Pests and Parasites News

May 1, 2024

Top Headlines

Identifying Risks of Human Flea Infestations in Plague-Endemic Areas of Madagascar

May 1, 2024 — Researchers uncover why some homes in rural Madagascar where bubonic plague is endemic are infested with fleas. Based on their findings, they recommend ways to reduce the flea populations and their ...

Calcium Can Protect Potato Plants from Bacterial Wilt

May 1, 2024 — Scientists have discovered that calcium plays a significant role in enhancing the resistance of potato plants to bacterial ...

Scientists Discover New Phage Resistance Mechanism in Phage-Bacterial Arms Race

Apr. 8, 2024 — Scientists describe a new mechanism impacting the phage-bacterial arms race, a nanosized epibiotic parasite, TM7x, which helps its host bacterium (a Schaalia odontolytica strain called XH001) achieve ...

How Parasites Shape Complex Food Webs

Apr. 24, 2024 — A new study sheds light on how parasites, often overlooked, can dramatically affect the balance between predator and prey populations. Researchers developed a groundbreaking mathematical framework that predicts when predators, prey, and parasites ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:53pm EDT

Archaea Can Be Picky Parasites

May 1, 2024 — A parasite that not only feeds of its host, but also makes the host change its own metabolism and thus biology. Microbiologists have shown this for the very first time in a specific group of ...

Can Climate Change Accelerate Transmission of Malaria? Pioneering Research Sheds Light on Impacts of Temperature

Apr. 24, 2024 — A groundbreaking study combined novel experimental data within an innovative modeling framework to examine how temperature might affect transmission ...

AI Tool Recognizes Serious Ocular Disease in Horses

Apr. 24, 2024 — Researchers have developed a deep learning tool that is capable of reliably diagnosing moon blindness in horses based on ...

World's Chocolate Supply Threatened by Devastating Virus

Apr. 23, 2024 — A rapidly spreading virus threatens the health of the cacao tree and the dried seeds from which chocolate is made, jeopardizing the global supply of the world's most popular treat. Researchers have ...

The Spiciness of Mustard May Depend on Soil Microbes

Apr. 22, 2024 — New study finds microbes may influence the taste of mustard ...

Tropical Coral-Infecting Parasites Discovered in Cold Marine Ecosystems

Apr. 11, 2024 — Parasites thought only to infect tropical coral reefs have been discovered in a large variety of creatures in cold marine ecosystems along the Northeast Pacific, according to new ...

How Mosquito Larva Guts Could Help Create Highly Specific Insecticides

Apr. 8, 2024 — Did you know that the world's deadliest animal is the mosquito? And Aedes aegypti is one of the most dangerous. This bug spreads viruses that cause dengue fever, which was recently declared as an ...

What Four Decades of Canned Salmon Reveal About Marine Food Webs

Apr. 4, 2024 — Researchers have shown that levels of anisakid worms -- a common marine parasite -- rose in two salmon species in the Gulf of Alaska and Bristol Bay over a 42-year period. The team discovered this by ...

New Discovery Unravels Malaria Invasion Mechanism

Apr. 3, 2024 — A recent breakthrough sheds light on how the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, invades human red blood cells. The study reveals the role of a sugar called sialic acid in this invasion process. ...

Discovery Could End Global Amphibian Pandemic

Apr. 3, 2024 — A fungus devastating frogs and toads on nearly every continent may have an Achilles heel. Scientists have discovered a virus that infects the fungus, and that could be engineered to save the ...

Mosquito Detectives Track Malaria's History

Apr. 1, 2024 — A group of researchers is calling on colleagues around the world to join them in what they call 'pathogen prospecting' by tracking down archival specimens of mosquitoes in museums and other ...

Sweet Success: Sugarcane's Complex Genetic Code Cracked

Mar. 27, 2024 — Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants. Exploring sugarcane's ...

New Testing Approach Improves Detection of Rare but Emerging Powassan Virus Spread by Deer Ticks

Mar. 26, 2024 — Researchers have come up with a new, more accurate method for detecting in ticks the emerging Powassan virus, which can cause life-threatening neuroinvasive disease, including encephalitis and ...

Product That Kills Agricultural Pests Also Deadly to Native Pacific Northwest Snail

Mar. 21, 2024 — A product used to control pest slugs on farms in multiple countries is deadly to least one type of native woodland snail endemic to the Pacific Northwest, according to scientists who say more study ...

Rose Essential Oil: A Safe Pesticide for Organic Agriculture

Mar. 21, 2024 — Following injury, plants release terpenoids to enhance their defenses. Researchers studying terpenoid-enriched essential oils (EOs) have found that rose EO (REO) can stimulate defense genes in tomato ...

Experts Warn Climate Change Will Fuel Spread of Infectious Diseases

Mar. 20, 2024 — Infectious diseases specialists call the medical field to be ready to deal with the impact of climate change on spreading diseases, such as malaria, Valley fever, E. coli and Lyme ...

Shark-Bitten Orcas in the Northeastern Pacific Could Be a New Population of Killer Whale

Mar. 15, 2024 — Researchers believe a group of killer whales observed hunting marine mammals including sperm whales, as well as a sea turtle, in the open ocean off California and Oregon could be a new population. ...

Dog-Killing Flatworm Discovered in Southern California

Mar. 14, 2024 — Scientists have confirmed that a potentially fatal dog parasite is present in a portion of the Colorado River that runs through ...

Tsetse Fly Fertility Damaged After Just One Heatwave, Study Finds

Mar. 12, 2024 — The fertility of both female and male tsetse flies is affected by a single burst of hot weather, researchers have ...

New Research Sets Trap for Potentially Deadly Sandfly

Mar. 11, 2024 — Scientists have discovered the specific enzyme that a species of sandfly uses to produce a pheromone attractant, which could lead to the creation of targeted traps to control them and reduce the ...

How Does a Virus Hijack Insect Sperm to Control Disease Vectors and Pests?

Mar. 7, 2024 — A widespread bacteria called Wolbachia and a virus that it carries can cause sterility in male insects by hijacking their sperm, preventing them from fertilizing eggs of females that do not have the ...

The Malaria Parasite Generates Genetic Diversity Using an Evolutionary 'Copy-Paste' Tactic

Mar. 7, 2024 — All modern Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest malaria parasite in humans, are descendants of one initial infection and so are very closely related, with relatively limited genetic differences. A ...

Temperature, Humidity May Drive Future Transmission of Parasitic Worm Infections

Feb. 26, 2024 — Studies on climate and infectious disease typically focus on temperature's role on disease transmission. However, an international team found that both temperature and humidity contribute to ...

Blindness from Some Inherited Eye Diseases May Be Caused by Gut Bacteria

Feb. 26, 2024 — Sight loss in certain inherited eye diseases may be caused by gut bacteria, and is potentially treatable by antimicrobials, finds a new study in ...

Toxoplasmosis: Evolution of Infection Machinery

Feb. 16, 2024 — Researchers have identified a protein that evolved concurrently with the emergence of cellular compartments crucial for the multiplication of the toxoplasmosis ...

Using Written Records -- And Tweets -- As a Roadmap for Plant Disease Spread

Feb. 15, 2024 — Examining keyword terms from historic and modern texts can help researchers track and visualize plant diseases like late ...

The Role of Jellies as a Food Source in the Arctic Winter

Feb. 14, 2024 — The Arctic is changing rapidly due to climate change. It is not only affected by increasing surface temperatures, but also by warm water from the Atlantic, which is flowing in more and more -- ...

Climate Change Drove the Emergence of West Nile Virus in Europe

Feb. 14, 2024 — Researchers demonstrate the contribution of climate change to the spatial expansion of West Nile virus in Europe, a virus that constitutes a new public health threat in the continent. Their findings ...

Red Nets Signal 'Stop' to Insect Pests, Reduce Need for Insecticides

Feb. 14, 2024 — Red nets are better at keeping away a common agricultural insect pest than typical black or white nets, according to a new study. Researchers experimented with the effect of red, white, black and ...

Scientists Debunk Role of 'Junk Cells' in Fight Against Malaria

Feb. 8, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a previously unknown ability of a group of immune system cells, known as Atypical B cells (ABCs), to fight infectious diseases such as malaria. The scientists say ABCs ...