Consider all the advantages you have over the fruit fly: You’re able to use tools, make jokes, binge-watch “Game of Thrones.”
But you know what? You can get too fat for your waistband. The fruit fly, that ubiquitous subject of scientific experimentation, cannot.
Continue reading
Cochineal: Food Coloring Made from Bugs
Next time you’re browsing the supermarket in search of the makings of that night’s dinner, pause a moment to read the ingredients labels of your favorite red-colored ingestibles and
cosmetics. Chances are, you’ll discover a notation for cochineal, carmine, or carminic acid, pigments whose origins might surprise and possibly disgust you.
Cochineal and its close cousin carmine (also known as carminic acid) are derived from the crushed carcasses of a particular South and Central American insect. These popular colorants, which today are used to impart a deep red shade to fruit juices, gelatins, candies, shampoos, and more, come from the female Dactylopius coccus, an insect that
Continue reading
A group of researchers reported in October 2014 the Triatomine bug, a reduviid bug living in the
United States, can carry a parasite that causes Chagas disease.
Melissa Nolan Garcia, a research associate at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, presented two studies at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. For one study, Garcia and her team collected 40 triatomine bugs in Texas and discovered nearly 75% of the bugs were carrying the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi.
Continue reading
