Love for Mom is a given, but buying flowers on her big day may not be.

A slump in flower sales since late last year will likely continue through Mother's Day, another example of Americans cutting back on spending due to recession fears and escalating food and gasoline prices.

"If you look at what's happened on Valentine's Day and Christmas, the market for flowers has cooled," said Eric Beder, an analyst at Brean Murray. "Growth has slowed in the past two quarters. Mother's Day will probably be a slow quarter, too."

US floral sales for Mother's Day, celebrated in the United States on May 11, will fall 13 per cent this year to $2.0 billion (€1.3 billion), with consumers spending an average of $17.65 (€11.46), according to the National Retail Federation estimates.

Mother's Day, which accounts for a whopping one-quarter of annual holiday purchases, according to the Society of American Florists, is traditionally the day when floral bouquets are delivered to the doorsteps of many American mothers.

Canadian PM's crumbling residence

The official residence used by Canadian prime ministers is in such a terrible state that incumbent Stephen Harper should move out for a year to allow the building to be renovated, a watchdog said this week. Mr Harper's office quickly made clear that the Prime Minister found the residence adequate and wouldn't be leaving.

Auditor-General Sheila Fraser said Canada's image among foreign leaders could be damaged unless the residence at 24 Sussex Drive in central Ottawa receives C$12 million (€7.7 million) of renovations.

Prime ministers and their families have complained for decades about leaky windows and an inefficient heating system that makes the building too hot in the summer and too cold in winter. One head of government was reduced to putting plastic sheeting over some windows to keep in the heat. The government bought the three-storey 34-room building around 50 years ago and little work has been done on it since then. The windows, sewers, plumbing, wiring, heating and air conditioning systems all require major repairs.

Sexy orchids embarrass wasps

Orchids that mimic female wasps may not only waste the time of the male wasps they lure into spreading their pollen - they also seduce them into wasting valuable sperm, Australian researchers reported. And the flowers benefit twice - getting help in their own reproduction, and perhaps indirectly producing more male pollinators in the process. Some of the most exotic orchids are known to have evolved their convoluted shapes to attract insects, who unwittingly collect and transfer pollen as they try to mate with the flowers. "The effect of deception on pollinators has been considered negligible, but we show that pollinators may suffer considerable costs," Anne Gaskett of Macquarie University in Sydney and colleagues reported.

"Insects pollinating Australian tongue orchids (Cryptostylis species) frequently ejaculate and waste copious sperm," they wrote in a report in The American Naturalist.

Funds for non-stick chewing gum

A British company developing a non-stick chewing gum that can be easily removed from pavements and shoes has raised £10 million ($12.7 million) to help bring its product to market.

The new financing comes from institutional and private investors, with IP Group - an early backer - chipping in an additional £800,000 (€1,015,455), the firm said.

Revolymer's new Clean Gum is the result of polymer research at the University of Bristol, where the company was created as a research spin-out in 2005.

Today's chewing gums are made from synthetic latex, which is resistant to the weather and is strongly adhesive. Clean Gum adds a special polymer to modify its properties, making it far less sticky.

A song for Medvedev girl

His predecessor Vladimir Putin had pop songstresses swooning and even made it into women's magazines when he bared his torso. Now Russia's new President Dmitry Medvedev has some catching up to do.

A spoof video based on the US clip Obama Girl is maybe not what he had in mind, however.

The video was featured in the popular Komsomolskaya Pravda daily yesterday and is the latest internet joke on Mr Medvedev to clutter inboxes.

The video uses the raunchy internet clip showing a girl in love with US presidential hopeful Barack Obama, except the dubbed lyrics are now about Russia's complex political system rather than the US primaries. "You work well together with Putin. You're my only candidate.... I dream of you at night," goes the new Medvedev song, which has been posted on YouTube. "I have to be with you - you're so sexy and cool."

During his lacklustre campaign, Mr Medvedev said he was an avid internet user and became the subject of a string of jokes, playing on his perceived domination by Mr Putin and his name, derived from the Russian word for bear.