North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[list@ginda.us]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/26/MNGK7PFOMS1.DTL

"A UCSF researcher who found the SARS virus in 2003 and later won a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" for his work thinks he has discovered a culprit in the alarming deaths of honeybees across the United States.

Tests of genetic material taken from a "collapsed colony" in Merced County point to a once-rare microbe that previously affected only Asian bees but might have evolved into a strain lethal to those in Europe and the United States, biochemist Joe DeRisi said Wednesday.

DeRisi said tests conducted on material from dead bees at his Mission Bay lab found genes of the single-celled, spore-producing parasite Nosema ceranae, which researchers in Spain have recently shown is capable of wiping out a beehive.

"It is wise to strike a conservative note, because this is early data, but it is interesting,'' he said."