Citizen-scientists: Uncle Sam wants you to fight Zika!

[...] it's time for the Invasive Mosquito Project to scale up and fast, since Zika has been linked to serious birth defects and health officials are preparing for the possibility of small outbreaks in the United States.

Volunteers now are needed to collect mosquito eggs in their communities and upload the data to populate an online map, which in turn will provide real-time information about hot spots to help researchers and mosquito controllers respond.

Some local surveys have been revived as dengue fever and other viruses creep back into the country, carried in the blood of travelers and transmitted through mosquito bites.

The Invasive Mosquito Project is coordinated by Kansas-based USDA entomologist Lee Cohnstaedt, who has explored crowdsourcing as a budget-conscious way to sample mosquito populations and cites research supporting volunteers' capabilities for collecting large-scale data.

Turning classroom routines into a life-long habit of mosquito vigilance.

Since high school biology teacher Noah Busch incorporated the USDA project into his lesson plans, his students in Manhattan, Kansas, have made the connection between news reports about Zika and the mosquito traps they set near tires or backyard swimming pools.