Today in Research: What's Killing All the Bees; Fat Just Tastes Good

Discovered: A molecule that could cool our warming Earth, what's killing all the bees, fat tastes good, a cancer-processed food link.

• What's killing all the bees. Today we have some answers to the mysterious and very disconcerting mass honeybee death phenomenon. Insecticides (duh?) are causing some of the deaths, found researchers at Purdue. "We know that these insecticides are highly toxic to bees; we found them in each sample of dead and dying bees," said study co-author Christian Krupke. The U.S. is losing about a third of its honeybee population a year. Bees are important; this is bad -- don't take our words for it, 60 Minutes's Charlie Rose explains. [Purdue]

• Our tongues think fat tastes good. Blame the annoying, yet delicious bacon craze on genetics. Science has discovered we have a taste bud for it, found researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine. Making that the sixth flavor we can taste, adding fat to sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and savory. The same research also found that some people have a gene that makes them less receptive to the taste of fat. We're not sure if that makes them lucky or unlucky. [Wash U.]

Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire.