Latest news with #flies
BBC News
23-07-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Aycliffe fly infestation disrupting County Durham village life, residents say
Residents say they are being "terrorised" by thousands of flies, which are disrupting their daily lives and causing health living in Aycliffe Village, near Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, have urged the Environment Agency (EA) to take action to bring the situation under Appleby, who has blamed a nearby landfill, said he had 64 flies stuck to fly paper at his home a month ago, and he was "deeply concerned" because the issue was happening each Quarry Landfill Site, which is managed by Ashcourt, said it was "not the source of the issue". The EA said it was investigating. Mr Appleby, 55, said: "The residents of Aycliffe Village should not be forced to endure such conditions."Local residents are being terrorised in their own homes and gardens, with the infestation causing disruption to daily life and posing legitimate health and hygiene concerns." 'Rise in temperature' Last year, a rotten egg smell monitored by the EA near the landfill was found to exceed World Health Organisation (WHO) "annoyance" levels. At the time, the quarry's owner said there were a number of other potential sources of the EA said it was investigating around the areas of Brafferton and Aycliffe to find out where the flies had come from."With temperatures climbing, we are seeing more incidents related to hot weather impacts on the environment, including, in some cases, an increase in the number of flies," a spokesperson said."We are investigating reports of increased fly activity in Brafferton and Aycliffe and are focusing on potential sources."The EA said it was working to ensure control measures are put in place to reduce the impact on the local community.A spokesperson for Ashcourt said: "We do not have a fly infestation at our site. "We are aware that there were some complaints received by the Environment Agency, but we are not the source of the issue." Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Fox News
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
US Gov to Drop Millions of Flies to Prevent Flesh-Eating Maggots...
The US will soon drop millions of flies from the sky…but why? I'm Tomi Lahren, find out next. They say truth is often stranger than fiction and in this case, that's spot on. The US government is set to drop millions of flies from the sky to stop the potential invasion of flesh-eating New World screwworm maggots. These disgusting maggots threaten wildlife, livestock AND humans and are set to hatch in the lower part of the country, soon. If they develop into adult flies, we're talking BILLIONS lost in cattle and beef. That's why involved government agencies have been breeding billions of flies to stave off the maggot infestation and keep it from spreading further north. In short, the male flies they are breeding will be sterilized with radiation then dropped to mate with female flies whose eggs will then not hatch and hopefully, this will lead to a die out before this infestation spreads further. Normally I don't like the government intervening in nature but this sure seems like a worthy project. The last thing we need is a screwworm maggot infestation! I'm Tomi Lahren and you watch my show 'Tomi Lahren is Fearless' at Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
The Sun
15-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Sun
The £2 buy that brightens up your garden & ‘works wonders' keeping flies out as mum urges people to ‘forget' DIY hacks
WITH summer in full force and Brits enjoying glorious weather, many homeowners may have noticed more flies appearing in their garden and houses. This is because this is the time of year that pesky bugs love the most, as the warmer, brighter days boost their energy levels. 2 2 The start of summer also marks the start of their mating season and they can all emerge at once to begin reproducing. Not to mention, there is also increased food availability with BBQs and picnics, meaning they are often on the search for a tasty snack. So it's no wonder that homeowners across the country will be trying all different tips and tricks to keep them at bay. Online, there are what feels like dozens of different hacks - from using basil, a viral apple cider vinegar and cling film method and more. However, if you've given these a shot but with no worthwhile results, there's another remedy. The best part? Not only is it effective and wallet-friendly but will also brighten up your outdoor space in seconds. The genius solution was recently shared on TikTok by mum-of-three Jaimie Elmo, who also urged people to ''forget'' other DIY hacks. According to the savvy mother, whose username is @ theelmosworlds, homeowners should get their hands on a disco ball - a quirky method to repel pesky flies with no faff. Pest control expert, Juan C. Rezk, explained that this method can be ''effective'' because flies mostly rely on light and reflection for navigation. ''Their sense of direction may be affected by the reflections cast everywhere by a spinning disco ball in direct sunshine,'' he told Homes and Gardens. The 2C method which stops flies plaguing your home and ruining your BBQ ''It doesn't harm them, but if it irritates them enough, they may avoid the area.'' For best results, the disco ball - available for just £2 on Shein - should be placed somewhere bright and sunny to capture and reflect the light, rather than being hidden away in the shade. According to Juan, using a disco ball to get rid of gnats and flies works best outside, on decks, patios, and barns. Why do flies come out in summer? Flies are present all year round, but all of a sudden when summer comes, they are just EVERYWHERE! The main contributing factors are the breeding cycle of flies and the soaring temperatures. Insects are cold blooded and in summer, when their body temperature rises from the external heat, they become more active. The hotter weather also let's them seek out cool moist spots, like inside your home, to escape from the sweltering heat and to lay their eggs. House Fly eggs take around 20 hours to hatch, but when the temperature rises above 37 degrees, can hatch within 8 hours! In extreme hot weather the eggs can mature from larvae to adult fly in as little as four days. The average lifespan of a housefly is 21 days, so each female can lay up to 900 eggs during the summer months! ''To truly reflect, it requires direct sunlight or a powerful light source,'' he explained. ''Inside is not worth it though. Flies just ignore the scatter effect because most interior lighting isn't intense enough to produce it.'' While this remedy won't work well on cloudy days, a disco ball is a fun way to add flair to your patio and repel those annoying flies and a good trick to add to your arsenal this summer. Sharing the hack - which is ideal if you want to keep your garden chemical-free - Jaimie said in the caption: ''Forget the water and pennies in a Ziploc trick. This has been working wonders.'' 'I love how it looks' The clip, where the savvy mum also showed how well the shiny disco ball reflected the sunlight, has taken the internet by storm. Since being uploaded, the informative video - one that's sure to help millions of frustrated people - has won almost 920k views. As over 28k people gave it a like, more than 170 flooded to comments where one joked: ''It puts the flies into a panic at the disco.'' Another also swore by this wallet-friendly solution, writing: ''I did this too & it actually works and also I love how it looks.'' Someone else chimed in: ''I hung 6 on my back deck, and I'm so obsessed with the look.
The Guardian
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘They digest externally': the artist who creates paintings with live flies
One morning in Denver as artist John Knuth was getting his exhibition ready at the David B Smith Gallery, the police knocked on the door to check he wasn't housing a dead body. 'They said, 'We've got a report of a lot of flies in here. Is there a dead body or anything rotting?'' Knuth recalls to the Guardian over Zoom. The hundreds of flies emerging from Knuth's gallery were actually his collaborators. For over a decade, Knuth has been creating paintings using the regurgitation of tens of thousands of flies. 'When flies eat they digest externally,' explains Knuth. 'They're in a constant state of regurgitation. They land on a surface, puke up, suck it back in. Puke up, suck it back in.' After feeding the insects a mixture of acrylic colored paint and sugar water, the flies spend several weeks expelling the mixtures on to his canvases. 'From that I get these really transcendent color connections.' While that might sound like a rather odd and disgusting approach, Knuth has been praised for pushing the boundaries of nature, beauty and process with his abstract pointillist paintings, which have been described as 'vibrant and seemingly luminescent' and 'incandescent [and] shimmering'. As well as being sticky work, it occasionally leads to run-ins with the law. After inviting the investigating Denver police officers inside the gallery, the effortlessly effervescent and excitable Knuth charmingly explained that rather than concealing a corpse, the flies were busy at work. 'I told them, 'I'm an artist. Hundreds of thousands of flies are making paintings for me. Some are escaping.' The cops quickly echoed the usual response Knuth gets for his work from critics and gallery visitors alike. 'They were so intrigued. They were like, 'This is amazing.' They invited the people at the bank who reported the flies over and 20 minutes later they were all on board with it and apologizing for raising a fuss.' Knuth is currently showcasing his latest array of fly paintings at the Hollis Taggart gallery in New York as part of his exhibition, The Hot Garden. This showcase has been particularly resonant for Knuth. It's his first major exhibition since he lost the Los Angeles home he shared with his wife and child, as well as his entire archive, in January's Eaton fire. After the tragedy, Knuth returned to fly paintings as 'they helped pay for my house that burned down. I wanted to get back to the beginning point.' It was almost inevitable that Knuth's art would intersect with nature. Growing up in the suburbs of Minneapolis and St Paul, Knuth spent all of his time catching snakes, frogs, turtles, and fishing. Knuth's fascination with animals and insects continued when he became an artist. He would mix rattlesnake venom with paint, he painted coyote penis bones gold, and created gold leaf horseshoe crabs. Even he recognizes that he's chosen quite an unusual path. 'I remember thinking at one point, 'What the fuck am I doing? Why didn't I start painting nudes or get a muse?'' While struggling in high school, Knuth found his salvation in several art books at the library. Intrigued by the work of Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns in particular, Knuth started to regularly visit the variety of art museums across Minneapolis. 'There's a tremendous art community there that fed my curiosity. That's really where I discovered art.' Knuth then attended the University Of Minnesota, where he got a BFA in art, and worked under Mark Dion – a conceptual artist renowned for mixing art and science. 'He was my mentor. He showed me you can be really smart and an intellectual troublemaker, plus go out and drink beer and make a living as an international artist.' Knuth was first struck by the idea to work with flies in the buildup to the 2003 Iraq war. After reading that flies had been responsible for more human suffering than all wars, because of how they have spread malaria and numerous other diseases, Knuth initially wanted to create an anti-war piece by tying paper airplanes on to house flies to make his 'own little biological warfare air force'. As he explored this option, he noticed that flyspeck looked like little spots of paint. In 2005, Knuth continued his experimentation by feeding flies McDonald's and Taco Bell. But the results were just brown paintings. 'They were cool conceptual objects. But not beautiful artworks.' He also didn't have enough money to buy the number of flies he required to fulfill his vision. Then in 2013, Knuth was approached by the Museum Of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles to do a 'big production' of his fly paintings. The resulting video went viral. 'That moment made my career. Since then I've had shows around the world.' Knuth's fly paintings have been bought by multiple private art collectors and are also in the permanent collection at the Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina. The Hollis Taggart show marks Knuth's third solo exhibition in New York. After being approached by director Paul Efstathiou in February, Knuth devised the concept of the Hot Garden because he wanted to reflect what he and numerous artists had gone through with the Los Angeles fires. 'This was a generation changing event for my generation of artists. I literally know hundreds of artists that got hit by this. Five artists on my block alone lost their houses.' Since his work had always engaged with climate, bugs and life, it felt like a natural continuation to bring the fire into his paintings. For the titular piece of the exhibition, Knuth wanted to create 'distorted or distressed landscapes by pulling paint across the canvas to make fire motifs'. For the piece January 7, the day that Knuth watched his home burn down, he mixed red, lavender and green flyspeck to produce a 'dark and ominous' tone and visuals reminiscent of fire and smoke. While constructing his paintings, Knuth looked at Monet's use of color compositions in his lily paintings, while turning to warm colors, like oranges and yellows, because they represented heat. Knuth isn't just presenting his fly paintings at The Hot Garden. He's also exhibiting a sculptural installation, entitled The Sculpture Garden. It includes fragments of artworks recovered from his destroyed home, as well as pieces from other artists affected by the fire. Glenn Phillips, the director of the Getty Research Center, was so impressed that he's already bought two pieces for the Getty Museum. Including, This Is Our Pompeii, a New York Times article on the impact of the LA fires on local artists, covered in red flyspeck. While Knuth is delighted that the fly paintings have connected with art lovers and critics yet again, he can't help but get a little somber when asked if the exhibition has helped him process his trauma. 'Being busy helps. Having a reason to keep doing this helps. But all of my archive and retrospective is gone. That's the first 25 years of my career. My work was a way to engage in the world. Unfortunately the world engaged with me pretty intensely six months ago. There's just so much tragedy in the world that the news cycle moves on.' But as Knuth picks up the pieces for the next phase of his career, he's not straying too far away from the formula that has garnered him so much success. His new Pasadena studio is full of dead flies caught in fly traps hanging from the globe, giant fishhook sculptures, dead stuffed rattlesnakes painted red, and hundreds of black sea urchins in gold foil painted black. 'I'm 46 now, so hopefully I have another 25 years left to make up for what I lost.' The Hot Garden is on show at Hollis Taggart at 109 Norfolk Street in New York, New York until 16 August
The Guardian
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘They digest externally': the artist who creates paintings with live flies
One morning in Denver as artist John Knuth was getting his exhibition ready at the David B Smith Gallery, the police knocked on the door to check he wasn't housing a dead body. 'They said, 'We've got a report of a lot of flies in here. Is there a dead body or anything rotting?'' Knuth recalls to the Guardian over Zoom. The hundreds of flies emerging from Knuth's gallery were actually his collaborators. For over a decade, Knuth has been creating paintings using the regurgitation of tens of thousands of flies. 'When flies eat they digest externally,' explains Knuth. 'They're in a constant state of regurgitation. They land on a surface, puke up, suck it back in. Puke up, suck it back in.' After feeding the insects a mixture of acrylic colored paint and sugar water, the flies spend several weeks expelling the mixtures on to his canvases. 'From that I get these really transcendent color connections.' While that might sound like a rather odd and disgusting approach, Knuth has been praised for pushing the boundaries of nature, beauty and process with his abstract pointillist paintings, which have been described as 'vibrant and seemingly luminescent' and 'incandescent [and] shimmering'. As well as being sticky work, it occasionally leads to run-ins with the law. After inviting the investigating Denver police officers inside the gallery, the effortlessly effervescent and excitable Knuth charmingly explained that rather than concealing a corpse, the flies were busy at work. 'I told them, 'I'm an artist. Hundreds of thousands of flies are making paintings for me. Some are escaping.' The cops quickly echoed the usual response Knuth gets for his work from critics and gallery visitors alike. 'They were so intrigued. They were like, 'This is amazing.' They invited the people at the bank who reported the flies over and 20 minutes later they were all on board with it and apologizing for raising a fuss.' Knuth is currently showcasing his latest array of fly paintings at the Hollis Taggart gallery in New York as part of his exhibition, The Hot Garden. This showcase has been particularly resonant for Knuth. It's his first major exhibition since he lost the Los Angeles home he shared with his wife and child, as well as his entire archive, in January's Eaton fire. After the tragedy, Knuth returned to fly paintings as 'they helped pay for my house that burned down. I wanted to get back to the beginning point.' It was almost inevitable that Knuth's art would intersect with nature. Growing up in the suburbs of Minneapolis and St Paul, Knuth spent all of his time catching snakes, frogs, turtles, and fishing. Knuth's fascination with animals and insects continued when he became an artist. He would mix rattlesnake venom with paint, he painted coyote penis bones gold, and created gold leaf horseshoe crabs. Even he recognizes that he's chosen quite an unusual path. 'I remember thinking at one point, 'What the fuck am I doing? Why didn't I start painting nudes or get a muse?'' While struggling in high school, Knuth found his salvation in several art books at the library. Intrigued by the work of Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns in particular, Knuth started to regularly visit the variety of art museums across Minneapolis. 'There's a tremendous art community there that fed my curiosity. That's really where I discovered art.' Knuth then attended the University Of Minnesota, where he got a BFA in art, and worked under Mark Dion – a conceptual artist renowned for mixing art and science. 'He was my mentor. He showed me you can be really smart and an intellectual troublemaker, plus go out and drink beer and make a living as an international artist.' Knuth was first struck by the idea to work with flies in the buildup to the 2003 Iraq war. After reading that flies had been responsible for more human suffering than all wars, because of how they have spread malaria and numerous other diseases, Knuth initially wanted to create an anti-war piece by tying paper airplanes on to house flies to make his 'own little biological warfare air force'. As he explored this option, he noticed that flyspeck looked like little spots of paint. In 2005, Knuth continued his experimentation by feeding flies McDonald's and Taco Bell. But the results were just brown paintings. 'They were cool conceptual objects. But not beautiful artworks.' He also didn't have enough money to buy the number of flies he required to fulfill his vision. Then in 2013, Knuth was approached by the Museum Of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles to do a 'big production' of his fly paintings. The resulting video went viral. 'That moment made my career. Since then I've had shows around the world.' Knuth's fly paintings have been bought by multiple private art collectors and are also in the permanent collection at the Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina. The Hollis Taggart show marks Knuth's third solo exhibition in New York. After being approached by director Paul Efstathiou in February, Knuth devised the concept of the Hot Garden because he wanted to reflect what he and numerous artists had gone through with the Los Angeles fires. 'This was a generation changing event for my generation of artists. I literally know hundreds of artists that got hit by this. Five artists on my block alone lost their houses.' Since his work had always engaged with climate, bugs and life, it felt like a natural continuation to bring the fire into his paintings. For the titular piece of the exhibition, Knuth wanted to create 'distorted or distressed landscapes by pulling paint across the canvas to make fire motifs'. For the piece January 7, the day that Knuth watched his home burn down, he mixed red, lavender and green flyspeck to produce a 'dark and ominous' tone and visuals reminiscent of fire and smoke. While constructing his paintings, Knuth looked at Monet's use of color compositions in his lily paintings, while turning to warm colors, like oranges and yellows, because they represented heat. Knuth isn't just presenting his fly paintings at The Hot Garden. He's also exhibiting a sculptural installation, entitled The Sculpture Garden. It includes fragments of artworks recovered from his destroyed home, as well as pieces from other artists affected by the fire. Glenn Phillips, the director of the Getty Research Center, was so impressed that he's already bought two pieces for the Getty Museum. Including, This Is Our Pompeii, a New York Times article on the impact of the LA fires on local artists, covered in red flyspeck. While Knuth is delighted that the fly paintings have connected with art lovers and critics yet again, he can't help but get a little somber when asked if the exhibition has helped him process his trauma. 'Being busy helps. Having a reason to keep doing this helps. But all of my archive and retrospective is gone. That's the first 25 years of my career. My work was a way to engage in the world. Unfortunately the world engaged with me pretty intensely six months ago. There's just so much tragedy in the world that the news cycle moves on.' But as Knuth picks up the pieces for the next phase of his career, he's not straying too far away from the formula that has garnered him so much success. His new Pasadena studio is full of dead flies caught in fly traps hanging from the globe, giant fishhook sculptures, dead stuffed rattlesnakes painted red, and hundreds of black sea urchins in gold foil painted black. 'I'm 46 now, so hopefully I have another 25 years left to make up for what I lost.' The Hot Garden is on show at Hollis Taggart at 109 Norfolk Street in New York, New York until 16 August
