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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.

1 of 458 comments (clear)

  1. Waste of Time by just_forget_it · · Score: 0, Troll

    What possible purpose could this serve? Let's not spend our time on cancer/AIDS research, lets make EVEN MORE BOTHERSOME misquitoes. These scientists should be shot. The only thing misquitoes ever did for mankind was provide a plot for Jurassic Park.