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Honeybees add more than $15 billion in value to crops in the U.S. by buzzing around from flower to flower. But in the past 30 years, their numbers have plummeted, creating big worries about food security. So in June, President Barack Obama announced his plan to protect pollinators, saying, "Given the breadth, severity, and persistence of pollinator losses, it is critical to expand federal efforts and take new steps to reverse pollinator losses and help restore populations to healthy levels."
In the winter of 2013, beekeepers lost almost a quarter of their beehives to colony collapse disorder. Butterflies are in trouble, too: Over the past twenty years, the number of monarch butterflies has dropped by 90 percent. Experts believe these losses are from a combination of things: loss of land, herbicides that kill flowering plants that pollinators depend on, changing weather patterns, parasites, and pesticides, to name a few.
What's the first step toward protecting pollinators? The government will start a "Pollinator Health Task Force" that will research the best ways to help our flower-loving friends. Plus, President Obama instructed federal departments, even the Department of Defense, to employ "pollinator-friendly native landscaping" for their facilities.
A flying drone for the GoPro camera takes impressive bird's-eye shots of your kickflips and aerials. [via href='http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-25/mercedes-upstages-rolls-royce-with-1-million-s-class.html' target='_blank">Bloomberg.']
Bioluminescent creatures dazzle and delight.