Mosquitoes Beginning To Ignore DEET Repellent

Copper Nikus writes "An article at the BBC makes a shocking claim about mosquitoes. It appears some individual insects in the wild have developed the ability to ignore the very popular DEET repellent after a first exposure. From the article: 'To investigate why this might be happening, the researchers attached electrodes to the insects' antenna. Dr Logan explained: "We were able to record the response of the receptors on the antenna to Deet, and what we found was the mosquitoes were no longer as sensitive to the chemical, so they weren't picking it up as well. "There is something about being exposed to the chemical that first time that changes their olfactory system - changes their sense of smell - and their ability to smell Deet, which makes it less effective."'"

Comments

Re:Bow down

[bobstreo]

I think it will take longer for them to become resistant to the lasers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser

Re:evolution

[jbeaupre]

There was a sci-fi short story in Analog years ago that involved human evolution an junk food. The plot involved people getting mysteriously ill, even dying. Epidemiologists linked it to eating healthy. They discovered that humans had evolved to use caramel coloring as an essential vitamin. Eliminating it from your diet was as dangerous as eliminating vitamin C.

I think about that story every time I see caramel coloring listed as an ingredient in food.