Many of us fear death. We believe in death because we have been told we will die. We associate ourselves with the body, and we know that bodies die. But a new scientific theory suggests that death is not the terminal event we think.
So asking for that kind of money for only scientific research or exploration, even if it would eventually pay back several times the investment, would not be an easy sell. But there might be another reason to go, one that could swing the argument in its favour. And it involves something of a surprising and indirect stepping stone. Literally.
Most of these are female 'worker' honeybees that are unable to reproduce and instead devote their short lives to finding food in flowers... and other tasks such as nursing larvae inside the hive."
The change is suggested to be the result of a "histone code" - a process that sees genetic changes made to proteins called histones within cells' nuclei. Rather than "genetic" changes that are locked into DNA, these are known as "epigenetic" changes.
The development of different bees from the same DNA in the larvae is one of the clearest examples of epigenetics in action - mechanisms that go beyond the basic DNA sequence," said co-author Mark Dickman from the University of Sheffield.
"From our knowledge of how the histone code works with in other organisms, we think the marks on the histone proteins might act as one of the switches that control how the larvae develop."
Appealing to patriotic feeling, Mr Putin pointed out that Russia had no worthy monument to its dead of World War I, an event largely eclipsed by the October Revolution of 1917.
He said that programmes to address Russia's long-term population decline were now working and in the past five months, the population had begun to grow naturally, with births exceeding deaths.
He and his party say nuclear energy has a role to play in resource-poor Japan's future. Mr Abe has also called for a tough stance on the territorial row with China over East China Sea islands that both countries claim.
One of the teachers killed in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was killed after reportedly hiding some children and then lying to the gunman that they were elsewhere in the school.
