Please register for a free, online talk given by our very own Dr. Michael Reiskind on the fascinating, albeit recently neglected, natural history of mosquitoes. You can watch the talk live on Thursday, May 26th at 2pm EST. Listeners will have the opportunity to submit questions for Dr. Reiskind, and if you can't make the [...]

The American Mosquito Control Association Young Professionals group presents: A biorational pesticide is a pesticide of natural origin that has limited or no adverse effects on the environment or beneficial organisms. Biorational pesticides are derived from a variety of biological sources, including bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa, as well as chemical analogues of naturally occurring [...]

Image source: "SUPERPOWERS: The Real Science Of Superheroes." Lab supply ordering and management, oh what fun. Our lab has experimented with Excel, emails, and handwritten notes to keep track of ordering, but as you might guess, each method has had its own pitfalls and subsequent headaches.  Enter Quartzy.com. I was recently invited to test the [...]

Evarcha culicivora, the Anopheles terminator. Photos courtesy of Icipe & TumbaAbierta.comOn the heels of the release of Terminator Genisys, a recent paper in the Journal of Arachnology describes a different kind of terminator. Researchers at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) published an article about two spider species that specialize in hunting mosquitoes. Many spiders are [...]

The use of historical specimens in genetic analyses is an underutilized resource that can offer insight into previously unanswerable questions. Comparing historical and modern day specimens gives us a "direct temporal comparison of patterns of genetic variation."  Museum collections are massively important because of the great many purposes they serve. Specimens are educational to visitors, are the basis of research [...]