Insects | featured news

The latest weapon in the U.N.'s fight against hunger, global warming and pollution might be flying by you right now. Edible insects are being promoted as a low-fat, high-protein food for people, pets and livestock. According to the U.N., they come with appetizing side benefits: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and livestock pollution, creating jobs in developing countries and feeding the millions of hungry people in the world.

A 32-year-old Florida man has died after eating "dozens of roaches and worms" in a roach-eating contest, the Broward County Sheriff's Office says, according to the Miami Herald.

Scientists have found three well preserved ancient insects frozen in amber - and time - in what is Earth's oldest bug trap. The discoveries of amber-encased insects in Italy may sound like something out of "Jurassic Park" but these bugs are even older than that. They are about 230 million years old, which puts them in the Triassic time period, and about 100 million years older than what had been the previously known oldest critters trapped in fossilized tree resin, or amber.

A group of cave explorers and scientists have made a rare discovery: an entirely new taxonomic family of spider in the caves of southern Oregon. Only two other spider families (the taxonomic group above both genus and species) have been found since 1990, and this is the first newly discovered, native one uncovered in North America since 1890, said California Academy of Sciences researcher Charles Griswold, lead author of the study that described the species.

These mosquitoes are genetically engineered to kill — their own children. Researchers on Sunday reported initial signs of success from the first release into the environment of mosquitoes engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, killing them before they reach adulthood.

Chemicals which interfere with a mosquito's ability to sniff out humans have been developed by researchers in the US.

The ants may go marching one by one, but they end up forming a superstructure of thousands -- and together they can form a raft that stretches the boundaries of the laws of physics, according to new research released today.

Drugmaker Abbott Laboratories says it is recalling a line of infant formula which may be contaminated with insect parts.

Forget about fictional, glitter-skinned teen vampires. You’re far more likely to have your blood sucked by bed bugs. The tiny, sneaky insects are spreading so rapidly across the United States that almost no region or area is untouched, a new survey suggests.

Insects may have tiny brains, but they can perform some seriously impressive feats of mental gymnastics.