Pollen

For many people, the beauty of spring is countered by the sneezing, runny nose and itchy eyes of allergies that come with warmer weather. For those people, science has some bad news – climate change may be making pollen season longer and more severe.

Due to the ongoing worldwide decline in bee populations, farmers are increasingly looking to alternative methods of pollinating fruit-bearing plants. As it turns out, the use of soap bubbles may succeed where things like drones alone have failed.

Scientists in Singapore have come up with a new type of soft, pliable particle they say can be used as building blocks for a new generation of green and biocompatible materials, all by using pollen as a starting point.

A large percentage of the world's food production relies on bee pollination - but what do we do when the bees can't be relied on? US startup Dropcopter has just demonstrated that it can deliver a 25-60 percent boost in pollination rates using autonomous drones to pick up where the bees left off.

Although familiar in our own homes, scientists have for the first time discovered which insects pollinate Venus flytraps in their native environment, and why they appear to be getting away from being the plant’s next meal.

Without bees, the wingmen of the plant world, much of the food we eat would be a lot harder to come by – so their worldwide decline is cause for alarm. A team from Japan is giving them a little high-tech help, in the form of tiny pollen-collecting drones covered in a sticky gel and animal hairs.

In search of more sustainable battery materials, researchers have developed an anode for lithium-ion batteries using something those with allergies certainly wouldn't miss: pollen from bees and cattails. ​

A company out of Vancouver, Canada, called Bee Vectoring Technology, has developed a system that uses bees for delivering tiny amounts of natural pesticides and beneficial fungi while pollinating crops.

A company in Japan has release an iPhone app to tell you the latest pollen count.