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POPSA man made "plague" to treat a plague It's a new concept, that looks very promising. pre treating the disease, by infecting the carriers, mosquitos, with a virus which is harmless for humans. Very interesting!
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POPSBill Gates Funded Dengue Fever Breakthrough
Found in up to 60 per cent of all insects, it is harmless to humans. But it has never been found naturally in dengue fever mosquitoes. The project struggled until the Gates donation arrived. A PhD student, Conor McMeniman, used super-fine needles to inject 10,000 mosquito embryos with the bacterium. "It was very technical and tedious work," Professor O'Neill said, adding that they had shown the bacterium could halve the adult mosquito's lifespan. Once an insect was infected, the bacterium would spread via its eggs to the next generation. A pilot release of infected mosquitoes could begin in Vietnam within three years. If no problems are discovered, a full-scale biological attack against the insects could be launched within five years. "We need to make sure the bacteria won't jump into any other species," Professor O'Neill said. He said Mr Gates was aware of the team's progress. "We are very lucky to have him spending his money the way he does."
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POPSHouston: Hot Town, Cool City Documentary about Houston titled Hot Town, Cool City. Lots of info about Houston at the source. It's not all mosquitos and big hair and guns.
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POPSDiscovery of natural odors could help develop mosquito repellents "CO2 emitted in human breath is the main attractant for the Culex mosquito to find people, aiding the transmission of these deadly diseases," Ray said. "In our experiments we identified hexanol, and a related odor, butanal, as strong inhibitors of CO2-sensitive neurons in Culex mosquitoes. These compounds can now be used to guide research in developing novel repellents and masking agents that are economical and environmentally safe methods to block mosquitoes' ability to detect CO2 in our breath, thereby dramatically reducing mosquito-human contact." Woah, this is just great! This should be a great reason to celebrate, once thei're done with the repellent. I think there isn't one person in the planet who hasn't got mad with mosquitos at one time or another. Great news, just great.
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