Super mosquito set to invade Florida

OK. I hope like many scares, it turns out the right way for the environment and hooman beans. I feel pretty fortunate that our Mosquito problem is minimal in Sarasota.

Hey! On a entirely different note. I just discovered I know have spell-checker working in the text window on A2K. Has any one else got it? I recently upgraded to MS IE10. Not sure if that is any way connected.

I checked my reply box and didn't find a smell check. What does it look like?

Desperate in New Mexico.

Malaria medicine may be cheap, but malaria still ranks up there with
tuberculosis and AIDS in total fatalities. It's either not being used, or it's not especially effective.

When typing a reply in my A2K posting, I see the typical red underline of misspelled words.

DOOH...smell check ! LOL

Oops! I did it again.

Well, I tried some creative and original spelling, and got no red underlining, so it's probably your recent upgrade from something to whatever.

Seriously, I'm wondering if there isn't some spelling oriented dementia that I might have acquired. Sometimes, I have to look up the most common words, or completely reword whatever I'm writing.

True, there are other variables in affect, poor sanitation, climate variation, poverty, imprudent human practices involving pollution (discarded tires, bottles, dams), warfare, etc. I was simply trying to point out that DDT is not the cure all solution. Looking back, even if the DDT eradication program had success in some areas it failed miserably to reduce the overall number of malaria cases. It should be a multilevel approach.
But the one thing I must give gungasnake credit for bringing up is the fear behind this compound. In malaria ridden countries, DDT used sparingly to spray houses is not that dangerous to the environment as overuse in the sense of large scale agricultural spraying. Recently, around 2007, in sub-Saharan Africa, there have been instances of inside wall being coated with DDT.
The irony of the controversy around this compound is that some parts of developed countries eradicated malaria using DDT.

I've got the feeling that malaria is going to be with us for a long, long time. There are just too many non-human reservoirs of the disease.

I just upgraded from previous version of IE to MS IE 10. I'm not sure how connected that is to getting smellcheck back.

Regarding typos and misspells: I have acquired an amazing dyslexia over the last 10 yrs (since about age 52 or so). I can watch my fingers (not a touch-typist at all) type the wrong letters despite my brain's best effort to command them otherwise,..

It must be your version of IE--we have smell-check with Chrome, but not with the old version of IE and not with Firefox.

Turns out that this mosquito makes a good "hatch" impersonator for fly fishing in Michigan. trout love em.
Not too many native trout in Florida though.

Do mosquitoes actually "bite"...or "sting"...really?

I know the females suck blood...but the process does not seem to be a sting...or a bite.

Does anyone here know?

Tried Google...but no luck.

they have a proboscis which pierces the skin like a hypo. i really dont think it makes any difference. Perhaps you should seek out someone who actually gives a **** and will, in kind, turn this thread into 45 pages of nonsensical masturbation. Someone like JTT.

The Centers for Disease Control use the term injection, which is more accurate than "bite" or "sting." A mosquito's saliva contains protein factors that inhibit vasoconstriction and blood-clotting so that the blood will flow, providing the meal. Mosquitoes literally do inject their saliva into the host animal. Calling it a bit is not unreasonable--it's as inaccurate as any other common description.

Thanks. I thought "injection" might be an accurate word...but was not able to find it in Google. The word "bite" seems to be the one most commonly used...and does the job. I was just wondering.

Thanks for that info. It's pleasant to see it back.

Malaria was the biggest killer in the American civil war, and it left the southern states an unfortunate legacy after the war was ended--especially as the large estates were broken up into tenant farms, and land drainage went by the wayside. Either in the late 1930s or the early 1940s, a government center for the study of malaria, its treatment and prevention was opened in Atlanta, and that went on to become the Centers for Disease Control. I can't think of anybody who knows more about malaria than the CDC, which is why i went to them to get that information. That being said, their information is, of course, pedantic.

I know some prescriptivist who'll bludgeon my head until I chant what they want me to say, as if the future depends on it. I know some descriptivists who will spit sharp criticisms for chanting prescriptions. The best method, which I've found to work well, is to conceal myself in the bathroom until everything settles down.

Wow, that's a big mosquito. Maybe I'll have to invest in a shotgun after all.

They say getting bitten by one of the things feels like being stabbed and is enough to ruin your day. My guess is that some people will die from this one and, again, the solution to every sort of problem like this has been there since the end of WW-II.