Mosquitoes are out for blood and if you’re young enough, maybe you’ll even hear them coming.
Dan Brawner
September 12, 2007
Forget about Osama bin Laden. Statistically, he’ll never get around to you. Forget about Bengal tigers. They’re big noisy, endangered animals and they don’t eat that much anyway. But the most dangerous animal on earth is lurking in your own back yard. It’s going to bite you and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
Yes, it’s mosquito season again. Those pesky bugs which, in some parts of the world, carry the malarial parasites, have been responsible for half of all human deaths since the time of the Stone Age, and have suddenly reappeared with a vengeance.
In California this year, Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger, declared war on his state’s mosquito population, exchanging his role as “The Terminator” for “The Exterminator”. California is spending $10 million to fight mosquitoes, responsible for ten deaths and 198 cases of West Nile virus.
Although mosquitoes have not been known to slurp humans dry, in 1980, there was a horrific incident at Stephen Perry’s ranch near Galveston, Texas. It seems that, following Hurricane Allen, dry conditions in early August caused the salt marsh mosquito eggs to hatch and clouds of these voracious blood suckers descended on Perry’s cattle, killing 40 of them. Autopsies showed that some of the cattle had lost as much as five gallons of blood, half their normal supply. Humans in the area were forced to run inside their homes and wait until the waves of mosquitoes had passed.
There are over 2,500 known species of mosquitoes. Mostly, they live on plant nectar. Only the females bite, supplementing their regular died with your blood in order to lay eggs. Sprays, bug zappers and electronic devices that simulate the sound of dragonfly wings are nothing but whistling in the dark and have practically no effect. Even if you killed every mosquito in your own yard, the little vampires can fly for miles if they smell a nice hot meal.
In his column “The Straight Dope” Cecil Adams wrote that you can catch a mosquito on your arm by stretching the skin, thereby trapping its tiny needle nose. Then, if you flex your muscle, it causes the bug to explode. Adams likens it to trying to drink out of a fire hose. Or you could just swat it.
Not only do mosquitoes kill and torment people, they can also be very annoying. You’re trying to get to sleep and suddenly there is the whine of a mosquito Dopplering past your ear. That is, if your ear is young enough to hear that high-frequency sound.
Robert Gough grew tired of young hooligans hanging around his spar shop in Barry, Wales and created what he calls, “The Mosquito”, an electronic device that emits a powerful 16 megahertz noise most adults can’t hear. But it drives children away.
Ironically, that same high-frequency sound, also known as The Mosquito, is now being used by kids as a cell phone ring tone that their teachers can’t hear. Now teachers have a classroom full of mosquitoes calling back and forth. And they’re not even allowed to swat them.
Yes, it’s mosquito season again. Those pesky bugs which, in some parts of the world, carry the malarial parasites, have been responsible for half of all human deaths since the time of the Stone Age, and have suddenly reappeared with a vengeance.
In California this year, Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger, declared war on his state’s mosquito population, exchanging his role as “The Terminator” for “The Exterminator”. California is spending $10 million to fight mosquitoes, responsible for ten deaths and 198 cases of West Nile virus.
Although mosquitoes have not been known to slurp humans dry, in 1980, there was a horrific incident at Stephen Perry’s ranch near Galveston, Texas. It seems that, following Hurricane Allen, dry conditions in early August caused the salt marsh mosquito eggs to hatch and clouds of these voracious blood suckers descended on Perry’s cattle, killing 40 of them. Autopsies showed that some of the cattle had lost as much as five gallons of blood, half their normal supply. Humans in the area were forced to run inside their homes and wait until the waves of mosquitoes had passed.
There are over 2,500 known species of mosquitoes. Mostly, they live on plant nectar. Only the females bite, supplementing their regular died with your blood in order to lay eggs. Sprays, bug zappers and electronic devices that simulate the sound of dragonfly wings are nothing but whistling in the dark and have practically no effect. Even if you killed every mosquito in your own yard, the little vampires can fly for miles if they smell a nice hot meal.
In his column “The Straight Dope” Cecil Adams wrote that you can catch a mosquito on your arm by stretching the skin, thereby trapping its tiny needle nose. Then, if you flex your muscle, it causes the bug to explode. Adams likens it to trying to drink out of a fire hose. Or you could just swat it.
Not only do mosquitoes kill and torment people, they can also be very annoying. You’re trying to get to sleep and suddenly there is the whine of a mosquito Dopplering past your ear. That is, if your ear is young enough to hear that high-frequency sound.
Robert Gough grew tired of young hooligans hanging around his spar shop in Barry, Wales and created what he calls, “The Mosquito”, an electronic device that emits a powerful 16 megahertz noise most adults can’t hear. But it drives children away.
Ironically, that same high-frequency sound, also known as The Mosquito, is now being used by kids as a cell phone ring tone that their teachers can’t hear. Now teachers have a classroom full of mosquitoes calling back and forth. And they’re not even allowed to swat them.