Author Topic: In a science fiction-like twist, scientists are weaponizing humans to passively kill mosquitoes  (Read 1588 times)

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Offline Sanguine

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By one estimate, mosquitoes are the single biggest killer of humans. Each year they infect more than 700 million people with a host of diseases from malaria to Zika. We’ve tried hard to rid ourselves of the buzzing monster, but with limited success. That could change, if a science fiction-like idea works out.

In a decade-long quest, a UK company called SEEK has developed a vaccine called AGS-v that it claims renders a person immune to all the diseases a mosquito can carry. Better still, it believes the vaccine could, in effect, weaponize a human. Every mosquito that bites a SEEK-vaccinated human would either die young or not be able to reproduce. The company is now launching a small human clinical trial of the vaccine, with the help of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)....

https://qz.com/918489/a-seek-vaccine-clinical-trial-aims-to-protect-humans-against-all-mosquito-borne-diseases-and-perhaps-even-weaponize-humans-to-kill-mosquitoes-passively/?utm_source=howtogeek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

Offline EC

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SEEK wouldn't happen to be a wholly owned Umbrella Corps subsidiary, would it?
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Offline catfish1957

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Won't go on the porch without it.  Neighbors often hear "40-LOVE!!!!!" from my porch.

The loud "pow" upon contact makes me smile.

I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline Gefn

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@Sanguine,

I love my Quartz news  app!
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Online DB

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I'm no expert but: "... vaccine called AGS-v that it claims renders a person immune to all the diseases a mosquito can carry" sound very doubtful and more like hype.

Offline Cripplecreek

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SEEK wouldn't happen to be a wholly owned Umbrella Corps subsidiary, would it?



or




Offline Smokin Joe

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Won't go on the porch without it.  Neighbors often hear "40-LOVE!!!!!" from my porch.

The loud "pow" upon contact makes me smile.


Only problem is, around these parts you'd need two of them and then you'd look like a LSO on a WWII carrier trying to land a plane doing barrel rolls.

Deet, netting, that works.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline catfish1957

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Only problem is, around these parts you'd need two of them and then you'd look like a LSO on a WWII carrier trying to land a plane doing barrel rolls.

Deet, netting, that works.

Well, SE Texas gulf coast here. Can't imagine you'd could be much more buggy than me.
On a busy night my Executioner sounds like a machine gun.

 :seeya:
« Last Edit: February 26, 2017, 03:32:21 pm by catfish1957 »
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline Sanguine

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@Sanguine,

I love my Quartz news  app!

I didn't know there was one, @Freya.  I'll have to go look!

Offline thackney

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Louisiana had done this quite a while ago.


https://youtu.be/z16gQeEtuyw
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Offline thackney

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Well, SE Texas gulf coast here. Can't imagine you'd could be much more buggy than me.
On a busy night my Executioner sounds like a machine gun.

We have lived in the Houston area for decades.  Even been to the Clute Misquito Festival.  But what we have here is nothing as bad as Alaska in the summer.  Think of the whole years worth of mosquitoes but only over two months, actually probably a lot more than that.
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Offline EC

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You forgot to include the after photo of the La test subjects .....














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Offline dfwgator

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Offline Smokin Joe

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Well, SE Texas gulf coast here. Can't imagine you'd could be much more buggy than me.
On a busy night my Executioner sounds like a machine gun.

 :seeya:
I have been in the area, though long ago. (1980, 1982)
Lewis and Clark wrote of the viscious mosquitoes near the Confluence of the Yellowstone and the Missouri. It hasn't changed in 210 years.
I grew up in the tidewater in MD, so I know 'buggy'. There are swarms of every imaginable kind of insect, from lightning bugs to mosquitoes to dragonflies and katydids and cicadas, I remember all that. But here, the mosquitoes are a different breed.
Down there, a skeeter would land, poke around for a soft spot and bite you.
We don't have the wide variety of bugs, here, too short a growing season.

Here, where they have three months to populate and do whatever mosquito stuff they do, they come straight in with their flaps down and their nose out and dive into the flesh. I have been bitten through the hind pocket of a brand new pair of jeans within seconds of getting out of a vehicle. It isn't that there are so many bugs, it is that they are so godawful aggressive. Small children have ended up in the ER from running out the door unprotected on a calm day.

Now, every year isn't that bad. Once in a rare while, the Spring thaw and snowmelt flush out the river bottoms, oxbows, and backwaters, and the mosquitoes get a slow start. A late freeze (June) tends to kill off larvae, too, but generally multiple layers of defense are needed. Long sleeves, pants, bug juice high in DEET, head net and gloves are a good start. Hang zappers on either side of the door, with the entryway lights those yellow lights that don't attract the bugs. Spray the perimeter with malathion until the dragonfly population picks up. Leave bats and little birds alone--they eat those things, too--and keep the cats out of the trees so the birds can make more birds to eat the bugs.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis