The Food and Drug Administration has decided that consumers have a right to know when there's a bug in their food (or lipstick). Well, sort of—under the new rule, ingredient labels on many food, ...

W.A.

Apparently, some of your favorite red lipsticks are made from bugs. Yes, the cochineal ingredient you see listed on makeup products actually comes from dead insects. But don’t freak out. While it does ...

When you read the ingredients label on the back of a bottle of juice, you probably automatically divide them into recognizable components—like fruits and vegetables—and more mysterious compounds, like ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American What’s the issue? Well, cochineal is made ...

Cochineal bugs use a coloring as a defense mechanism, but humans have learned to use it to dye fabric. Before the advent of synthetic dyes, all dyes were made from insects or plants. In CU Boulder ...

An average trip to the grocery store can yield a cartful of colorful foods. Bright among the rainbow are the reds, lending hues to products such as raspberry jam, canned cherries, strawberry licorice, ...

The guts of an insect called the cochineal contain a traditional source of bright red dye -- a dye which has now become a booming industry because of a growing preference for juices and yogurts that ...

This story appears in the February 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine. Of all the substances on Earth, very few can make rich, soulful red. It’s the red of lipstick and cheek blush, ...