Carbon Black Is Fatal to Mosquito Larvae.

• Position: DISEASE CONTROL

Before being accidentally introduced to the New World by the 16th century slave trade, the yellow fever mosquito was a species native only to Africa. Highly adaptable, it has since become an invasive species in North America, but researchers at Ohio State University may have found a way to squash the pesky population in its juvenile stages.

Published in the journal Insects, a paper describes how mosquitoes have evolved a natural resistance to some chemical insecticides and offers an alternative called carbon black, a type of carbon-based nanoparticles, or CNPs.

Peter Piermarini, study coauthor and associate professor of entomology, describes CNPs as "microscopic" materials made out of organic elements. The study employed a modified version of carbon black called Emperor 1800, which often is used to coat automobiles black. CNPs are a relatively recent scientific development, and they are considered as new tools to control various insect and pest infestations.

If we can learn more about how carbon black works and how to use it safely, we could design a commercially available nanoparticle that is highly effective against insecticide-resistant mosquitoes.

The yellow fever mosquito, or Aedes aegypti, is a species known for spreading not just yellow fever, but diseases like the Zika virus, dengue, and chikungunya fever. Adults rarely fly more than a few hundred meters from where they emerge, but their abundance leads to steady transmission of diseases--enough to claim tens of thousands of lives every year and hospitalize hundreds of thousands more.

When female mosquitoes are ready to lay...