>Scientists got wise to the presence of synchronous fireflies in the U.S. in the 1990’s, thanks to the efforts of Faust, a citizen naturalist. “Growing up in east Tennessee, we called them lightning bugs. They're just part of summer,” she says.
In the early 1990’s, Faust read an article in a science news magazine that said there were no synchronous fireflies in the Western Hemisphere. “I thought, ‘Ours are synchronous – who do I tell this to?’” she recalls.
She wrote a letter to researchers, who came to Tennessee and studied those fireflies for the next twenty years.
[src] https://www.npr.org/2024/05/24/g-s1-935/synchronous-fireflie...
There's a lot of stuff in the world that's unique and special, but isn't common knowledge on the internet. I think more people should go out and look around for themselves!
Still, neat, to be sure. Indeed, my point in the original post was that I find the wildlife out here in the PNW to be very fun and I like all of the wildlife we have. Banana slugs, as a fun example.
And I hasten to add, plenty of other amazing creatures.
https://www.npr.org/2012/10/05/162347192/the-last-word-in-bu...
>Flavour-wise, she says, "to my untrained palate, the honey really does taste purple, in a grape-y sort of way".
Oh no
Kudzu flowers were listed as one of the possibilities in the article.
Basically "this bloody mary sure does have a hint of pizza to it" but one level lower (chemical level rather than the tomato ingredient level).
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/121011-bl...
During the peak of the Manuka honey bubble, people were supposedly spiking competitors honey by putting out coloured sugar water here in New Zealand.
Unsure if that’s true or just a rumour.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/nyregion/secret-marijuana...
I’d bet on some kind of contamination as others have already mentioned.
Any sort of science reporting is shot through with this sort of thing.
> At N.C. State University, Professor John Ambrose, an entomologist and assistant vice provost of undergraduate affairs and director of N.C. State’s First Year College program, performed a series of tests in the 1970s to pinpoint the source of the blue honey. The result: nothing is what it seems. [...]
> Ambrose concluded that some of that aluminum ended up in the flowers’ nectar, was transferred to the hive, then added to the bees’ acidic digestive fluid to make blue honey.
Unfortunately no one believes him and he's no longer around to defend himself:
> This story appeared in the April 2010 issue of Our State. Professor John Ambrose died in January 2015 after a short battle with brain cancer.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/23/honey-nuclea...
I ended up eating all of it in a year instead.
I guess it turns out it was not.
Despite not liking that part of the plot, it was a beautifully written book, that permanently changed some of my reading habit's.
https://www.npr.org/2012/10/05/162347192/the-last-word-in-bu...
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45803097
We also got blue honey ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32801032 ) and cannabis honey ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11221651 )
Borrible•1mo ago
So, Kudzu?
Or Industrial waste like in France around 2012?
https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/blue-and-green-hon...
https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/blue-and-green-hon...
And on Banggi, a Malaysian island, there is supposedly green honey!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361629042_Physicoch...
cainxinth•1mo ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/nyregion/30bigcity.html
Unrelated, but that led to the police finding a marijuana grow operation in the basement:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/nyregion/secret-marijuana...
pama•1mo ago
Rebelgecko•1mo ago
js2•1mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46501058