More trouble for crops

First bees, now bats.

Apparently bats are dying off in New York and Vermont from a disease that hasn't previously been reported. Bats are important for agriculture as they eat huge amounts of insects. And with mortality as high as 97% for some colonies, watch out for mosquitoes in the Northeast this summer.

And that means watch out for the West Nile virus, of course. There is speculation that the bat disease may itself be a new arrival from somewhere else on the planet.

Oh, the joys of globalization.