Nothing to Sneeze At: Real-time Pollen Forecasts

piggy submitted, created time 5 days 5 hours (www.sciencedaily.com)

Researchers in Germany are reporting an advance toward development of technology that could make life easier for millions of people allergic to plant pollen. It could underpin the first automated, real-time systems for identifying specific kinds of allergy-inducing plant pollen circulating in the air.

In the study, Janina Kneipp and colleagues explain that current pollen counts and allergy warnings are based on visual identification of the specific kind of pollen by examining pollen grains under a microscope

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How to Keep a Wasp from Cheating

Vincent submitted, created time 9 months 3 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

It would be easy for fig wasps to cheat. These tiny insects pollinate figs in exchange for a share of the tree's seeds--and theoretically, the wasps could lay claim to more seeds than they deserve. But they don't, and now biologists know why. Parasitic wasps, usually thought of as the bad guys, keep the pollinators honest.

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Size and positioning of floral anthers facilitates pollen collection by bees

bianjie submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.eurekalert.org)

In their work, Dr. Peter Endress and his colleagues found that the sizes and positioning of the anthers facilitates pollen collection by buzz-pollinating bees. The male floral structures, anthers, release the pollen gradually, like tiny gumball dispensers. All of these characteristics--size, shape, placement, and timing -- may be controlled by networks of genes as well as by regulatory sequences that do not encode proteins.

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