Some questions about mosquitoes

[mozchron]

@snowthx

I beleive you were also working on some cool stuff with genetics for mosquito population control? Something about breeding sterile males, I think, and releasing them in the wild to mate with the females, who also produce sterile males? You shared this here but I cannot find the thread. Any progress on that project?

Fascinating stuff, BTW!

I specifically and intentionally do not work on control; i am a basic scientist. But I am very well acquainted with the groups doing control (transgenic sterile male, gene drive etc) and have worked on many of the basic principles and roadblocks underlying many of these strategies.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@mozchron

Don’t scratch your bites, this will make them last longer, itch more, and can cause secondary infections if you open them up. Use very hot water instead, it will completely kill the itch for up to 8 hours due to histamine depletion.

I have been telling people this for years, I actually fill a cup with very hot water and hold my spoon in it and then apply the hot spoon to the bite it works very well it only takes a minute or less. I usually dip this phone about three times

[mozchron]

I usually just hold my coffee mug on the bite or run it under hot water but a hot spoon will work just as well.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@mozchron

Don’t scratch your bites, this will make them last longer, itch more, and can cause secondary infections if you open them up. Use very hot water instead, it will completely kill the itch for up to 8 hours due to histamine depletion

When you mentioned the histamine aspect I thought it might be a great business idea. Simple cheap and a great market. To my slight surprise Amazon is selling about 40,000 Mosquito pens a month. Now I am thinking about the possibilities of an exothermic band aid patch that would heat up and cool down in less than 15 seconds.

[mozchron]

Yeah I occasionally get these sent to me from the manufacturers who are hoping to get me to endorse them. I always refuse. Hot water is free.

Your exothermic patch might work until it burns someone and they sue you

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@mozchron

Your exothermic patch might work until it burns someone and they sue you

Calcium chloride and water, with aluminum foil and some insulation with enough mass to lower the temp should be kind of bullet proof.

[DrDeth]

@mozchron

Many mosquitoes are attracted to odor volatiles that come off the bacteria found on feet, which is why you often get bitten around the ankles

Very good post.
The Aedes “ankle biter” mosquito is notorious for this. Very small, and hard to see, you often do not know you have been bitten until the itch sets in- and the itch is pretty bad. They are an invasive species here in CA, they have arrived fairly recently and they are horrible.

@Qadgop_the_Mercotan

I’ve noticed lately that I seem to have two different reactions to mosquito bites. In one, I barely notice them at first but in 24-36 hours they itch like hell and take days to resolve. In the other I note them immediately, they itch immediately but not as severely as in the former, and they’re gone in 12 hours or so.

The aedes “ankle biter” is the one for me that itches long and bad, while the other species (Anopheles) is not as bad.

@mozchron

Yeah you can use anything that’s hot. But hot water is free

Yeah, I use hot water, drives the itch away for the nite.

@nearwildheaven

I’ve used ice, which also works, and hydrocortisone (or another steroid) cream does the job as well.

I use that after the hot water.

[CC]

@Princhester

I have a tiny home office in my backyard that is fully screened, but occasionally a mosquito gets in when I open the door. Yesterday a mosquito was whining around in front of my computer monitors so I could see it very clearly. It was not blood engorged when I first saw it. I failed despite several attempts to kill it but then it disappeared. 10 minutes later it reappeared, and was blood engorged. Unquestionably it had bitten me in the meantime but there were no indications of that from my perspective.

It is possible, isn’t it, that the blood engorged mosquito was not the same one you had seen earlier?

[Princhester]

Possible but not likely as my tiny office is tiny and mozzies rarely get in at all.

In any event only an illustrative anecdote. I have commonly discovered mozzies well into feeding on me that I have only noticed visually and never felt a thing or itched afterward.