close
US

BITS ‘N’ PIECES

By Usama Rasheed
Fri, 03, 18



Elephants are very scared of bees.
That could save their lives

Elephants are so terrified of bees that they will flap their ears, stir up dust and make noises when they hear the buzz of a beehive.

The threat of bees is so intensely felt by elephants that conservationists are using it to help prevent the kinds of conflict that put the behemoths at risk. The endangered animals have sometimes been shot by farmers trying to save their crops from elephants foraging at night for late-night snacks, or by poachers allowed access to help guard the fields.

Now there’s a weapon - and a mutually beneficial one - in the arsenal. In recent years, researchers and advocates have persuaded farmers to use the elephant’s fear of bees as a potential fence line to protect crops. By stringing beehives every 20 meters - alternating with fake hives - a team of researchers in Africa has shown that they can keep 80 percent of elephants away from farmland.

It’s the first step toward showing that the control strategy can also work in countries like Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and Thailand, where Asian elephants are 10 times more endangered than their African cousins.

Women outnumber men at Oxford for the first time in 800 years

Oxford University has admitted more women than men onto its undergraduate courses for the first time in its more than 800-year history.

This represents perhaps the most significant milestone in the drive for gender equality at the university since previously all-male colleges began to accept women students more than 40 years ago.

While 1,275 women received offers to study at Oxford last year, 1,070 got the grades they needed to take up the place. This compares with offers for 1,165 men, of whom 1,025 met the required standard.

But while gender equality has improved, the figures show there are still significant barriers facing students from disadvantaged backgrounds and ethnic minorities.

Students from the richest areas were more than 10 times more likely than their peers from the poorest backgrounds to attend high-tariff universities.

Black students were also the least likely to receive offers from elite universities, when compared with students from other ethnic groups with similar academic records.