So, BARREL, think about how important eradicating mosquitoes will be?
Think about how democrats and republicans should and could be focused on helping us be free, safe, and prosperous instead of wasting time and energy and money castigating POTUS Trump and FLOTUS Trump?
Read — quote:
Buzz off: breakthrough technique eradicates mosquitoes
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-07-breakthrough-technique-eradicates-mosquitoes.html, quote:
1. A breakthrough technique harnessing two methods to target disease-carrying mosquitoes was able to effectively eradicate buzzing biters in two test sites in China, according to research published on Thursday.
2. The mosquitoes targeted are a type that is particularly difficult to control called Aedes albopictus—more popularly known as the Asian tiger mosquito—which are a major vector for diseases including Zika and dengue.
3. The study “demonstrates the potential of a potent new tool”, wrote Peter Armbruster, a professor at Georgetown University’s department of biology, in a review of the work.
4. Researchers harnessed two population control methods: the use of radiation—which effectively sterilises mosquitoes—and a strain of bacteria called Wolbachia that leaves mosquito eggs dead on arrival.
5. They conducted a two-year trial at two sites on river islands in Guangzhou, where Asian tiger mosquitoes are to blame for the highest dengue transmission rate in China.
6. The results were “remarkable”, wrote Armbruster: the number of hatched mosquitoes eggs plunged by 94 percent, with not a single viable egg recorded for up to 13 weeks in some cases.
7. And the average number of female mosquitoes—which transmit disease to humans when they bite—caught by traps fell by between 83 and 94 percent.
8. In some cases, none were detected at all for up to six weeks.
9. The results were also borne out by a decline of nearly 97 percent in bites suffered by locals—which in turn shifted attitudes among residents, who were initially sceptical of the project’s plan to release more mosquitoes into the local area.
10. Radiation and bacteria
11. The research builds on two existing methods: radiation-based sterile insect technique (SIT) and incompatible insect technique (IIT).
12. SIT works by releasing radiation-sterilised male mosquitoes into an environment to mate with wild female mosquitoes, reducing the size of the population over time as females fail to reproduce.
13. But irradiation of male mosquitoes tends to reduce both their mating competitiveness and their survival rates, undermining the technique’s effectiveness.
14. The IIT method involves a bacteria called Wolbachia. When males infected with it mate with female mosquitoes that aren’t infected, their eggs don’t hatch.
15. The technique doesn’t work if the female mosquitoes are infected with the same Wolbachia strain, and successful mating by mosquitoes that both carry the bacteria undermines the technique by producing more female mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia that are resistant to the process.
16. Preventing the release of Wolbachia-infected female mosquitoes is difficult, with sex-sorting techniques usually resulting in a “female contamination rate” of about 0.3 percent.
17. To overcome that, researchers decided to subject their Wolbachia-infected lab-reared mosquitoes to low-level irradiation, which rendered the females sterile but left the males able to reproduce.
18. This allowed the team to avoid the onerous sex-screening process and meant they could release significantly more mosquitoes at a time: in some cases more than 160,000 male mosquitoes per hectare, per week.
19. ‘Striking results’
20. Lead researcher Zhiyong Xi, a professor at Michigan State University’s department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, compared the technique to “producing insecticide”.
21. “Our goal is to use this technique to build a protected area that is disease vector-free,” Xi told AFP.
22. Armbruster, in a review commissioned by the journal Nature that published the research on Thursday, said the study produced “striking results”.
23. That the trial “almost eliminated notoriously difficult-to-control vector mosquitoes from the test sites is remarkable,” he wrote.
24. The results weren’t a universal success—populations in areas with more traffic, near construction or roads, shrank less than those in isolated zones, likely as mosquitoes migrated in from elsewhere.
25. But Xi said the technique still holds promise if “natural barriers” like highways are used to limit the arrivals of outside mosquitoes.
26. And he said it could be used against mosquitoes that carry disease, including malaria.
27. The next steps will involve developing a “highly effective and practical release strategy” suited for urban settings,” he said.
PORK, I can’t agree more. This kind of work is millennial in nature.
Read — quote:
1. Think about this!
2. While television viewers across the country bask in the excitement of #SkharkWeek, the truth is that sharks are far from the world’s most dangerous creatures.
3. That distinction belongs to the tiny mosquito.
4. Packing a laundry list of dangerous diseases, these miniscule pests outrank all other animals in their threat to human life.
5. They might not seem as terrifying as sharks at first glance, but their stealthy bite is far more deadly.
6. The fact is, no other animal is responsible for more human suffering than the mosquito.
7. HOW DOES THE KILLER KILL?
8. While shark attacks are violent, terrifying and send beach goers scrambling to shore, here in the United States mosquito bites are usually just a minor annoyance.
9. However, in the developing world, those itchy red bumps can harbor a menace far deadlier than all the world’s sharks combined.
10. The list of mosquito-transmitted diseases is a long one, but malaria remains the primary threat for many of the world’s most vulnerable, especially children.
11. Worldwide there were an estimated 214 million Malaria cases resulting in 438,000 deaths in 2015 alone.
12. Malaria is far from the only weapon in the mosquito’s arsenal.
13. Yellow fever, dengue,
14. West Nile virus,
15. chikungunya,
16. Zika
17. and a variety of other maladies
18. all cause untold amounts of suffering throughout the world.
19. Think about this:
20. THE TRUE MENACE TO SOCIETY
21. Films like Jaws and Sharknado have incited shark phobia for generations of moviegoers.
22. In truth, the odds of being killed by a shark attack are a miniscule 1 in 3,748,067.
23. Meanwhile, for individuals living in Sub-Saharan Africa, the chance of contracting a mosquito-borne disease like malaria might be as high as 1 in 5 depending on location!
24. Not only can malaria be deadly if not properly treated, it often takes a huge economic toll on the communities it invades.
25. As T. H. Weller, a Nobel laureate in medicine, noted,
26. “It has long been recognized that a malarious community is an impoverished community.”
27. Both individuals and governments are burdened with expensive medical care, loss of work and education hours and the high cost of preventative programs and premature death.
28. Altogether it’s estimated to cost at least $12 billion a year.
29. Economic growth is stunted by the disease and tourism dollars move elsewhere.
30. Think about this!
31. STANDING UP TO THE BULLY
32. Fifty years ago, deadly mosquitoes were thought to be best controlled by chemical agents like DDT.
33. However, these tricky little creatures grew more resilient and resistant, rendering the dangerous chemicals ineffective and no longer worth the many risks such as cancer, infertility, miscarriage, developmental delay and damage to the nervous system and liver.
34. Today, prevention focuses on fogging insecticides, repellants, bed nets and removing standing water where mosquitoes can breed. While these techniques can reduce the mosquito threat, better methods are still needed to control their population long term and stop the deadly illnesses they carry in their tracks.
35. As we move into the future, the best methods of mosquito eradication will likely be biological ones.
36. Operation Blessing first utilized mosquito larvae eating fish as a means of battling mosquitoes in post-Katrina New Orleans.
37. After the hurricane, thousands of swimming pools across the city had been abandoned, creating the perfect mosquito breeding ground.
38. Operation Blessing placed larvae eating fish in the pools, drastically reducing the mosquito population and averting further crisis.
39. New Orleans would later credit Operation Blessing with preventing epidemics of West Nile virus and St. Louis encephalitis from breaking out.
40. Since then we have continued our biological mosquito control research around the globe with mosquito-eating fish, juvenile turtles and small crustaceans called copepods, creating our “Bug-Busters Dream Team.”
41. Operation Blessing conducted a pilot study in Honduras to test the effectiveness of these animals and to help establish the first ever mosquito control department in the country.
42. Now, we’re taking all that we learned and applying to new communities to help protect vulnerable families.
43. All of these creatures are powerful weapons against mosquitoes, devouring their larvae before they can grow into deadly adults.
44. Unlike chemical agents with their dangerous side effects these animals can be safely introduced into human environments.
45. In fact, copepods have nearly eradicated the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that were responsible for spreading dengue fever in Vietnam—the same mosquito behind the current Zika outbreak in Latin America.
46. Operation Blessing and our Bug-Busters team are now working to perfect these biological mosquito control methods and put an end to the mosquito’s worldwide reign of terror.
47. Sources: WHO, CDC, Weller, TH. Encyclopedia Britannica. Chicago: William Bennet; 1958. Tropical medicine; pp. 495–497, Oxford Journals, www.mosquitoworld.net.