By Serenella Iovino (translated by Elena Past)
Zoonosis. This is one of the strange words that the onset of the coronavirus has forced us to learn. Zoonosis is a transitive infection, a virus that passes from animals to human beings. Or rather: it passes to our species from other animal species, recalling that human and nonhuman animals share an entire biological kingdom and that our bodies’ cells speak languages that are not all that dissimilar.
In this short film created by the Mosquitopia team following the Rachel Carson Legacy Symposium “Mosquitopia? The Place of Pests in a Healthy World,” 21 experts give their opinions and insights on this critical question.
A report of the event “Mosquitopia? The Place of Pests in a Healthy World” (A Rachel Carson Legacy Symposium). For more on the topic, check out the three-part feature “Mosquitopia” in the ongoing series “Silent Spring Continued: A World without Insects.” 24–27 October 2019,… Continue Reading “Post-Mosquito Mortem: A Symposium Report”
By Marcus Hall and Dan Tamir
Human health: First and foremost, despite the many and important reasons for saving mosquitoes, or at least saving certain mosquitoes in certain situations, there remains a dire need to eradicate these creatures—even when it means undertaking extreme measures to accomplish this goal.
By Marcus Hall and Dan Tamir
We must remind ourselves that we are ultimately battling disease, not mosquitoes, and that there may be more effective, more economical, more ethical ways to do this than mosquito control. Malaria once emanated from swamps and bad air, though with more evidence it became clear that mosquitoes were the vectors of this disease.
By Marcus Hall and Dan Tamir
Global warming is ushering us into a new mosquito epoch. Ready or not, mosquitoes are coming faster than before; both indigenous and non, disease-carrying and not, human-biting and not. What are we to do with these buzzing creatures, and what has already been done with them?
Aedes albopictus There are several ways to identify Asian Tiger mosquitos: black and white flecked bodies with a stripe down the back, the unusual habit of feeding during daylight hours, and until relatively recently, a tropical and subtropical distribution within Southeast Asia. Over past… Continue Reading “Insect Profile: Asian Tiger Mosquito”