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Athens Breeding "Super Mosquitoes"

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the all-the-better-to-suck-your-blood-with dept.

Chemisor writes "Air pollution and cramped housing conditions in Athens, Greece, are creating a new breed of mosquitoes which are bigger, faster, and can smell humans from farther away. The super insects have color vision and detect humans from 25-30 meters, which is about 50% farther than the ordinary mosquitoe. Beating their wing 500 times a second provides them with extra speed, and the larger bodies (by 0.3ug) presumably allow larger bloodsucking capacity." And in a similar vein (har har) New Scientist had a piece about what mosquitoes like or hate about people.

4 of 458 comments (clear)

  1. Makes no sense by Quasar1999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If this is happening due to many humans being in even smaller spaces, why the hell does the insect need color vision, and the ability to smell humans from even FARTHER away? I don't see how that need could have evolved to be beneficial... the speed thing I can see... I'm truly confused as to why such a feature would evolve with seemingly no benefit.

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    Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
  2. Patents... by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The most potent repellent chemical were then isolated by strapping miniature electrodes to the antennae of female mosquitoes and checking their responses to specific compounds. Logan will not divulge the names of the chemicals until they are patented.

    How in the world can a chemical that every human produces be patented? Isn't that prior art? Ridiculous. I could understand if it were some new compound they synthesized, but this is a nothing more than greed.

    Dan East

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    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Patents... by oni · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He did the work to figure it out, he deserves the exclusive right FOR A LIMITED TIME to manufacture it. After that, it goes into the public domain.

      Without that protection, his recipe would be a closely guarded secret and there is the possibility that his death, or a fire in the factory, or a hard drive crash, would result in the formula being lost. Then we all lose. That's the way things used to work, and that's why we can't make violins as good as Stradivarius, or swords out of damascus steel (or buildings out of it for that matter).

      Patents do benefit mankind. It's not this guy's fault that politicians have perverted the system.

  3. 'Compares favorably' to DEET? by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Generally when somebody says their all-natural product 'compares favorably' to some chemical alternative, them mean that it works 'almost as well'. If it worked better, they'd be saying that it works better than DEET.

    In my experience, DEET does absolutely nothing to repel biting insects from me. If this new stuff 'compares favorably' to DEET, I guess I have nothing to look forward to here.

    It doesn't really have to work though... He just needs to put 'Organic' on the bottle, and people will buy it even if they have no clue what the hell is in there. They'll swear it works too.