Biologists recently discovered the first airborne pheromone produced by tsetse flies. The finding, reported in Science, promises new control methods for the biting flies, which have a long history of spreading devastating diseases across Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The best way of controlling these horrible diseases is by controlling the flies,” says senior author John Carlson, a neuroscientist at Yale University in New Haven, CT. Traps baited with cow urine are the current mainstay of tsetse control. Adding fly pheromones to the traps could lure more tsetse.

— Read more in The perfume of the tsetse fly opens new doors to disease control at PNAS.