Insects Archives - Page 2 of 8

Environment

Nurture in nature: Top 5 species used in medicine

For centuries, medicine has looked to nature for cures and treatments. Here are our top five picks for medicines derived from nature.

Environment

Only a mother could love ‘em: why cockroaches and termites are great parents

Until recently, maternal care in cockroaches was considered an evolutionary oddity. However, as our understanding of insect relationships has increased in recent years, maternal care in cockroaches is now seen not as a strange evolutionary dead end, but an important stepping stone in the development of the huge, complex and well-ordered societies formed by other insect species.

Environment

The birds and the bees in Kosciuszko National Park

We’re researching pollinator networks in Kosciuszko National Park, home of our ski fields, by mapping out a network of interactions between plants and their pollinators using new DNA technologies, including pollen DNA metabarcoding.

Six-armed ecosystem engineers remedy farming woes from the ground up

Over the past 50 years these six-legged friends have been on a roll, helping us clean up the 280 million cow pats produced daily in Australia.

Environment

Australia’s weirdest parents: five stories from the animal kingdom

Think your parents were strange? We've got some of the weirdest birth and childcare stories from the animal kingdom you'll ever hear.

About Us

The Atlas of Living Australia: Collect it, log it, use it

The Atlas of Living Australia brings species information together from multiple sources (collections, universities and museums for example) to form the most comprehensive and accessible data set on Australia's biodiversity ever produced.

About Us

Interronauts | Episode 3: Gate-crashing gut flora, storing movies on DNA, Arthropods of Our Homes, & titanium bones

Jesse, Sophie, and Adrian get together to chat about the uninvited microbes that stumble into our guts, storing films on DNA, the mutations behind mirror movement disorder, and CSIRO's 3D printing of a titanium sternum We also speak with Michelle Trautwein about her new project 'Arthropods of Our Homes'.

Tuning in to Amazon biodiversity

When we imagine the Amazon rainforest, we tend to picture a kingdom of tropical greenery - a flurry of squawks, motion and colour. In reality, it’s becoming increasingly uninhabited. We're working to create a continuous wireless network of sensors to monitor the activity of species and better understand biodiversity loss.

How far will a male mosquito travel to find a mate – and will he cross the road?

Over the course of the five-week ‘Mark, Release Recapture’ (MRR) study 3000 male mosquitoes were released and then recaptured through a network of over 70 traps. All to find out if they'd cross a road for a mate.

From meat myths to magpies: our most read blogs of 2016

As 2016 draws to a close, we've decided to take a look back at our 10 most interesting, entertaining and informative blogs.

Environment

From warm to swarm: why insect activity increases in summer

With a predicted increase in the average temperature this summer, entomologists are forecasting an increase in insect activity.

Melbourne’s rainwater tanks overflowing… with mosquitoes

Egg-laying mosquitoes have been found in more than 20% of domestic rainwater tanks inspected in Melbourne homes. What can we do to keep them out?

Insects