Nutrition & Health

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Close up image of adult bed bug.
Pests in the Urban Landscape: Article

Californians get advice to stop bed bugs

January 22, 2021
By Pamela S Kan-Rice
Bed bugs can hitch rides on secondhand furniture, luggage, backpacks and other personal items to invade homes and attack people. While we rest and sleep on sofas and beds, the insects come out to feed. They want to suck our blood.
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Thrips is a major pest of lettuce production in Salinas. (Illustration courtesy of Daniel Hasegawa)
Bug Squad: Article

Research Entomologist Daniel Hasegawa Targets Thrips

January 18, 2021
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
They're small, about 1 mm long or less, with characteristic fringed wings. They fly, but not well. But thrips do pack a powerful punch. A major pest of many agricultural crops, including lettuce, they damage plants by (1) sucking their juices and (2) transmitting viruses.
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Packing crock with salted cabbage
Master Food Preserver SLO/SB Counties: Article

It's Sauerkraut Time!

January 18, 2021
Have you thought about making sauerkraut? Do you already make sauerkraut? Or, have you made sauerkraut, and something went terribly wrong and you don't want to make it again? These are questions many of us have asked and continue to ask ourselves.
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Screen shot of the UC Davis COVID-19 symposium. It's online on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Paq0ka3NIP0
Bug Squad: Article

Highly Successful UC Davis COVID-19 Symposium Is Now Online

January 14, 2021
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you missed the recent UC Davis COVID-19 Symposium on saliva and sewage tests, plus vaccines, not to worry. It's online on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Paq0ka3NIP0 "We had a total of 1,234 registrants," reported UC Davis Distinguished Professor Walter Leal, the organizer and moderator.
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Piper, a West Highland white terrier, aka Westie, "polices" two carpenter ant mounds in a Vacaville park. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

On Making a Mountain Out of an Ant Hill

January 12, 2021
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
When you "make a mountain out of a molehill," you're exaggerating the severity of the situation. But if you're an ant, you can make little mounds that might appear--at least to other ants--like mountains.
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