mosquitoes
esiegel | July 28, 2013"If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito." -Anita Roddick
There's a lot to enjoy when it's warm and tropical, which it is many places this time of year. The flowers are out, the Sun often shines, and there's no shortage of spectacular music. Have a listen to to West Virginia-based band The Recipe, as they rock out (and give a shout-out to Neil Armstrong's moonwalk) in their great song,
Whiskey Pickle.
But there's an unwelcome visitor that comes along with this kind of weather: the mosquito.
Image credit: public domain image; source unknown.
Some…
lborkowski | February 3, 2012A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post: Why the poor should concern Romney
Scott Carlson in The Chronicle of Higher Education: America's Health Threat: Poor Urban Design
Maia Szalavitz at Healthland: The Wet House: Homeless People with Alcoholism Drink Less When Booze Is Allowed (Also see Matt Stroud at The Atlantic Cities: Why More Homeless Shelters Should Allow Alcohol)
Matthew Yglesias at Slate: Dirty Money: The astonishing new data showing that simply eliminating inefficient fossil fuel subsidies could achieve half the world's carbon reduction goals…
edyong | March 4, 2010We've all heard about "beer goggles", the mythical, invisible eyewear that makes everyone else seem incredibly attractive after a few pints too many. If only beer had the reverse effect, making the drinker seem irresistibly attractive. Well, the good news is that beer does actually do this. The bad news is that the ones who are attracted are malarial mosquitoes.
Anopheles gambiae (the mosquito that transmits malaria) tracks its victims by their smells. By wafting the aromas of humans over thousands of mosquitoes, Thierry Lefevre found that they find the body odour of beer drinkers to be…
edyong | December 24, 2009This is an updated version of the first post I wrote this year. The scientists in question were looking at ways of recruiting bacteria in the fight against mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever. They've just published new results that expand on their earlier experiments.
Mosquitoes are incredibly successful parasites and cause millions of human deaths every year through the infections they spread. But they are no match for the most successful parasite of all - a bacterium called Wolbachia. It infects around 60% of the world's insect species and it could be our newest recruit in the…
awild | May 12, 2009
Eastern Treehole Mosquito
My commercial gallery now has flies!
Diptera photographs at alexanderwild.com
I feel sort of embarassed at how few fly images I have, considering the importance of the group. That's something I'll try to remedy as we get into this summer's photography season.
sb admin | April 23, 2009
Nature photographers William & Matthew Burrard-Lucas explain the magic behind some recent images of mosquitoes emerging from their pupae.
While they list the equipment and lighting they used for the session, the key factor seems to have been the determined patience with which they watched pupae develop over two weeks so that they'd be able to catch the event in the scant 5 minutes it took to complete. Although the gadget industry does its best to convince us that photography is all about owning the latest and best gear, it remains true that the best images come from the most skilled…
sb admin | April 14, 2009
Aedes triseriatus, Eastern Treehole Mosquito (Larva)
I have a symbiotic relationship with other scientists. They let me in on their cutting-edge studies, giving me and my camera unfettered access to their charismatic little subjects. When the research is published and the science press picks up the breaking story my photos go along for the ride, sometimes garnering license fees. If the story is big enough, the photos are also positioned for the textbook market. In return, the researchers get photos that help them promote their work in talks and on laboratory web pages.
On Monday I…
edyong | January 9, 2009To our ears, the buzz of a mosquito is intensely irritating and a sign of itchiness to come, but to theirs, it's a lover's serenade. The high-pitched drone of a female is a siren's song that attracts male mosquitoes. And a new study shows that when the two love-bugs meet, they perform a duet, matching each other's buzzing frequency with careful precision.
The female Aedes aegypti mosquito (the carrier of both dengue and yellow fever) beats her wings with a fundamental frequency of about 400Hz, producing a pitch just slightly lower than concert A. Males on the other hand, have a fundamental…
sporte | January 2, 2009Mosquito-borne diseases, like Dengue and Malaria, are serious problems in many parts of the world. While some people are working on treatments for mosquito-carried disease, others are looking at ways to treat the mosquitoes.
Figure 1. Image of Aedes aegypti from the Public Health Library
tags: tropical disease, yellow fever, dengue, insect control,malaria
Controlling insect activities by messing with their genomes isn't a new idea. In many parts of the world, screwworms are controlled by damaging their genomes on a large scale by treating the flies with X-rays and releasing the…
edyong | January 1, 2009The mosquito Aedes aegypti sucks the blood of people from all over the tropics, and exchanges it for the virus that causes dengue fever - a disease that afflicts 40 million people every year. The mosquito has proven to be a tough adversary and efforts to drive it from urban settings have generally failed in the long-term. So how do you fight such an accomplished parasite? Simple - use a better parasite. In fact, try the most successful one in the world, a bacterium called Wolbachia.
Wolbachia's success rests on two traits. First, it targets the most diverse group of animals on the planet,…
edyong | July 7, 2008New parents are often extremely picky about where they live, seeking the right combination of spacious housing, local schools, and safe neighbourhoods for their tiny sprogs. A mother mosquito is no less choosy but unlike the white-picket-fence ideal of middle-class humans, she prefers areas of stagnant water, including artificial ones like rain-filled buckets or clogged drains.
But she's not looking for just any old bucket of sluggish water. A new study reveals that a pregnant Aedes aegypti mosquito seeks out just the right patch by tasting for chemicals given off by bacteria in the water.…
edyong | May 15, 2008Last year, I blogged about an ironic public health strategy - controlling malaria with mosquitoes. The mozzies in question are genetically engineered to be resistant to the malaria parasite, Plasmodium. The idea is that these GM-mosquitoes would mate with wild ones and spread their resistance genes through the natural population.
The approach seems promising but it relies crucially on the ability of the resistant males to successfully compete for the attentions of females in wild populations. The 1960s and 1970s witnessed several failed attempts to control malaria by swamping natural…