Category Archives: Pest Management

Are Brown Widows as Dangerous as Black Widows?

Posted on November 6, 2016 by joeballenger2005

Written by Joe Ballenger As a rule, Widows have pretty nasty venom. I was knocked on my butt for about 3 days after a bite I received from a Southern Widow (Lactrodectus mactans) after mishandling her. These sorts of incidents … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecology, Pest Management, Physiology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

I’m Afraid of Bed Bugs and Infestation … Help?

Posted on October 28, 2016 by SciBugs

Written by Nancy Miorelli It’s no wonder people are afraid of bugs with how they’re portrayed in the media. It’s true that insects are our major competitors for both our food and our health and invade our homes. In my … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Pest Management | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Can Spiders Learn From Each Other?

Posted on July 2, 2016 by joeballenger2005

Written by Joe Ballenger Your Name: Mark Your Bug Question: I have spiders in and around my house.  I eventually get around to removing their webs from hard to reach places like living room chandelier.  It takes so long that … Continue reading →

Posted in Behavior, Ecology, Pest Management | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

What are carpet beetles doing on my cilantro?

Posted on June 25, 2016 by joeballenger2005

Written by Joe Ballenger Dear Entomologist, Could you please help with a bug question. I found many small bugs on my cilantro flowers which look like carpet beetles. Should I be worried about them in my vegetable garden and or … Continue reading →

Posted in Behavior, Ecology, Pest Management, Physiology, Pollination | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Family Planning in The Age of Zika: How do I Avoid Mosquitoes?

Posted on June 6, 2016 by joeballenger2005

I’ve seen you writing a lot about Zika virus, and I’m planning on starting a family soon. I was wondering, how worried do I need to be about this and how can I avoid the virus? A lot of what … Continue reading →

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Microcephaly, Zika, correlation, and causation: the science behind CDC’s confirmation of Zika and microcephaly

Posted on May 5, 2016 by joeballenger2005

Written by Joe Ballenger I’m still following the Zika/Microcephaly literature. I’m not writing about every paper which comes out, but I am writing about the ones I feel are pretty important. The most recent ‘big paper’ came out in the … Continue reading →

Posted in News, Pest Management, Physiology, Research | Leave a comment

Questions about head lice.

Posted on March 22, 2016 by joeballenger2005

Written by Joe Ballenger We get a lot of questions about lice, and these are really important. On Biofortified, I wrote an article about head louse treatments that was relatively depressing. There are a lot of companies which market louse … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Pest Management, Physiology, Research | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Why is Oxitec using tetracycline for a genetic switch? Why not something else?

Posted on February 11, 2016 by joeballenger2005

Written by Joe Ballenger Here’s where we get to the meat of the question our follower asked…why use the antibiotic tetracycline as a switch? Why not something else? Last week, we discussed a system which could potentially work for this … Continue reading →

Posted in Chemistry, Pest Management, Physiology, Research | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

So let’s talk about another type of GMO for a minute…

Posted on February 6, 2016 by joeballenger2005

We’ve gotten this question, and it’s a really good question, but I didn’t initially understand what the person was asking. I knew what they were getting at-why is Oxitec using a tetracycline dependent system-but I wanted to wait for them … Continue reading →

Posted in Chemistry, Education, Evolution, Insect Rearing, Pest Management, Physiology, Research | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Our next few posts will be about GMO mosquitoes.

Posted on February 5, 2016 by joeballenger2005

We’ve gotten a handful of questions about GMO mosquitoes via Twitter, and through an interview Joe did for a radio station (details of which are forthcoming). So, we decided to switch the post midstream. We’re still planning on doing a … Continue reading →

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