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　　Scientists say that dung beetles have developed acomplex method of navigation that relies on theposition of the sun, the moon and the stars. It’shoped that understanding the beetles’ navigationalskills could eventually aid the development ofdriverless vehicles. Here is our environmentcorrespondent Matt McGrath.

　　Previous studies have shown that these beetles navigate by the light of the milky way. But nowresearchers say they understand how the process works. The beetles record an image of thesky while dancing on top of the dung ball including the information that humans just can’t see,such as the colors of cosmic light. When the beetles start rolling away their manure, theycompare their mental snapshot of the sky in front of them and use that comparison tonavigate in a straight line. The scientists say that this ability is unique to these dung beetlesand they believe it could have implications for the designer of robots or rather autonomousvehicles.

　　That was Matt McGrath.

　　One of the last human links to the 19th century has died. Susannah Mushatt Jones was bornon a farm in the American state of Alabama in 1899. She’s just died in New York at the age of116.

　　“A remarkable lifetime of exceptional achievement”, comments that US congress wouldnormally reserve for a great statesman. But a long life often draws out reflections on how far anation has progressed as a whole. And Susannah Mushatt Jones lived through many manychanges. The sharecropper’ s life she was born into in rural Alabama was incredibly tough.When cotton prices slumped as they often did, Susannah and her ten brothers and sisterswould go hungry. But resilience and good genes ran in the family. Her grandmother, an ex-slave is said to have lived until she was 117. It was the social upheaval and economic boomafter the first world war that gave Susannah and many other African Americans the chance tomove north in search of a better life, away from the entrenched racial discrimination of theSouth. She moved to New York in 1922 where she found work as a housekeeper for sevendollars a week. Remarkably, she was able to save some of her salary. She set up a collegescholarship fund for African American students at her high school back in Alabama. Life therewas still largely segregated along racial lines. But two year before she retired, after PresidentJohnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Susannah became active in her Brooklyncommunity. She ran a tenant patrol team well into her 80s.