When Science Goes Bad: The killer bee--or how we hoped for more honey, but, yeah, that didn't pan out.

Science performs a multitude of greater good for humanity. But there are those fleeting times science goes off-the-rails in head-shaking, sigh-inducing fashion. This is where we point to those great moments mistakes in science.

Today:  That time bees were bred to make more honey, but instead became "killer" bees.


In the late 1960s and 1970s, American media reports exploded about the impending arrival of bees from South America so frightening and deadly that the United States would have chaos on their hands.

Bee-themed horror movies became all the rage. There was 1966's The Deadly Bees, 1974's more dramatic Killer Bees, and by 1976 the point was really driven home with The Savage Bees. Not to be outdone, 1978 produced a bumper crop of schlock with The Swarm (starring Michael Caine!), Terror Out of The Sky, and the rather bland-titled The Bees, but with the added tag of "They prey on human flesh!" You didn't know bees prey on flesh? You do now.

It's very helpful of the bees to avoid her eyes.

Who hasn't been attacked by bees while wearing a bikini?

This fear sweeping America all began innocently and harmlessly twenty years earlier and 6,000 miles away, rooted in an earnest attempt to improve honey-production in the Brazilian Amazon forests.

It's not that bees don't exist in South America. They do. Bees exist on every continent except Antarctica. Yet, some bees produce honey in greater quantities than others, partly based on their environment. But one such environment that they struggle in? Brazil's Amazon--and here is where the problem evolves.

In 1956, Professor and biologist Warwick E. Kerr looked to create a bee species that could withstand the strenuous Brazilian climate while producing significantly more honey. What he came up with was a blend of the western honey bee (aka: European honey bee) and the East African lowland honey bee. This appeared to be a perfect blend of talents. With the western/European honey bee, one had a fairly docile species with an abundance of honey production. Meanwhile, the East African honey bee produced less honey, but could withstand heat and humidity in South America.

The one caveat is that the East African honey bee--for lack of a better phrase--has a bit of an attitude when provoked, but kept their attitude in check as their own species.

This is not how the bee feels about your breakfast.

At his apiary outside Rio Claro, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Professor Kerr interbred the two species of bees, using queen bees from South Africa and Tanzania, and creating dozens of well-contained swarms for analysis. It was during this analysis that research noted one Tanzanian queen bee led to an interbred hive that seemed rather hostile and defensive, more so than expected or common.

Nonetheless, Kerr and his team utilized a "queen excluder" in the enclosed hives--a device used to allow access for traversing worker bees, but not the larger queen. Everything seemed to be working wonderfully. Multitudes of swarms bustled, a new species appeared feisty, and all of this was kept under strict examination.

That is until October of 1957, when one simple mistake occurred. According to Kerr, a visiting beekeeper believed the "queen excluder" was making life difficult on the worker bees. This visiting beekeeper, being a kindly gentleman, removed the "queen excluder" to alleviate worker bee difficulties--and in the process accidentally unleashed 26 swarms of the new bees into the wild.

And that was that.

Run, Michael Caine! Run for your life!

The newly developed bee species (and 26 "daughter queens" from the original Tanzanian queen) ran freely into Brazil, displaying its now overly-developed sense of hostility, and interbreeding with other western/European bee species long native to the continent. Rapidly they swept country to country throughout South America, moving into Central America in 1982 and Mexico by 1985.

And, as Hollywood feared, they finally arrived in the United States, too. By 1985, they piggybacked on oil field machinery arriving in California. Then, in 1990, the first permanent colony was discovered in Texas.

Oh, who ticked them off?

Were they as fearsome and deadly as believed? Did they kill at random? Were they worthy of low-level, low-budget horror movies with or without Michael Caine? Well, yes and no. When provoked, the "Africanized bee" (not to be confused with the "African bee") are highly defensive of their hive, they swarm in much greater numbers, and have more "guard" bees than other bee species.

This leads to occasional chaos. As the BBC News Magazine reported even in 2014, random chance encounters led to a swarm of 30,000 bees attacking a couple in Texas and killing their miniature horses, 40,000 bees killing another man in the Lone Star state, 100,000 bees attacking park employees in Florida (who survived), and an estimated swarm of 800,000 killing a man in Arizona.

In 2019, a New Mexico town closed a park after two employees survived an attack. As US News & World Report mentioned, "Officials say the town will let the bees calm down and seek a bee expert to remove them." Yes, sometimes even bees need a breather to relax.

And reports within the last year keep coming:

An attack in Pasadena, CA, where fire fighters were swarmed.

Two men died in Crossroads, TX--one while mowing his lawn--after separate attacks.

A Code Red was issued in Breckenridge, TX, after a swarm bombarded a person, while citizens were told to shelter in their homes.

Four dogs were swarmed in San Tan Valley, AZ, with one dying from an attack.

And it goes on and on and on and on...

Are the bees angrier and deadlier than other bees? Yes. Will you likely ever encounter a swarm? No. Were all the movies warranted? No. Did Michael Caine look for a quick buck and easy paycheck? Probably.

The intentions were good. Science looked to make a heartier bee that would still produce honey. Instead, it made an angry bee that sometimes needs to let off a little steam. And it all occurred because a visiting beekeeper one day wanted to help the worker bees stretch their legs a little bit.



As a side note: Michael Caine wasn't the only celebrity to appear in The Swarm, just the lead actor. Oscar winners Olivia de Havilland and Henry Fonda made cameos as well. It was a veritable who's who of money-grabbing celebrities.

A box office failure, The Swarm was actually nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, so, if anything, everyone in the cast looks dashing.

Two incoming freshman at Texas State University just spent twenty hours remodeling their new dorm room.

Okay, okay--let's be clear--no relatively sane freshman has the time or money to invest in a dorm room to this level. A couple of plastic tubs for storage and a feather duster is about as high-end as most dorms get.

But incoming Texas State University freshmen Skylar Bantz and Adeline Vela have a lot of time on their hands and come from delightfully obsessive families, the type that make holiday gatherings so enjoyably uncomfortable and the inspiration for Hollywood scriptwriters everywhere.

Bantz and Vela met through an online chat group before becoming roommates, and they spent the summer texting plans for how they wanted their dorm to look. Bantz's mother proudly posted pictures on Facebook and let the world know seven people and twenty hours worth of work went into the transformation. The price tag? $2,400.






It turns out that the Bantz family is a beauty pageant family, which explains 75% of how this remotely came about.

The other 25%? It's Texas.




We all admit that in two weeks' time this dorm room will look like a volcano of clothes erupted all over the floor, right?

Public university president? No worries if you're in Texas.

Good news if you're the president of a public college or university and find that a salary under a million dollars, bonuses, and special accommodations aren't enough for your struggling lifestyle of driving only a Maserati. According to Forbes, things are looking up, especially if you're in Texas.

The Chronicle of Higher Education released their latest report on the highest paid public school presidents and chancellors, and two of the top three--and three of the top ten--come from the Texas system, all of whom made over seven figure salaries.

News gets even better for the poor schlub presidents scraping by on $800,000 a year: Salaries rose by 5%, on average, for public school administrators. This is compared to the usual 2-3% annual raise typically seen.

So who are the top ten paid public university presidents and chancellors?

1. Michael Crow, President, Arizona State University $1,554,058

2. William McRaven, Chancellor, University of Texas system $1,500,000

3. John Sharp, Chancellor, Texas A&M University system office, $1,280,438

4. W. Kent Fuchs, President, University of Florida, $1,102,862

5. Michael A. McRobbie, President Indiana University system $1,067,074

6. Eric J. Barron, President, Pennsylvania State University at University Park, $1,039,717

7. Michael V. Drake, President, Ohio State University, $1,034,574

8. Michael K. Young, President, Texas A&M at College Station, $1,000,000

9. Jean E. Robillard, Interim President, University of Iowa, $929,045

10. Raymond Watts, President, University of Alabama at Birmingham, $890,000

Let's not forget that both Texas A&M and the University of Texas' head football coaches made roughly $5 million EACH last year. The basketball coaches? Potentially around $3 million.

I already knew the stereotype that everything was bigger in Texas. I just never knew that meant public higher education salaries as well.



Let's not kid ourselves, though. Tenured faculty is always told there is no room in the budget for salary increases. Likewise, colleges and universities--public and private--are relying more and more on assistant professors that can be paid on the cheap with little to no benefits offered.

But at least the administrators found money in the budget for themselves. Phew--I was worried there for a moment.

Poet can't answer questions about her own work that appears on a standardized test.

Modern standardized testing exists.

That's about the only positive that can be said about it these days, and even that's not a positive thing.

Many parents want it to justify their child's educational success or failure, yet they don't want the standardized tests that are given because of personal, moral, or educational beliefs.

And:

Educators despise wasting weeks teaching toward these tests, and then spending more time to administer those very same tests.

And:

Administrators justify the testing as a means to show they're serious about improving education, yet have no other ideas or suggestions how to improve education except to enforce a standardized test upon educators and students in a one-size-fits-all model.

And:

Local, state, and federal government officials largely have no reasonable idea how actual education works, yet they pass legislation demanding standardized tests be given at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, per state, often to for-profit companies with little oversight.

And now this:

Which brings us to Sara Holbrook, a poet of merit, who recently found some of her work included on a Texas standardized test. The problem for Holbrook? As she wrote originally on the Huffington Post, the questions asked about her poetry were so open-ended and vague, even she didn't know the answer. That would seem to be a wee bit of a problem.

Many of the questions demand to know the motivations of the writer--except the test-creators never actually asked Holbrook her motivation or thought process in the poems used, so how would they know the answer? As Holbrook notes, often these tests examine dead writers' work. Dead writers are often quiet on the matter of standardized tests.

Or, as she concludes in her Huffington Post article:

"My final reflection is this: any test that questions the motivations of the author without asking the author is a big baloney sandwich. Mostly test makers do this to dead people who can’t protest. But I’m not dead.

I protest."

Library cat is rehired by Texas town after initially being fired.

In a shocking twist, Browser realizes he's illiterate.

After six years of dutifully performing his job as the local library's mascot and resident mouse hunter, Browser the cat was fired by the city council of White Settlement, Texas, by a vote of 2-1 in a scandal that nearly brought the fundamentals of American government grinding to a halt.

Initially, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported the news:

"Declaring that 'City Hall and city businesses are no place for animals,' Councilman Elzie Clements led what Browser's fans call a sneak attack ..."

Clements called for the council vote. Admittedly, Browser has a shoddy work ethic. Described by the library as an "ornery kitten" when they first found him, The Dallas Morning News said that Browser "spends a good deal of time napping, lounging and sneaking out the door." Typical government employee shenanigans!

Yet, White Settlement mayor, Ron White, says he believed the vote developed after a city worker was denied bringing their puppy to city hall.

Considering how America as a nation doesn't trust Texas to be left alone with itself, petitions were created to stop Browser the cat from being fired. Over 1,000 messages from around the globe poured into the small town, asking to keep the library layabout on the job.

The city council blinked. By a unanimous vote, Browser was told he won't get a pink slip.

When reached for comment, Browser yawned and dozed back off to sleep (probably).




Photo: AP, via The Daily Mail


If you're sitting there wondering if the name "White Settlement" is as racist-y as it sounds, you'd be correct! It turns out there used to be two settlements nearby one another--one of white people and one of Native Americans. Being Texas, the welcoming white people decided to formerly name themselves the blatantly obvious and officially call their community White Settlement so no one would ever mistake them as otherwise. The city was incorporated in 1941. By 2005, a proposal was brought forth to change the name to West Settlement. You know, because it's the 21st century and whatnot. And in a city-wide vote, the proposal was voted down 2388 to 219, proving once and for all that Texas has its fingers on the pulse of the 1820s.

...and Louisiana definitely can't spell "definitely."

It was the week of the National Spelling Bee, when every awkward 6-to-14 year old who will be your future boss got on stage and impressed everyone with knowledge of obscure Latin-by-way-of-Middle-French words. This led everyone to question their own personal spelling abilities--and that's where Google came in.

The Great Google Machine dove into its search trends and found the most misspelled word by each state. They used search queries that started with "how to spell" followed by the word troubling people. The results turned out to be a snapshot of each state's psyche.

New Hampshire can't spell "diarrhea," nor can Arizona.

Florida struggles with "tomorrow," potentially because half of its residents might die before then.

South Dakota trips up on "gray," as the cold, desolate misery of living there infects their spelling. Michigan has "gray" concerns as well. But, you know. Michigan.

Minnesota wonders how to spell "broccoli," a mythical vegetable believed by locals to exist in faraway warmer climates.

Texas can't spell "niece," nor Nevada "cousin." Two words tripping up thousands of married couples in each state since the 1850s.

And then there's Massachusetts...which can't spell itself. That's right. The state with the most letters in its name, haphazardly thrown together as if blended in a Cuisinart, is troubling its own citizens to such a degree that people turn to Google for help.

Ohio doesn't have such problems since saying the state's name out loud practically spells itself. But Ohio can't spell "banana," so what do they know?

Somehow or another, the National Spelling Bee ended in a tie for the third straight year.

Nihar Janga, 11, from Austin, Texas, and Jairam Hathwar, 13, of Painted Post, New York, are co-champions of the 2016 National Spelling Bee.

This--THIS!--after organizers of the bee changed the rules so that a marathon final round wouldn't occur, with harder and more obscure words at play.

But no. Janga and Hathwar made sure of that. Even when one contestant misspelled a word and opened up a chance for the other to win, another misspelling was to be had.

Things became so tense and cutthroat, Janga started throwing some shade of the nonverbal kind:





The dolphin clap in the face, too? Janga's just cold. "I'm just speechless," he said. "I'm only in the fifth grade." And you thought little six year old Akash knew how to humblebrag.

In the end, the two winners earn $40,000 and 15 minutes of fame having started 14 minutes ago.

"Schoolie McSchoolface" should be the name of a Texas elementary school.

The Austin, TX, school district recently decided to rename the Robert E. Lee Elementary School. This being Texas, people built themselves into a lather over such a decision, despite the small fact that the Confederacy lost the war and all. Nothing says 'Merica! like naming a school after someone who failed. Bonus points for racial undertones, too.

An open call for a new school name was held and the public responded with alternatives. The list includes--but is not limited to--the following fine, classy, and verbatim selections:

Austin Taliban Elementary School
Ayn Rand Elementary
Bleeding Heart Liberal Elementary
Adolf Hitler School for Friendship and Tolerance (eight nominations)
Bruce Lee Elementary (three nominations)
Communist Elementary
Drew Brees Elementary (three nominations)
Dwayne Johnson Elementary School
Flava Flav Elementary
Forgetting Your Past Dooms You to Repeat It Elementary
Generic School Name
Hypothetical Perfect Person Memorial Elementary School
IGNORANCE IS BLISS ELEMENTARY
James Earl Ray Elementary School
Jefferson Davis Elementary (three nominations)
John Cena Elementary School
Kanye West Elementary (two nominations)
Kim Il-Sung High School (two nominations)
Leadership & Excellence in Education (LEE)
Lee Elementary (thirteen nominations)
Lil Jon Elementary
Malcolm X (two nominations)
Nathan Bedford Forrest Elementary School (two nominations)
Neil deGrasse Tyson
O.J. Simpson Elementary
Pat Tillman Elementary School (four nominations)
Politically Correct Elementary School #1
Raul Castro Elementary
Revisionist Elementary School
Richard Pryor Elementary (six nominations)
Rudolf Hess Primary
School of Progressive and Socialist Studies
Schoolie McSchoolface
Schooly McSchoolerson (two nominations)
Schooly McSchoolerton
Spike Lee Elementary (four nominations)
Texas Declaration of Independence
The Elementary School Formerly Known as Robert E. Lee (two nominations)
The Illuminati
The Rubber Duckies
Traitor
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Elementary School
Werner von Braun Institute of Science and Technology
Willie Nelson Elementary (two nominations)

There were other random nominees as well, including a shoutout to Appamattox Court House--located in Virginia, mind you--where the Civil War ended, except the individual who nominated the historic building spelled it "Appamaattox." Admittedly, it's easy to get carried away with double letters.

The big winner was Donald J. Trump Elementary with 45 nominations. Harper Lee, related in name only to General Lee and native of Alabama and New York, neither of which was Texas last anyone checked a map, came in fourth place with 30 nominations.

No final decision has been made, but I think the country and Texans alike can come together over Schoolie McSchoolface. It conjures images of a cartoon character and a McDonald's Happy Meal. And isn't that what American education is really all about?

Dallas doctor shows others how literature can make for better physicians.

Cardiologist Dr. John Harper of Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas hospital loves literature, so much so that he now holds an annual "Literature + Medicine" conference, which will be held again this month.

"Reading makes us better people," Harper tells the Dallas Morning News. "[A]nd better people are better doctors."

Harper also holds a weekly "Coffee with Cardiology" teaching session, where he introduces students not only to various cases during rounds, but essays and poems and short stories that might open their minds. And it's not just literature Harper encourages, but various pieces of music as well.

But why the humanities when there's so much to learn in medicine?

"I was struck when I practiced medicine how hard it was to blend science and still become an appropriately emotional person with thoughts," Harper said. "I read literature and poems and essays and found they helped me formalize my thoughts, to express myself better."

But Harper doesn't delude himself into thinking he's in the majority in the world of medicine.

"There are some who think I’m totally out to lunch," he said. "And that’s okay."

Texas A&M University receives rare first edition copy of 'The Hobbit' from George R.R. Martin

Smaug looks thinner than expected.

Over the years, Texas A&M University has developed one of the finest collection of books in the world. From Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote de la Mancha, parts I and II, dating from 1617, to Walt Whitman's 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, the university has made a way of celebrating every new millionth book added to its collection.

Now, George R.R. Martin has donated a rare first edition of J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit, one of only 1,500 copies ever published, to celebrate A&M's five-millionth book.

In a speech commemorating the donation, Martin stressed the need for libraries and preservation. "The stories that we tell each other, the stories that we grow up on, the stories that help shape our values and shape our lives, we still love and remember," he said. "This is the stuff that should be preserved.”



There's waaaaay too many Rs going on in the names here.

Map of banned books shows that Texas and Connecticut finally have something in common.

Being Banned Books Week--the American Library Association's week-long focus on everything censored in literature--the Huffington Post put together a map detailing which states have had the most books challenged since 2013.

Oregon, North Carolina, Connecticut, and Texas all lead the way, showing how attempts at censorship reach every corner of America. The the first three states each cracked at least 10 attempts at book removal. But Texas? Everything's bigger in Texas. Texas is an overachiever at attempted censorship, with 114 cases since 2013.

On the flip side, this is also one of the few times Massachusetts and Nebraska have ever been equals at anything.

They both have had zero documented attempts at book censorship during that same period.



Map/Infographic: Huffington Post

Houston Chronicle sportswriter eats newspaper after being reminded about his poor predictive abilities.

Football is religion in Texas, where even Jesus takes a backseat if there's a good game going on.

The Houston Texans had the first pick in the NFL Draft last week, and in the months leading up to that moment 'experts' made predictions on what player the Texans would select. This included Houston Chronicle sportswriter John McClain, who played cute back in March with this tweet:

I've said on Sports Radio 610 in Houston that I'll eat the front page of the Chron's draft day section if Texans don't pick a QB. Yummy!
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) March 3, 2014

Fast forward to last week, and the Houston Texans had no interest in drafting a quarterback, which McClain was reminded about nearly immediately by his followers.

I've been reminded that I said months ago I'd eat the front of the Chron sports page if Texans don't take QB in first round. I guess I will.
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) May 8, 2014

Where's that foodie enthusiasm now?

Apparently realizing a little extra fiber in the diet never hurt anyone, McClain changed his tune and embraced the idea of, truly, eating his words.

You've obviously eaten chicken strips. Tomorrow at Reliant Stadium, I'll be eating Chronicle strips since Texans won't be taking QB N 1st rd
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) May 8, 2014

Chronicle strips, a little shredded carrot, some red cabbage, a dash of dressing, and you've got yourself a solid cole slaw.

But McClain eventually goes full Hannibal Lecter and accepts his fate.

In 35 drafts I've eaten a lot of crow. This will be first time I've eaten a newspaper. Just the front page, actually. I need a nice Chianti.
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) May 8, 2014

True to his word, John McClain sat down for dinner, accompanied by the front page of the sports section, and started eating his words, as seen here.





"It's actually quite tasty" might be stretching it a bit, but Texas has never been known for its culinary masterpieces.

How many public schools teach creationism in America?

It's a question Slate decided to document via a map.

Whether it's a public school, or just a tax-funded charter institution, schools in Texas, Utah, Florida, Oklahoma, Georgia, Indiana and countless others receive some sort of taxpayer money, yet also are allowed to blur the line between church and state.

All public schools in Louisiana and Tennessee--those great bedrocks of forward scientific thought--are allowed to teach creationism (whether or not they choose to do so is unknown), whereas the state's largest charter program in Texas, Responsive Ed, takes it a step further. As Slate describes:

The state’s largest charter program, Responsive Ed, receives $82 million in taxpayer money each year, but that hasn’t stopped its schools from adopting a creationist curriculum that seriously misrepresents the science of evolution. These materials wrongly portray the fossil record and the age of Earth as scientifically controversial, assert that there is a lack of “transitional fossils,” and claim evolution is untestable.

Damn right! Earth might be 4.540 billion years old, it might be 4.54001 billion years old--we can't handle this kind of controversy!




Map: Portion of Slate map, found here.

High school algebra teacher leaves school to become backup quarterback for one NFL game.

Granted, Jon Kitna used to be an NFL quarterback a few years ago before he retired. Now, after seamlessly transitioning into an algebra teacher career, he's leaving his teaching job briefly to go back to the NFL, if only for one game.

Why?

The starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, Tony Romo, injured his back and is out for the last game of the season. The Cowboys' backup will start this week in Romo's place. That means there's no backup to the backup should the backup become injured this week. You follow?

Cue Jon Kitna, who once played for the Cowboys a few years ago and vaguely remembers the playbook. Should a worst-case scenario happen this week, the now 41-year old algebra teacher can step in and play quarterback.

Kitna will earn $53,000 acting as the backup for one week, a salary he says he'll donate to the school he works at.

In case you're wondering, the minimum salary a Texas teacher can earn with 20-years of teaching experience is $44,270.

Jon Kitna will earn nearly $9,000 more than that for 3 hours work on Sunday.

Researcher models the climate of Middle Earth from 'The Lord of the Rings'.

Good news for everyone losing sleep on what kind of weather Mordor has.

University of Bristol's Dan Lunt created a climate simulation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, and compares that model against our modern world and the Late Cretaceous (think: dinosaurs) period. And in case you doubted Lunt's dedication, he published the paper in English, Dwarvish, and Elvish.

The results? The Shire, where the Hobbits live, average temperatures around 7°C with about 61 cm of rainfall each year. Meanwhile, Mordor's weather would be more in line with a subtropical clime of western Texas, explaining why people rarely desire to go to Mordor or western Texas.



photo: Dan Lunt

Deion Sanders fired by the very school he founded.

Deion Sanders is a Hall of Fame player from the NFL, known for an uncanny ability to be quick with an insult and coverage of a wide receiver.

He also found a new prep school outside Dallas with his own money, for which he simultaneously became the head football coach. Because when a Hall of Fame former NFLer funds the existence of your school and wants to be the football coach, it's a logical step.

Yet, for reasons unknown, the school fired Sanders this week. This isn't the first time this year Sanders was fired from his own school though. Back in October, Sanders was fired after an alleged assault of the school's chief financial officer during a meeting--yet was immediately rehired by school officials.

Now? Not so much.

Not that Sanders is responsible for academic results at his own prep school, but recently his school was found to be among the 20% of Texas prep schools that failed to meet Texas academic standards.

And this is Texas that we're talking about. They're just getting around to accepting Euclid as an expert at math.

Previously unreleased J.D. Salinger stories discovered online.

It's a lucky day for fans of annoying teenage characters full of angst.

Someone uploaded three J.D. Salinger stories. "Birthday Boy," "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls," and "Paula," to various internet file-sharing sites this week after an illegal printing occurred.

Previously, they have only been available to researchers at the University of Texas and Princeton University.

"The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls" features Holden Caulfield's younger brother as the main character. Meaning that, yes, the angst continues.

Texas school board battles over evolution versus creationism in biology textbooks--again.

Good news for everyone worried that logic was coming to Texas education!

A committee of Texas volunteer textbook reviewers (because this is how Texas works) looked over proposed science textbooks submitted for use throughout the school system and found what they allege are twenty factual errors. The most egregious textbook in question comes from Pearson Education, one of America's largest publishers, who--crazy as this sounds--has highly educated experts in their field write those textbooks, not a parent with some free time and a red pen in hand.

The volunteers brought forth this matter to the Texas Board of Education, which was in the process of making final decisions on science textbooks. The alleged errors range from how long it took the Earth to cool and issues regarding climate change, to natural selection with how species evolve.

Reviewers claim facts regarding climate change haven't been settled concretely enough by scientific research, while natural selection is suspect because "selection operates as a selective but not a creative force." It's kind of like how the United States sometimes wishes it was more creative in selecting Texas as a state all those years ago.

The Board directed three of its members to select a trio of experts to further analyze the textbook and return with their opinion on the facts for January's Board meeting.

Texas man arrested after not returning library book.

Copperas Cove, TX, adopted a law stating that library books not returned within 90 days of their due date--and ignoring emails and phone calls from the library--warrants an arrest. And that's just what happened.

Jory Enck was arrested recently after not returning a high school exam study guide to the library. Apparently he was also that sort of brazen individual who ignored phone calls and emails.

Enck was released on $200 bail, and the book was returned shortly thereafter.

Finally, the citizens of Copperas Cove can rest easily from this reign of criminal terror.

India school holds record for most students. 39,437, to be exact.

The newest edition of the Guinness Book of World Records claims City Montessori School in Lucknow, the capital city of India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh, as the biggest in the world, The school also has 2,500 teachers and over 1,000 classrooms spread out over a campus which fosters to children from ages 3 to 17, all of whom wear uniforms. While a bit cramped, classes average around 45 students, which isn't that terrible when put into context.

And by context I mean it's better than being taught in Texas, so they have that going for themselves.




photo: Getty/AFP