Support our non-partisan non-profit newsroom 💜 Donate now

Leaving the lab to hunt mosquitoes in the swamp

Sep 7, 2021
Mel Glenn, based in the Denver metro area, on why she decided to leave her lab job to become a seasonal mosquito control technician.
"I'm basically a mosquito hunter," said Mel Glenn, pictured here in a mosquito control position she previously held.
Courtesy of Mel Glenn

With a rise in tick, mosquito and flea-borne infections, come high health care costs

Dec 4, 2018
In Florida, changing climate and a lack of good diagnostic tools make it easier for insect-borne diseases like Eastern Equine Encephalitis to spread.
The number of people who got sick in the United States from an infected mosquito, tick, or flea tripled between 2004 and 2016.
APU GOMES/AFP/Getty Images

Zika mosquitoes were under control ... until they weren't

Feb 24, 2016
Eradication efforts have come and gone, and so has success
An Aedes Aegypti mosquito is photographed on human skin in a lab in Colombia. 
LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Images

A pregnant woman in Brazil shares her experience

Feb 12, 2016
Eleonora de Melo is living in Brazil in the midst of the Zika ourbreak

The mosquito business is buzzing

Jan 29, 2016
Worries about the Zika virus have a lot of us thinking about the pests
Aedes aegypti mosquitos in various stages of development are displayed at en exhibition on Dengue fever in Brazil. The mosquito transmits the Zika virus, as well as Dengue. In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants.
Mario Tama/Getty Images