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posted by CoolHand on Thursday August 24 2017, @04:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the bloodsucker-witch-hunt dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Mosquitoes aren't just blood thirsty. They also have a sweet tooth, relying on plant nectar to get the sugar they need to survive. Exploiting this weakness, scientists have developed an environmentally friendly eradication method. The new, inexpensive technique tricks these annoying pests into gorging themselves on insecticides laced with a concoction that mimics the sweet-smelling scents and aromas that they find irresistible. It could bolster efforts to suppress malaria, Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases worldwide.

The researchers are presenting their work today at the 254th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

"The blend of chemicals that we use to attract mosquitoes is so powerful that they will ignore natural plant odors and attractants in order to get to our formulation," says Agenor Mafra-Neto, Ph.D. "From a mosquito's point of view, it's like having an irresistible chocolate shop on every corner. The product is so seductive that they will feed on it almost exclusively, even when it contains lethal doses of insecticide."

Conventional chemical insecticides used to control mosquitoes are used as cover sprays, frequently dispersed over wide areas. But this blanket spray approach exposes people and animals to potentially harmful compounds and can kill bees and other beneficial insects. In addition, residues of these sprays can contaminate soils and streams, as well as promote increased pesticide resistance. To overcome these issues, Mafra-Neto of ISCA Technologies and colleagues at several universities sought to create a more targeted approach using an insecticide potion spiked with a blend of semiochemicals, or chemical signals, that mosquitoes can't resist.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by ese002 on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:21PM (1 child)

    by ese002 (5306) on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:21PM (#558509)

    Bees home in on plants due to UV cues as much as anything else, so perhaps they won't be hugely affected. But just randomly spraying this stuff around is definitely going to hit other species, too. Not just insects, either - hummingbirds are all about sugar. At this stage, probably best to have cautious optimism at best.

    Technically, it wouldn't effect hummingbirds because there are no hummingbirds in Tanzania where the testing is happening. But, yeah, lots of animals like sweets. Butterflies, moths, many varieties of pollinating and non-pollinating wasps, ants. Also sun birds (sort of the Old World version of a humming bird), bears, monkeys. It is likely that the insecticide would not be fatal to any vertebrates and it is probably not very good for them. Insects come in such an amazing variety, it would be nearly impossible to select a sweet that would only attract and kill mosquitoes.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:23PM (#558572)

    I didn't realize this, but hummingbirds are exclusively a North American phenomenon. [google.com]

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]