Beyond Infinity

After a lead diver in the Thai cave rescue Vern Unsworth told Elon to "stick his submarine where it hurts" and described it as a PR stunt, Musk branded him a "pedo guy" on Twitter, where the tech billionaire has 22 million followers. He now faces the prospect of being sued for this so far unjustified slur. In addition, his green credentials have been called into question after it was revealed he donated thousands to climate change denier Trump's presidential campaign in 2016.

Many major Australian companies have had job applicants' data compromised by the hacking of Melbourne-based online recruitment services company PageUp. While the true scope of damage is unknown, some might well ask whether it's such a good idea to outsource their hiring needs.

In the final part of our interview with professional apiarists Simon Mulvany and Ben Moore, we discuss what's so important about bees and how attitudes are changing both in Australia and abroad to the vital need for healthy bee populations. Plus, Simon updates us on his protracted legal dispute with Capilano Honey, saying "there's a very good chance we'll now be able to settle the case".

Though incredibly promising for eradicating nasty disease, there remain troubling questions about unintended consequences. Now the US military is getting in on the act, looking at how to defend against and take advantage of gene drives - genetic engineering technology that can propagate inheritable genes through a population.

Unnecessary bill complexity is a real (and quite deliberate) issue for Australian retail energy consumers. We offer suggestions on how to read your bill and secure a discount from your gas or electricity provider. And it's worth looking at the plethora of price comparison websites including: energywatch.com.au and compare.energy.vic.gov.au

Our weekly news round-up: New Facebook patent describes how a TV ad could contain a hidden audio trigger for your smart phone's mic; Raya - the world's most exclusive social network; NASA's NExSS aims to refine how biosignatures are used to assess the chance of life beyond Earth; Saturn's moon Enceladus is releasing plumes of far more complex organic molecules than we thought; Drones using AI to spot violent outbreaks in crowds; China builds the world's first laser assault rifle to vapourise targets within a 1 km range; Amazon Prime is well priced downunder; Much anticipated NVIDIA Shield gaming terminal on sale in Oz.

The co-inventor of the Flow Hive and founder of Beeinventive describes the journey to get 'honey on tap', plus his super effective use of social media and the new deluxe model, the Flow Hive 2. Cedar explains how the original Flow Hive developed over a 10 year period, culminating in a record-setting Indigogo crowd-funding campaign in 2015. Now with a string of awards to his company's name and over a billion views of its web content, he says "the reason we keep going is because we want to have a positive impact in the world. So business for a positive purpose is cred to our company".

Simon Mulvany of Save The Bees Australia has single-handedly run a successful media campaign centered around Facebook and Instagram. Here he offers his insights into how to take full advantage of the power of social media to build a community and raise awareness of a business or social issue.

Our weekly news round-up: Mars VR on Kickstarter to fund new open source VR platform for the public and eventual settlers to visualise Mars landing site; How binge drinking leads to insomnia; New Firefox desktop browser is strong response to crisis of confidence with internet's privacy and security; Tesla ramps up Model 3 production, but still struggling to hit 5000 a week goal; NZ will introduce a universal non-cash payment method for all public transport.

Simon and Ben discuss different approaches to bee keeping in different parts of the world. Despite strong apiarist traditions in Europe, efforts are being made to breed bees that are better at cleaning each other, using genetics. They outline the hot issues facing their industry and explain some of the less well known uses for bee products, including beard conditioner and women's skin treatments.