Latest Insect Stories

British scientists have created genetically modified sterile mosquitoes in an experiment to kill off others in their species, and researchers are hopeful that early field trials could help to stave off the rapid spread of dengue fever. This is the first time genetically altered mosquitoes have been set loose in the wild, after years of lab experiments and calculations. But while scientists believe the trial could lead to a breakthrough in halting the disease, critics argue that mutant...

Plants that can pollinate themselves are more likely to go extinct, says new study of nightshade plant familyMany plants can pollinate themselves and reproduce without the aid of a mate, thanks to having both male and female parts. But the short-term perks of being able to go it alone come with long-term costs, says a new study in the journal Science. The reason is because plants that can pollinate themselves are more prone to extinction, scientists say.Flowering plants are incredibly...

TEMPE, Ariz., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- "You've just entered another dimension - a dimension of insects, a micro dimension, where milkweed bugs, assassin bugs, crickets and fruit flies crawl, walk or fly side by side to show off features that are the envy of the insect world and quite possibly beyond." This isn't the opening narration of the late 1950s television series "The Twilight Zone," but the introduction of a video announcing the 2010 Ugly Bug Contest. Last year's Ugly Bug Contest...

Cockroaches can skitter through a crowded under-the-sink cabinet, eluding capture or worse, making the insects a model for rescue robots that would creep through the debris of disaster in search of survivors.But learning how they use all six legs at the same time to walk, run and turn has been a difficult and time-consuming task. Until now.Using a pair of high-speed cameras and a custom computer program, researchers at Case Western Reserve University are able to simultaneously extract...

VENTURA, Calif., Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- As the bed bug epidemic continues to strengthen its grip on North America, ThermaPure®, (www.thermapure.com) the industry pioneer that developed the heat treatment process currently being used to effectively kill the blood-sucking pests and their eggs, has been awarded another patent from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (US 7,690,148 B2 - Hedman, issued April 6, 2010). "This is a really exciting new patent because it combines two highly...

Air Force Office of Scientific Research-sponsored researcher, Dr. Robert Wood of Harvard University is leading the way in what could become the next phase of high-performance micro air vehicles for the Air Force.His basic research is on track to evolve into robotic, insect-scale devices for monitoring and exploration of hazardous environments, such as collapsed structures, caves and chemical spills."We are developing a suite of capabilities which we hope will lead to MAVs that exceed the...

VENTURA, Calif., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- As the bed bug epidemic continues to strengthen its grip on North America, ThermaPure®, (www.thermapure.com) the industry pioneer that developed the heat treatment process currently being used to effectively kill the blood-sucking pests and their eggs, has been awarded another patent from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (US 7,690,148 B2 - Hedman, issued April 6, 2010). "This is a really exciting new patent because it combines two highly...

Flies follow horizontal edges to regulate altitude, says a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). This finding contradicts a previous model, which posited that insects adjust their height by visually measuring the motion beneath them as they fly.This mechanism for controlling altitude"”in which the insects use their eyes to track horizontal edges in their environment"”is very similar to the strategy insects use to steer left and right, the researchers...

When plant-eating mammals such as goats chomp on a sprig of alfalfa, they could easily gobble up some extra protein in the form of insects that happen to get in their way. But a new report in the August 10th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, shows that plant-dwelling pea aphids have a strategy designed to help them avoid that dismal fate: The insects sense mammalian breath and simply drop to the ground."Tiny insects like aphids are not helpless when facing large animals...

One of North America's most common bat species faces extinction in the northeastern U.S. within the next two decades due to a rapidly spreading disease known as White-Nose Syndrome (WNS), according to a new study led by researchers at the Boston University College of Arts & Sciences.The threatened bats, known as little brown myotis, are critical in controlling insects that spread disease to humans and animals.  The bats have been known to consume their own weight in insects in a single...