Stories tagged mosquitos
Gray garden: A growing trend in the western U.S. is the use of gray water, water that comes from the drains of shower, bath tubs and washing machines, to go through an outdoor filtering process and then be used to water plants. Some see the idea as too big of a healthAs more and more people become environmentally conscious, to what extremes should we as a society let them go to help protect the environment?
That’s a pressing question these days in some western states where water is scarce and some people are trying to find creative ways to reduce their water consumption.
Meet gray water, that water that comes from the drains of bath tubs, showers and washing machines. It’s not full of hazardous waste products, but is not usable for drinking or cooking. How about flushing your toilets or water lawns with gray water?
A growing “gray water brigade” is finding creative home plumbing solutions to re-route gray water into other uses in their homes. Sometimes the modifications are quite simple to do, costing just a few hundred dollars.
But they rarely meet the building codes of the cities the gray water. Systems that have been put into use by contractors meeting local construction guidelines can cost as much as $7,000. In a recent story in the New York Times, a plumbing contractor admitted that he now encourages people interested in recycling grey water to find their own home remedies rather than fork out big bucks for a professional solution.
The same story gave a quick description of one such homemade system. A pipe running from the house deposits shower and sink water into an elevated bathtub in the yard that is filled with gravel and reeds. The roots of the plants begin filtering and absorbing contaminants. The water then flows into a lower tub, also containing a reed bed, before flowing into a still-lower tub of floating water hyacinths and small fish. The whole system cost about $100 and the final product is used to water flower beds at a California home. Chemical tests of the filtered done by the homeowner show a slightly high level of phosphorus, but nothing the plants can handle.
But other water experts share their concerns with gray water, including the risks of open pools of water becoming a mosquito breeding ground, the possible crossing of gray water lines with other plumbing that could contaminate clean water, or using gray water to irrigate plants that might be eaten raw.
Most states now have regulations about gray water usage. But proponents of gray water say those rules make the idea cost prohibitive.
So what should be done on the gray water front? Is it okay for people to play with gray water at their own risk? Are the health risks too great for this kind of experimentation? Share your thoughts here with other Science Buzz readers.
Tags : Pretty cool, although it's not ready for testing in humans yet.
Mosquito: Malaria is spread by mosquitoes infected by a parasite. But a new drug might help eliminate the disease. (Photo USDA)
More on malaria from Science Buzz:
Malaria: you can help
Preventable disease, BIG problem
Vote in the malaria poll
Building a better mosquito
A new weapon against mosquito-borne malaria may be... the mosquitoes themselves: Photo USDA
Researchers as Johns Hopkins University have genetically engineered a mosquito that is immune to malaria found in mice. The resistant mosquitoes caught the disease less often than wild bugs, and within a few generations widely outnumbered the non-resistant group.
Scientists warn that they are still a long way from developing a mosquito that is resistant to human malaria, let alone testing it or releasing it in the wild. But these early results indicate this could be a promising means of eradicating this deadly disease.
To learn more about malaria, visit the Science Museum’s on-line exhibit.
With our recent cool snap mosquitoes may not be a problem for much longer. Still, you might be interested to know that it would take about 1,200,000 mosquito bites to totally drain the blood from an adult human.
Get Ready to Itch:: It's almost always just the female of the species of mosquito that bites you on these hot summer days. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture)
It’s been mighty hot and dry in Minnesota this summer. And feeling the pinch, much to most people’s delight, are moquitoes.
The dry conditions have put a squeeze on breeding grounds for the little buggers. So while their numbers are down for now, here’s some information that you can use to prepare for their inevitable return.
Did you know….
* In most species of moquitoes, it’s the female that does the biting. Female mosquitoes need proteins they can find in blood to develop the eggs that they’re going to deposit in damp areas to hatch into future mosquitoes.
* That long needle they use to poke your skin isn’t smooth and sharp like a syringe. Instead, it’s got a lot of serration, like a steak knife. Those extra points help spread around the poking sensation when a mosquito bites, and keeping your body’s nerves from detecting something is poking into you.
* How does a moquito know to bite you? Primarily through their sense of smell. They have a highly developed sense for finding carbon dioxide of exhaled breath. They also like the aroma of several chemicals found in human sweat.
* Why does a mosquito bite often itch? It’s actually nothing that the mosquito puts into you. Rather, the bite area can become inflamed and itchy within 24 hours of the bite due to reactions to the bite from our body’s immune system and antibodies. The older you get, it is possible to become desensitized to the impact mosquito bites have on you. Conversely, little children my have stronger reactions to bites than adults.
* How can you best keep mosquitos away from you? One of the most effective repellents is a fan. Mosquitoes don’t like moving air and you can keep them at bay with a gentle breeze.
* Among the spray-on repellents, the most effective ones include at least one of the following ingredients: DEET, catnip oil extract, nepetalactone, citronella or eucalyptus oil extract.
* There is debate over the concept of using vitamins to keep away the pests. In know of people who go on trips to the Boundry Waters Canoe Area who swear that beefing up their B1 intake for a week before the trip helps keep away mosquitoes while they’re there. But there’s no credible scientific information backing up those assertations.
I was once working on an exhibit about insects, and someone joked "You know what no museum has ever done? A fully-immersive, interactive mosquito exhibit!" To which I replied, "I've seen one. It's called July in Minnesota."
But as much as we pride ourselves on the Minnesota State Bird, the common mosquito, it appears Alaska has got it worse this year.
A winter of decent insulating snow, followed by early spring with no late frosts, basically created bug paradise. The jump start has put 2005 about three weeks ahead of schedule
Colder winters than Minnesota. Buggier summers than Minnesota. Who do these Alaskans think they are, anyway?
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