Busy Mosquitoes

Fun Fact of the week Don't for get to bring mosquito repellent to your next summer bbq. Photo by KaLisa Veer on Unsplash Those last couple beers at your summer cookout might make you more delicious to mosquitoes! Studies from Japan and West Africa showed that beer consumption made the volunteers more attractive to mosquitoes. Although beer consumption is associated with higher frequency of mosquitoes landing on your skin, these studies found that increased alcohol content in your sweat or CO 2 in your breath did not correlate with the volunteers' increased attractiveness to mosquitoes. The exact cause of why mosquitoes are more drawn to you after a few brewskies is still up for debate. Sidenote: A Bug's Life. Pixar Picture Twenty+ years later, I've just got this joke from Pixar. He* ordered Bloody Mary O+ !!! Ok not that I would know what a bloody Mary was when I was a preteen. *Let's not get into the details of the fact that only female mosquito

Fun Fact of the Week, A mosquito embedded in Amber. Not the mosquito in question. Image for illustration purpose only. RomanVX/Shutterstock Your backyard mosquitoes are from the insect family Culicida. The earliest known little bugger that fits the descriptions of this family is dated back to 10 MILLIONS YEARS ago! Its fossil was identified in one of the Burmese amber at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in 2004. And no, there is no report of dinosaur generated from this specimen....or is there? Full descriptions of this specimen here

With more and more constraints on scientific funding worldwide, researchers are having a difficult time securing supports for their work, especially among those relative early in their career like a PhD students, postdoctoral fellows or young PIs. Funding is crucial at this stage where new investigators can establish their career path. With many startups turning to crowdfunding to help complete their projects, you are now seeing new campaigns offering all these fun gadgets and technologies almost everyday. What crowdfunding does here is to bring you, as potential customers, closer to the companies. It generates buzz for the biz, and you get a glimpse of the products you will likely purchase. Crowdfunding connects the startup owners with broader audiences who are as passionate about the projects as they are. In turn, these audiences have a chance to be a part of the projects through small donations. While money raised from crowdfunding may not entirely replace the more traditional