Today PI Meuti and graduate student Lydia Fyie participated in the Ohio State Museum of Biological Diversity’s Annual Open House. We were both stationed in the insect collection, where we had the privilege of sharing fun facts and answering questions about many of the museum’s remarkable insect specimens. In total, over 3,000 visitors came to the Museum Open House, and likely at least 1,000 passed through the insect collection.

And as if that was not exhausting enough, Lydia then went on to give a second outstanding performance in Cabaret where she was cheered on by Vivian, Caitlin, Christiana and Megan.

We found out today that Lydia received a competitive Seeds grant from the Ohio Agricultural Research Development Center. This grant will allow Lydia to determine if the streetlights that illuminate our sidewalks and roads prevent mosquitoes from going into their overwintering dormancy. If this is the case, it means that mosquitoes may continue to bite city-dwellers and transmit diseases throughout the fall and winter. Stay tuned for her results! 🙂

The review article that PI Meuti co-authored with Dr. Sarah Short has just been published in the open access journal Insects (link here). This paper synthesizes information from other scientific studies that have examined how environmental factors, such as food, temperature and seasonal conditions, might affect the insect ejaculate.