Publications by authors named "Erin Allmann Updyke"
Article Synopsis
- Ticks use chemical cues, primarily carbon dioxide, to find hosts and this study investigates if ticks prefer human hosts based on sex due to differences in breath composition.
- Focusing on the lone star tick, researchers conducted a bioassay with 20 pairs of male and female volunteers to see how many ticks preferred each gender.
- Results showed that ticks were attracted to female breath more than male breath, suggesting that female breath may have attractive components, while male breath could contain repellent substances.
Article Synopsis
- This study aimed to find better ways to attract and capture sylvatic triatomines, which are important for understanding Chagas disease transmission.
- Researchers tested different trap designs, including ones with UV lights and human-volatile lures, during different seasons in Panama.
- The results showed that cross-vane panel traps with UV lights were as effective as traditional sheet traps but easier to use, while lure-only traps failed to catch any triatomines.
Recreational waters contaminated with human fecal pollution are a public health concern, and ensuring the safety of recreational waters for public use is a priority of both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Current recreational water standards rely on fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) levels as indicators of human disease risk. However present evidence indicates that levels of FIB do not always correspond to the presence of other potentially harmful organisms, such as viruses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF