Disease vectors are living organisms, typically arthropods such as mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, sandflies, and triatomine bugs, that biologically or mechanically transmit pathogenic agents between hosts, thereby enabling the spread of infectious diseases within populations and ecosystems. In vector-borne disease systems, pathogens often undergo essential developmental or replication stages within the vector (biological transmission), or are passively carried on contaminated body parts (mechanical transmission). Research on disease vectors encompasses their ecology, population dynamics, host-feeding behavior, vector competence, insecticide resistance, and interactions with environmental and climatic factors, informing surveillance, risk modeling, and integrated vector management strategies for disease control.
Undergraduate Chris Zuo sent me the note "Four minutes is too long" along with photos of countless mosquito bites on his bare skin. This full-body massacre wasn't the result of a camping trip gone awry. He'd spent that limited ...
Ecology
Mar 21, 2026
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Researchers have known for decades that female mosquitoes—the ones responsible for the itchy and irritating bites that can also transmit disease—lose their desire to bite humans for several days after feeding, as they digest ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 20, 2026
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A mosquito finds its target with the help of certain cues in its environment, such as a person's silhouette and the carbon dioxide they exhale. Now researchers at MIT and Georgia Tech have found that these visual and chemical ...
Ecology
Mar 18, 2026
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18
Diseases historically absent from the United States have been showing up in Florida, Texas, California and other U.S. states in recent years. To understand why, look to Peru. That's where researchers from Stanford and other ...
Environment
Mar 17, 2026
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16
Bats are reservoirs for several zoonotic viruses, such as Ebola and coronaviruses. These pathogens can spread to humans through direct contact with the flying mammals or their bodily fluids, or indirectly through contaminated ...
Two locations have been identified as the most likely entry points into Australia for a disease that poses a huge risk to the beef and dairy industries. A University of Queensland-led team has built the first geospatial model ...
Veterinary medicine
Mar 13, 2026
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20
Long before humans cultivated crops or sailed between continents, a group of plant viruses was already evolving among wild plants in Eurasia. According to a new international study published in Plant Disease, the ancestors ...
Evolution
Mar 9, 2026
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20
A thin band of light from Cristian Lucanas's headlamp pierces the blackness of a Philippine rainforest as he digs through the underbrush before gently scooping up a cockroach with his bare hands.
Plants & Animals
Mar 8, 2026
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80
The world's first lab-based tick feeding system for bush ticks, developed by researchers at the University of Melbourne, has transformed the study of ticks and how they transmit disease. The novel, host-free technology reduces ...
Biotechnology
Mar 6, 2026
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17
Mosquitoes transmit several pathogens of public health importance, including malaria, dengue, chikungunya and Zika. These vector-borne diseases are responsible for millions of cases every year, and hundreds of thousands of ...
Ecology
Mar 4, 2026
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