Words: Linda Thomson Image: Zagrammosoma latilineatum by Elia Pirtle Along with sustainability, biodiversity is a current catchword. Our work demonstrating the benefits of non crop vegetation on increasing biodiversity and especially “beneficials’ which contribute to pest control in crops. Enthusiasm for the project is shown by the excellent attendance at a recent workshop – report of […]
Words: Ary Hoffmann Cover image: John Gould 1863 As featured recently in a Pursuit piece, we are making steady progress with the genetic rescue of eastern barred bandicoots through our joint work with Mt Rothwell sanctuary. Genetic rescue provides a way of introducing new genetic material into threatened populations which in turn allows these […]
Words: Ary Hoffmann Cover image: Perran Ross As Wolbachia bacteria that live inside insect cells continue to be discovered and studied in detail, our appreciation of the diverse ways in which these bacteria interact with their hosts continues to expand. In past work we have found Wolbachia that cause embryo death when infected males mate […]
Words and video: Perran Ross I recently filmed one of our mosquito colonies trying desperately to reach my arm through their enclosure. The video has been posted on Reddit by a third party and received enormous attention with over 4.5 million views in its first nine hours. To make the video, I held my arm […]
Excellent design by Elia Pirtle, as you can see our beleaguered website manager hasn’t quite figured out how to make it work as a banner image on this site.
A new paper is out in Frontiers in Marine Science – article link A nicely digestible review of the article is available at Ocean bites here
Words and images: Perran Ross Large male mosquitoes may have more trouble than smaller males in finding a partner. In a new study, we find that small female mosquitoes tend to avoid larger males, preferring to mate with smaller ones. In this study, now available as a pre-print on bioRxiv, we performed laboratory experiments to […]
Author summary and figures by Tom Schmidt Wolbachia is a bacterium that suppresses the capacity for arbovirus transmission in the mosquito Aedes aegypti, and can spread spatially through wild mosquito populations following local introductions. Recent introductions in Cairns, Australia have successfully established Wolbachia in the Ae. aegypti population, but the infection has spread more slowly than expected […]
Header photo by Museums Victoria, CC BY. Photographer: Rodney Start Original broadcast Sunday 20 May 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sciencefriction/insect-armageddon/9775654
Words and photo: Jason Axford On 26 April at the Peter Doherty Institute, Federal Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, announced new NHMRC funding to investigate the mysterious and rather horrific disease commonly known as Buruli ulcer (BU) (formerly known as Bairnsdale ulcer). The project is led by Prof. Tim Stinear in the Department of Microbiology […]
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