THE WEEK - Spiders are some of the most diverse creatures on Earth. While they can be frightening, most of them are harmless and skittish. However, some spiders are dangerous — or deadly. Several species have venom that is toxic to humans and can have long-lasting, even fatal, consequences. Here are some of the scariest...
THE NEW YORK TIMES - North-facing, sloping ground with loose, sandy soil — if you’re a bumblebee queen on the market for a winter home, these features will have you racing to make an offer. But scientists were recently stunned to find there’s something else these monarchs like in a place to hibernate: pesticides. In...
LOS ANGELES TIMES - In a windowless shack on the far outskirts of Fresno, an ominous red glow illuminates a lab filled with X-ray machines, shelves of glowing boxes, a quietly humming incubator and a miniature wind tunnel. While the scene looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, its actually part of an...
ENTOMOLOGY TODAY - Originally from central Asia, the house fly (Musca domestica) is found pretty much anywhere humans live. In large numbers it can be a nuisance, and it is known to transmit more than 200 pathogens to humans and animals. One of the most common methods to control house flies are toxic baits, which...
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Thanks to a time stamp, Thorben Danke knows the exact moment he got hooked on photographing insects. On July 22, 2016, at 6:05 p.m. he happened to see a green bottle fly sitting near him on his garage wall. Danke had been playing around with the settings on his pricy new digital...
The University of California, Riverside (UCR) College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) hosted the Cooperative Extension (CE) Advisors and UCR CE Faculty Collaboration Meeting on May 23. CE advisors located in (or serving) over 14 counties across California were invited to learn about the ongoing research by UCR CE faculty to enhance collaboration between...
LOS ANGELES TIMES - Move over, dogs. We’re entering the spider days of summer. When it warms up, spiders come out of their hidey-holes. Not to tan, but to catch their bread and butter: bugs. ... “There’s no sense making a web … if there’s nothing to eat,” said Rick Vetter, a retired research associate...
BBC SCIENCE FOCUS - Bed bugs have been around longer than humans. When researchers used bed bug DNA to get an idea of when they first evolved, they found that the ancestors of today’s bed bugs were already tiny but successful predators over 115 million years ago, during the reign of the dinosaurs. What they...
ABC 7 - Termite activity is considered to be "very heavy" in California and other southeastern states, and the options to rid your home of the destructive insect are limited and often expensive. But new research at UC Riverside is showing that help might be on the horizon. The two basic strategies to control termites...
EARTH.COM - Did you know that plants, just like humans, can fall ill, too? And much like our world, theirs is not immune to disease outbreaks and pandemics. As nature-lovers and responsible stewards of the earth, it’s vital we understand how we are unintentionally facilitating the spread of pathogens that cause “plant pandemics.” Two recent...
