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Drug turns human blood into poison for mosquitoes.
Drug turns human blood into poison for mosquitoes.
news.nd.edu
Rare disease drug nitisinone makes human blood deadly to mosquitoes
40 comments
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I wanna go camping with this shit so I can get revenge.
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You still get bitten, I'd say it would be a bittersweet win.
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It'd be a Pyrrhic victory, no question. Real "I'll break your fists with my face" energy.
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Eventually bugs will adapt and learn not to bit those with ivermectin in their blood.
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But the Mosquitoes would still bite you although they died after the bite. 😅
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Worth it.
I was trying to find a screenshot of Vincent Vega saying (paraphrasing): “It would’ve been worth him doing it to catch the guy” and stumbled upon a nifty piece of trivia. Apparently Tarantino has confirmed that Butch is the guy who keyed his car! Kinda obvious in retrospect.
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You still try to kill them, but at least the ones you miss will end up dying anyways. If enough people do it, maybe mosquitos will evolve to avoid humans entirely lol
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Drug turns human blood into poison.
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I mean, isn't it?
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Alice Cooper approved ✅✅✅
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until they adapt to it and become poison mosquito zombies
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Could this be an effective way to treat ned bug infections? If it works fast enough, it should wipe out active bed bugs.
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That’s some shit
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When mosquitoes drink blood that contains nitisinone, the drug also blocks this crucial HPPD enzyme in their bodies. This prevents the mosquitoes from properly digesting the blood, causing them to quickly die.
This is starving not poisoning.
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Sounds like both?
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If you look at the mechanisms of poisons, they all mess up some process in the animal or plant.
For example, Glyphosate is a very effective herbicide. It prevents plants from producing some amino aids. It "starves" the plant.
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Time to unleash my bloodinator-inator!
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Doesnt killing mosquitoes cause a bunch of environmental problems? Thats what everyone says when you talk about genociding them.
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Let's all agree to just take our chances
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I'm in, screw them
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Nope. There are a great many species of mosquitoes. The only one that bites humans is the female of one specific species. Those little fuckers have killed more humans than any other cause of death, second only to being killed by other humans.
There has been some fairly extensive studies and it has been conclusion that even if we extincted that specific species, it would not cause major ecological changes.
Currently the best way we have of eradicating them large scale is by genetically modifying and releasing huge numbers of them that are non-fertile. If this is able to specifically target that species and not kill others, it could be a more effective answer.
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There are many species which bite humans, but you are right that it's only the females which bite.
There are only a few species which don't bite at all and are fully just straight up pollinators, but most species do bite something. Some are specialized and mostly feed on birds while others mostly feed on amphibians and reptiles, but most will bite pretty much anything that breathes. There are even some species which specialize in biting fish.
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Release the hounds!
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Hell yeah.
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dies from overdose
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Surely nothing could go wrong...
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Can we do this to, idk, horses and dogs or something? That way they get bit and kill all the mosquitoes instead of me getting bit?
I'll come out after they're all dead.
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Yeah. But a lot of animals rely on mosquitos for foods.
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Correct, but this would only impact the species that bite humans.
Amazing resource here with a ton of info I did not know:
https://www.livescience.com/what-if-all-mosquitoes-died
To your point, yes:
"mosquitoes are a primary food source for numerous animals, including bats, birds, frogs, fish and dragonflies, it’s likely there would be at least some ecological impacts, at least in the short term. Dragonflies, for example, are often known as mosquito hawks, owing to their ability to eat as many as 100 mosquitoes in a single day. It’s likely they, as well as a host of other critters, would, at the very least, have to change their diets somewhat."
To the larger point:
"There are around 3,500 mosquito species, but 'only around 100 will potentially bite and spread disease to humans,'"
So we eliminate the 100 species that bite humans, that still leaves 3,400 species for the bats, birds, frogs, and dragonflies.
In fact, it may not even be necessary to completely elimimate the 100 species that bite humans, kill enough of the biters, and they may evolve into a species that just doesn't bite us.
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kill enough of the biters, and they may evolve into a species that just doesn’t bite us.
Or they evolve into a species that still bites us but is unaffected by this drug. Bonus feature: the new species is also a prime carrier for Ebola, or something.
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40 comments