First contact with alien races: is it worth considering?

The latest meme going around is first contact, spurred by this speech by Stephen Hawking. It’s made some interesting buzz in the blogosphere, although I’m not sure how many of these biologist bloggers are actually applying biological principles to their thoughts. There are certianly many different directions societies could go. Just look at the various [...]

Bed Bugs in Their Natural Habitat

So…last night, I had an opportunity to look for bed bugs in their natural habitat. I was called to a friend’s house to collect some specimens for the ISU entomology department. I rooted around on a couch for an hour, and helped them clean the place up before leaving. It’s kind of an interesting thing, [...]

Aphids have mutualistic viruses!

Aphids can be a pain in the ass to gardeners and farmers. Although they look pretty harmless, they’re to plants what mosquitoes are to people and more. They transmit some pretty serious diseases which cause millions of dollars in damage per year. They’re also famous for their fecundity-they’re parthenogenic and their daughters are actually born [...]

Homeopathy is Bullshit: Headlouse Edition!

One of the not-so-great things about being a parent is that your kid occasionally gets headlice. They seem to particularly like my kid for some reason because this is the second time I’ve had to deal with this. Either way, it’s getting really, really annoying. So I go to Walgreens to get a louse shampoo [...]

Washing Methods to Kill Bed Bugs

Bed bug infestations are on the rise. I live in a college town, and you hear about them every once and awhile. They’re not super-common here in Iowa, but you hear about them from time to time. I’ve helped friends spray their houses for them before, so I know they’re around. One of the things [...]

Cheshire’s Top 5 Entomology Videos

I post a lot of videos here on this blog because I find them a very useful and interesting teaching tool. Why explain the life cycle of a parasitoid wasp in two or three boring paragraphs when I can simply hop over to youtube and find a video explaining the same thing narrated by David [...]

Mosquitoes and host range evolution on Galapagos

Let’s talk about something that really isn’t given top billing amongst many vector biologists for a minute. It’s not that the subject is taboo, it’s simply that most of the money that comes into researching vector borne disease comes in to fight diseases which afflict humans and animals that are important to humans. Most vector [...]

Vector-Born Diseases: An Introduction

Insects have a profound effect on human and animal health in many ways. Some of these, like the human botfly and the Tumbu fly cause their damage by feeding directly on people. Neither of these are particularly damaging, merely painful however some insects like Tunga penetrans infest people to the extent of actually needing medical [...]

Always Knew Something Was Wrong With Airline Food…

I’m planning on going to Denver in about two months on business…and I ran across this warning letter from the FDA to a restaurant in Denver International Airport: • Employees handling food with bare hands or with unwashed gloved hands • Water dripping from the ceiling into equipment/utensil cleaning areas • Gaps from 1-2.5 inches [...]

Using Mosquitoes to ‘Smartbomb’ Breeding Grounds

So let’s continue the theme of the AWESOME papers I ran across this semester and didn’t get to blog about. I find every aspect of this paper to be simply cool. Controlling mosquitoes consists of two main methods, to put things as simply as possible. You can kill adults and larvae and you can destroy [...]