The following movie did well in the box office, but did not have the story to back up the numbers. Recycling the plot with the Allspark and lacking depth in the characters led to many people feeling angry and unsatisfied when coming out of the theatre. With two Transformers movies finished, and with polarizing outcomes for both, the third and final film will be the wild card of the three.

Michael Bay has had his fair share of criticisms. Some say he is all explosions and no talk. Some say he cuts shots too quickly. No matter what the criticisms he receives, he sticks by his style. Complete with robot monstrosities, big explosions, and a beautiful damsel in distress, it feels like a Michael Bay flick. So, if you hated the last two Transformers, or any other Michael Bay movie, then this movie is not for you.

Speaking of damsels in distress the movie franchise has a new romantic interest replacing Megan Fox. Playing the new female lead is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, a Victorian Secret’s model turned actor. This is her first movie she has acted in, and it seems like a gamble. Will she have the necessary expertise or feel for acting in movies? In an interview with Access Hollywood, Huntington-Whiteley said she did not know much about Transformers, but Shia LaBeouf had held her hand  through the whole process, answering her various acting and transformer questions.

With the rise of 3D movies, Paramount/DreamWorks wanted Transformers to jump on the bandwagon. Although, Bay believes that 3D movies are gimmicks, he reluctantly agreed. He shot the majority of the movie on James Cameron’s 3D camera (the PACE) on the set of Transformers 3. This is a marvelous thing for 3D fans. When shot on a 3D camera, the images have a better quality to them than when converted to 3D during post-production. This is mainly because when converting to 3D in post-production, it is harder to get a visual for the left eye. So there is a picture for your right eye, but not for your left. Doing this is difficult, so the image quality usually suffers. Shooting with the PACE is an excellent camera to capture 3D. In fact, it is the same camera that James Cameron used to shoot Avatar, so the 3D images will look phenomenal on the big screen.

With many people bashing Micheal Bay’s film style and the risk with having a rookie film actor, Transformers 3 raises a lot of questions. The movie seems to be walking a very fine line between landing flat on its face or its feet. The pros and the cons seem to balance each other out. Having a rookie film actor on set can be a challenge, but with a veteran on set like Shia LaBoeuf helping Huntington-Whiteley every step of the way it may turn out well. This goes for the visuals as well. Even with Bay’s over the top explosions and effects, the 3D will look extremely crisp if done right. What it comes down to is that the movie will have exciting energy and enticing effects, but will the story be powerful enough to pluck the audience’s heartstrings?

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