Scientists have developed a breakthrough food supplement that could help save honeybees from devastating declines. By engineering yeast to produce six essential sterols found in pollen, researchers provided bees with a nutritionally complete diet that boosted reproduction up to 15-fold. Unlike commercial substitutes that lack key nutrients, this supplement mimics natural pollen’s sterol profile, giving bees the equivalent of a balanced diet.
And the problem isn’t just bees either. Broadly, insect populations are in free-fall. There are many stretches of highway in the US now where you don’t need to clean your windshield after hours on the road. We’ve lost a massive chunk of our flying pollinator population, to say nothing of the roles they play in the food chains.
Massive-scale farming and pesticide use is going to leave us starving, ironically enough.