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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.

6 of 458 comments (clear)

  1. Three Magic Letters! by dada21 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    D
    D
    T

    Too much junk science out there to acknowledge something that we should still be using, I guess.

  2. Re:"Mosquitoe"? by daveschroeder · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    As much as I would like to make fun of Quayle, mosquitoe is the British spelling much like colour is the British spelling of color.

    Indeed. So Quayle must have been using the British spelling of "tomato" as well.

  3. Ken Lay, shyster extraordinaire, dead at 64. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    It's true.

    Note: I had to look up the spellings of two words in that headline.

  4. Re:"Mosquitoe"? by BWJones · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Indeed. So Quayle must have been using the British spelling of "tomato" as well.

    I thought that was potato? At any rate, some Americans are *affected* like that. :-)

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  5. Re:Minnesota State Bird by iggymanz · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I have to laugh at things like "there's no god because a being of infinite good..." who says God has to be infinitely good or compasionate, maybe this is further proof He's one Bad Ass Mother Fucker, ready to bust open His Infinite Can of Holy Whoop-Ass on Yo Azz

  6. Re:Mod parent down Re:"Mosquitoe"? by BWJones · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Reference please? Because my publication reference book sitting here tells me that the UK spelling of "mosquitoe" is acceptable.

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