Peter keeps dredging up quotes, and the quotes keep showing just how many
misleading statements can make it into print when neither the author nor the
review panel (if any) recall basic principles of materials and the practical
forces that shape physical reality.

> in the case of a beeswax honeycomb, 
> the structure "self-organizes" into its
> precise shape, after first being 
> constructed in a more rough fashion 
> by the worker bees

> In any case, it could never explain the 
> precision achieved in the construction 
> of a hornet comb: These combs are made 
> of mineral gravel and cellulose fibers 
> gathered by the worker hornets and mixed 
> with their saliva to form a paste or cement, 
> which hardens after being molded into cell 
> walls and partitions. The solid material so 
> formed does not soften or become fluid even 
> when subsequently heated to temperatures
> above 100 C.

No surprise here - If you make something from paper-mache, thin layers would
be very pliable when wet, but once they dry, they would be very difficult to
make pliable again without the saturation of the layer with enough water to
make it as wet as it was when it was being worked (or masticated by the
hornets).  The application of moderate heat will dry out the structure
further, removing any moisture remaining due to humidity, and will make the
structure less flexible, more brittle.  So "heat" is going to eliminate the
moisture that was responsible for the flexibility.

While wax can be worked when warm, and reworked when re-heated, things that
are "worked when wet" would clearly need to be re-saturated with water to
become workable.  Kind of an obvious error to make for the "Bulletin of
Mathematical Biology", when mere beekeepers need to point out that classical
elements of old, Fire and Water, Earth and Wind are not interchangeable!

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