Monarchs lay more eggs where milkweed isn’t alone

Milkweed is key to monarch butterflies' life cycle. But adding other flowering plants may help monarchs more than milkweed alone.

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conservation insects plants butterflies earth-and-environment flowers

Gardenias show how plants became great chemists

Sequencing the gardenia genome shows how plants evolved to re-use tricks from their genetic toolbox to create new chemicals.

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dna evolution plants genomes science-and-technology flowers

When pollen’s scarce, bees stab plants to speed up flowering

When pollen resources are low, bumblebees damage plants to help drive more flowering so they can get more, researchers have found.

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Spiny pollen evolved to ‘velcro’ onto bumble bees

A wild dandelion's spiny pollen has evolved to attach to traveling bumblebees, report researchers.

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evolution insects bees plants pollen pollinators science-and-technology flowers

Flowering strips for bumble bees offer perks and risks

Although there are pros and cons to flowering strips for bumble bees, they're a good way to offset pollinator declines, say researchers.

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insects bees plants pollinators earth-and-environment flowers

Pollen shows which plants bees in the city need most

Honey bees that live in cities depend on a varied diet of trees, shrubs, and woody vines for food, depending on the season, a new study shows.

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cities trees pollination honey-bees earth-and-environment flowers

How do foxglove plants make heart medicine?

Scientists have known foxglove plants make chemicals that can treat heart failure since the 1780s. New research digs into how the plant actually does it.

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How these pretty weeds resist Roundup

The morning glory is both pretty and a noxious agricultural pest. New research looks into its genome to find out how it resists glyphosate, AKA Roundup.

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genes pesticides plants science-and-technology flowers

Water lily genome holds clues to flower plant evolution

The genome sequence of a water lily sheds light on the early evolution of angiosperms, the group of all flowering plants.

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evolution genes plants genomes science-and-technology flowers

Beetle in amber pollinated flowers 99M years ago

A drop of fossilized amber from a mine in northern Myanmar contains not just a beetle but also 62 grains of pollen still clinging to its legs.

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