Chemical light sticks as bait to trap predaceous aquatic insects: effect of light colour

NightLife: A cheap, robust, LED based light trap for collecting aquatic insects in remote areas

There are approximately one hundred thousand aquatic insect species currently known to science and this figure is likely a significant underestimation. The ecology of aquatic insect groups has been studied due to their role as bioindicators of water quality and in the case of Diptera, their role as vectors of disease. Light trapping targets emergent adults, using mercury vapour bulbs or actinic...

Why trap light?

In 1865 James Clerk Maxwell showed how light propagates as electromagnetic waves. In 1984 it was realized that light can also be trapped1. My journey into this subject began as a PhD student at Harvard University, focusing on the possibility to trap or localize any classical wave in a suitable material2. This was not one of the ‘big questions of science’ at the time, but my supervisor Michael J...

Polarized-light navigation by insects.

T he eyes of insects are sensitive to a natural phenomenon that man is blind to: the polarized light of the daytime sky. It is this capacity that under­ lies the remarkable navigational ability of many insect species. Exactly how can an insect navigate by polarized light? To ask this question is really to raise three separate questions: What makes the visual cell of an insect sensitive to polar...

The effect of light-dark cycle alteration on thermal and chemical pain in the male rat

Background: Animals have an internal biological clock with melatonin hormone that helps them to adapt to light/dark circles. Since melatonin is associated with an alteration in the expression and production of opioid receptors, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of changes in the light/dark circles on pain sensation in rats. Methods: This research study in order to investigate the thermal...

Aquatic Insects: Hemimetabolous Insects – Plecoptera