Tag Archives: insects

Plague of rats and insects provide latest challenge for war-shattered Gazans

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One displaced woman told UN News’s correspondent in Gaza: “In all camps, we suffer from biting insects, especially fleas,” adding that “our children suffer from severe pain due to itching and stinging.

“We tried to treat it in simple ways, but the right medicines are not available at the medical centre.”

While biting insects found in Gaza are not immediately life-threatening, the presence of rodents, including rats, can increase the risk of the spread of infectious diseases which the health system in Gaza may be unable to treat.

Inadequate sanitation

The lack of adequate sanitation, including limited access to clean toilets, general overcrowding as people try to find places to live amongst the rubble of Gaza – and the challenges of removing rubbish from the streets – have amplified the threat posed by rats.

Teams from UNRWA, the UN agency which supports the people of Gaza, have initiated intensive clean-up operations as well as environmental and health awareness campaigns. The number of dermatology consultations in health facilities has also increased.

UNRWA workers are actively moving through tents for displaced people in Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip spraying pesticides to counter the spread of insects, fleas and rodents.

Uncollected trash in Gaza is encouraging rats.

UNRWA teams have worked in approximately 50 displacement sites in the Mawasi area of ​​Khan Younis.

They have focused on locations where there is overcrowding, improper waste disposal, the presence of livestock and the lack of hygiene materials.

“Because of the intense heat and sleeping on the sand, we were exposed to biting insects, rodents, and mosquitoes,” said one resident as he watched an UNRWA environmental health officer spraying insecticides around temporary shelters.

A doctor from UNRWA’s Environmental Health team explains to mothers how to treat insect bites.

A doctor from UNRWA’s Environmental Health team explains to mothers how to treat insect bites.

Educational Sessions

In a nearby tent, a group of women gathered around awareness-raising instructors from the agency’s Environmental Health Office for an educational session on how to guard against insects and rodents.

The meetings target women, girls and adolescents to familiarize them with how to face this health challenge.

Meanwhile, Gaza continues to struggle since the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel precipitated the shattering conflict.

No humanitarian aid or supplies have entered the Gaza Strip since 2 March 2025, due to Israel’s total blockade.

UNRWA says vital humanitarian supplies, including food, fuel, medical aid and vaccines for children, are almost exhausted.

The agency warned that pesticide stocks are expected to run out within days in southern Gaza, while they have already run out in the central areas and north of the Strip.

A rechargeable, remote-controllable cyborg cockroach to monitor hazardous environment [Details]

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An international team led by researchers at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) has engineered a system for creating remote controlled cyborg cockroaches, equipped with a tiny wireless control module that is powered by a rechargeable battery attached to a solar cell. Despite the mechanic devices, ultrathin electronics and flexible materials allow the insects to move freely. These achievements, reported in the scientific journal npj Flexible Electronics on September 5, will help make the use of cyborg insects a practical reality.

Researchers have been trying to design cyborg insects—part insect, part machine—to help inspect hazardous areas or monitor the environment. However, for the use of cyborg insects to be practical, handlers must be able to control them remotely for long periods of time. This requires wireless control of their leg segments, powered by a tiny rechargeable battery. Keeping the battery adequately charged is fundamental—nobody wants a suddenly out-of-control team of cyborg cockroaches roaming around. While it’s possible to build docking stations for recharging the battery, the need to return and recharge could disrupt time-sensitive missions. Therefore, the best solution is to include an on-board solar cell that can continuously ensure that the battery stays charged.

All of this is easier said than done. To successfully integrate these devices into a cockroach that has limited surface area required the research team to develop a special backpack, ultrathin organic solar cell modules, and an adhesion system that keeps the machinery attached for long periods of time while also allowing natural movements.

Researchers at RIKEN, Japan have created remote controlled cyborg cockroaches, equipped with a tiny wireless control module that is powered by a rechargeable battery attached to a solar cell/RIKEN

Led by Kenjiro Fukuda, RIKEN CPR, the team experimented with Madagascar cockroaches, which are approximately 6 cm long. They attached the wireless leg-control module and lithium polymer battery to the top of the insect on the thorax using a specially designed backpack, which was modeled after the body of a model cockroach. The backpack was 3D printed with an elastic polymer and conformed perfectly to the curved surface of the cockroach, allowing the rigid electronic device to be stably mounted on the thorax for more than a month.

The ultrathin 0.004 mm thick organic solar cell module was mounted on the dorsal side of the abdomen. “The body-mounted ultrathin organic solar cell module achieves a power output of 17.2 mW, which is more than 50 times larger than the power output of current state-of-the art energy harvesting devices on living insects,” according to Fukuda.

cockroach/Photo:en.wikipedia.org

The ultrathin and flexible organic solar cell, and how it was attached to the insect, proved necessary to ensure freedom of movement. After carefully examining natural cockroach movements, the researchers realized that the abdomen changes shape and portions of the exoskeleton overlap. To accommodate this, they interleaved adhesive and non-adhesive sections onto the films, which allowed them to bend but also stay attached. When thicker solar cell films were tested, or when the films were uniformly attached, the cockroaches took twice as long to run the same distance, and had difficulty righting themselves when on their backs.

Once these components were integrated into the cockroaches, along with wires that stimulate the leg segments, the new cyborgs were tested. The battery was charged with pseudo-sunlight for 30 minutes, and animals were made to turn left and right using the wireless remote control.

“Considering the deformation of the thorax and abdomen during basic locomotion, a hybrid electronic system of rigid and flexible elements in the thorax and ultrasoft devices in the abdomen appears to be an effective design for cyborg cockroaches,” says Fukuda. “Moreover, since abdominal deformation is not unique to cockroaches, our strategy can be adapted to other insects like beetles, or perhaps even flying insects like cicadas in the future.”

Dragonfly brains predict the path of their prey

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New research from Australia and Sweden has shown how a dragonfly’s brain anticipates the movement of its prey, enabling it to hunt successfully. This knowledge could lead to innovations in fields such as robot vision.

An article published today in the journal eLife by researchers at the University of Adelaide and Lund University has offered more insights into the complexity of brain processing in dragonflies than has previously been understood.

“Until now, the international research community has primarily considered the capabilities of mammals, such as humans, for investigating how animals can predict where a moving object will be in the near future,” says project partner Dr Steven Wiederman from the University of Adelaide’s Adelaide Medical School.

“Understandably, mammals in many ways are more complex organisms than insects, but with each discovery we’re finding that dragonflies have keen visual and neural processes that could be ideal for translating into technological advances,” he says.

The Swedish-Australian collaboration resulted in the discovery of brain cells (neurons) in the dragonfly Hemicordulia that enables them to predictively pursue and catch their flying prey. These neurons make it possible to focus on a small object that moves over a complex background, similarly to how humans can track and catch a ball, even when that ball is moving against the backdrop of a cheering crowd.

Professor David O’Carroll, Professor of Biology at Lund University, says: “The dragonfly neurons can make a selection of a single target from the mass of visual information that the brain receives, such as the motion of another insect, and then predict its direction and future location. The dragonfly, like humans, makes this assessment based on the path along which the object moves.

“In other words, the dragonfly does something very similar to what we do when we track a ball in motion. Despite major differences in the complexity of the brain, evolution has led to the insect using its brain for advanced visual processes that are usually only considered in mammals.”

University of Adelaide PhD student Joseph Fabian and other team members were able to record target-detecting neurons in the dragonfly brain. These neurons increased their responses in a small ‘focus’ area just in front of the location of a moving object being tracked. If the object then disappeared from the field of vision, the focus spread forward over time, allowing the brain to predict where the target was most likely to reappear. The neuronal prediction was based on the previous path along which the prey had flown.

“This is an exciting discovery, and it aids our understanding of how single neurons make advanced predictions based on past history,” Dr Wiederman says.

“Our team is convinced that these results will have practical applications, especially in the development of artificial control and vision systems, such as self-steering vehicles and bionic vision.”