Publications by authors named "Jennifer Henke"

Article Synopsis
  • The study examines how the sex and age of adult Culex tarsalis mosquitoes affect their survival when exposed to permethrin, a common insecticide.
  • Results showed that younger and older females responded differently to permethrin, with older females having higher mortality rates after initial exposure, while males had slightly higher mortality than females in the first few minutes.
  • Ultimately, all mosquitoes tested died within 30 minutes, indicating that they are susceptible to permethrin, which is important for understanding insecticide resistance in mosquitoes.
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In the western United States, Culex tarsalis is the most important vector of West Nile virus. Insecticides containing permethrin or other pyrethroid compounds are commonly used to control these mosquitoes. Because of the range of environments where Cx.

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West Nile virus (WNV) is the most significant arbovirus in the United States in terms of both morbidity and mortality. West Nile exists in a complex transmission cycle between avian hosts and the arthropod vector, spp. mosquitoes.

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Mosquito-borne disease remains a significant burden on global health. In the United States, the major threat posed by mosquitoes is transmission of arboviruses, including West Nile virus by mosquitoes of the Culex genus. Virus metagenomic analysis of mosquito small RNA using deep sequencing and advanced bioinformatic tools enables the rapid detection of viruses and other infecting organisms, both pathogenic and non-pathogenic to humans, without any precedent knowledge.

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Mosquito suppression strategies based on "rear and release" of male mosquitoes are attracting renewed interest from governments, municipalities, and private businesses. These include irradiation-based sterile insect technique, Wolbachia-based technologies, and genetic modification. Each of these approaches requires the mass rearing and release of adult male mosquitoes, which typically is accomplished via a rearing facility near the release site.

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The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta (Buren), is an invasive pest of agricultural, urban, and natural areas. It is also considered a public health pest due to its painful stings. While it can be efficiently controlled by commercially available fire ant baits formulated with a corn-grit carrier, rain or irrigation is thought to degrade the carrier, compromising bait effectiveness.

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Since the reemergence of St. Louis Encephalitis (SLE) Virus (SLEV) in the Southwest United States, identified during the 2015 outbreak in Arizona, SLEV has been seasonally detected within spp. populations throughout the Southwest United States.

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Various products and insecticides are available that purport to reduce wild populations of adult mosquitoes. Recently, several manufacturers and general public comments on the internet have promoted devices that claim that ingestion of salt will significantly reduce populations of wild mosquitoes to near zero; there are no known scientific efficacy data that support these claims. We tested the survival of nine mosquito species of pest and public health importance across four adult diets: Water Only, Sugar Water Only (8.

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The genetic diversity and structure of invasive species are affected by the time since invasion, but it is not well understood how. We compare likely the oldest populations of in continental North America with some of the newest to illuminate the range of genetic diversity and structure that can be found within the invasive range of this important disease vector. populations in Florida have probably persisted since the 1600-1700s, while populations in southern California derive from new invasions that occurred in the last 10 years.

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Importance: West Nile virus (WNV) is the leading cause of domestically acquired arboviral disease.

Objective: To develop real-time WNV forecasts of infected mosquitoes and human cases.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Real-time forecasts of WNV in 4 geographically dispersed locations in the United States were generated using a WNV model-inference forecasting system previously validated with retrospective data.

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The invasive is an important disease vector increasing in frequency in hot-arid regions of the USA such as the Southwest. Within hot-arid surroundings this mosquito may be confined to peridomestic locations that tend to be cooler and humid, such as in lush, irrigated ornamental vegetation surrounding homes. However, to reach these habitat refugia, ultra-low volume (ULV) applications of insecticides targeting this mosquito must retain efficacy after being sprayed from the air or street where hot-arid conditions are prevalent.

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Background: There is a well-established relationship between poor executive cognitive abilities and elderly fall risk, but the precise mechanism underlying this relationship is unknown. Older persons frequently fall or trip on objects below eye level, and it was hypothesized that the pathological mechanism linking low executive function and fall risk is a selective impairment in the resolution of visual attention in the lower visual fields.

Objective: To determine if normally sighted older persons living in the community with deficits in executive cognitive abilities have a reduced resolution of visual attention in the lower visual fields compared to elderly and younger subjects with high executive abilities.

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Quorum sensing is a process that enables bacteria to communicate using secreted signaling molecules called autoinducers. This process enables a population of bacteria to regulate gene expression collectively and, therefore, control behavior on a community-wide scale. Quorum sensing is widespread in the bacterial world and, generally, processes controlled by quorum sensing are unproductive when undertaken by an individual bacterium but become effective when undertaken by the group.

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In a process called quorum sensing, bacteria communicate using extracellular signal molecules termed autoinducers. Two parallel quorum-sensing systems have been identified in the marine bacterium Vibrio harveyi. System 1 consists of the LuxM-dependent autoinducer HAI-1 and the HAI-1 sensor, LuxN.

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In a process known as quorum sensing, bacteria communicate with one another by producing, releasing, detecting, and responding to signal molecules called autoinducers. Vibrio harveyi, a marine pathogen, uses two parallel quorum-sensing circuits, each consisting of an autoinducer-sensor pair, to control the expression of genes required for bioluminescence and a number of other target genes. Genetic screens designed to discover autoinducer-regulated targets in V.

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