2005_12_01_archive

Another Total Drek News Brief...

This just in:

Scientists working at the California Institute of Technology announced

yesterday that they have determined how it is that honeybees are

capable of flight. This has been a puzzle since the 1930's when French

researchers calculated that the flight of the honeybee was

aerodynamically impossible.

New research from Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of

Technology and his colleagues finally explains how Apis mellifera

flies. Unlike other flying insects, honeybees use short wing

strokes of less than 90 degrees and a high number of flaps every

second to stay aloft. The researchers found that when challenged to

fly in difficult conditions, such as a mixture of oxygen and helium

that mimicked air density at more than five miles up in the

atmosphere, the bees resorted to wider strokes but maintained the

same high flapping frequency.

While this revelation is mostly of interest to zoologists, and

physicists, it has caused a tremendous uproar in the field of

inspirational speaking.

"The honeybee has long been one of our most treasured examples,"

reports Chip Winklestump, inspirational speaker-for-hire, "I can't

tell you how many audiences I've inspired by commenting that,

'According to science the honeybee can't fly but, gosh darn it, those

little guys do it anyway. Don't ever let someone tell you what you are

and are not capable of,' Now that scientists have been able to show

why it is possible for the honeyee to fly, I'm going to have to find a

new hackneyed metaphor!"

The main U.S. professional organization for motivational speakers,

Special Humans for Inspirational Talk (S.H.I.T.) has, as yet, released

no official comment on the study. Inside sources, however, report that

they are hard at work developing a next-generation metaphor that

involves a squirrel on water skis. Meanwhile, rival organizations are

using this as an opportunity to suggest alternatives to the status

quo.

Only time will tell if the inspirational speaking sector can recover

from this setback, and what economic consequences this will have for

the rest of the country.

Unsurprisingly, I made up the quote from Chip Winklestump and there is