You Say Tomato I Say Mosquito
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Article by: Jim Burnell Gathering tomatoes , Amaryllis - A Perfect Flower For the Festive Season or other fruits , Hydrangea Forever & Ever Red of the garden , Theme s might not sound like a dangerous occupation, but with terrorism running rampant these days, even a walk thru the garden , Amaryllis - A Perfect Flower For the Festive Season can require pre-emptive measures. In fact if you left the screen door , Feed the Birds open for a minute or so and heard a whiny frequency accompanied by a slight tickle it may already be too late, if that slight tickle was the allergic reaction of your skin cells to the Culex, Aedes or Anopheles mosquito, one of the several species that prefer humans, and are capable of transmitting microbial organisms to living cells. Every year two million people die of malaria, which is transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito, but most of those deaths occur in Africa. In the U.S. malaria is considered rare, but the West Nile Virus is on the move. The West Nile Virus is two millionths of an inch wide, smaller than most viruses. Viruses occupy a special taxonomy position in that they are not plant, , Teak Furniture: The Premier Outdoor Furniture animal or prokaryotic bacteria, and should not even be considered organisms because they are not free-living. (They cannot reproduce with out a host cell.) The West Nile Virus has been studied for decades but did not arrive in the US until 1999. It is most similarly assocciated with other viruses that cause encephalitis, (inflammation of the brain), and it is highly fatal to avian species, corvids, mostly non-migratory birds , Feed the s distinguished by same sex characteristics. The West Nile Virus is also fatal to horses although there is a two-dose vaccine available for horses. It is not known when a vaccine will be discovered for humans or birds, , Landscaping Your Patio so the best method of dealing with the virus is through avoidance. The West Nile Virus is past on to its animal host through the saliva of the female mosquito at the time of injection. The female mosquito needs a blood meal to complete reproduction, and pass on proteins to her offspring. The male mosquito does not eat blood but lives only on nectar and fruit , Snakes - They're Not as Slithery as Some People I Know! juices. Avoiding mosquitoes can be a big problem if you're an outdoors , Landscaping Your Patio person unless your companion is more susceptible to mosquito bites than you are. Some people attract more mosquitoes than others. (They must have a better bloodline.) Mosquitoes can lay their eggs in as little as one tablespoon of water , Choosing Lawnmowers For Cutting Grass On Tennis Courts which hatch and become adults in as little as seven to ten days. Finding all the water , Easiest Homemade Hydroponics System sources in which they can breed is next to impossible, but eliminating the obvious places , Wild Flower Garden - Make Amends...Your Plants Will Love It will help. (Rain gutters, bird , Are You New To Organic Gardening baths, flower , How to Make a Weed Dabber pots etc.) In order to avoid mosquitoes it helps to know how they find you. They use sensors on their antenna to pick up body heat, , Feed the Birds odor and carbon-dioxide from exhaled breath to find their meal. That's why black-light traps do not really work well, (mosquitoes use thermal imaging, not ultra violet). The female mosquito will work her way upwind zigzagging back and forth to the sources of these bodily cues. As she gets closer she uses colors , November Gardening Tips and moisture , How Vacuum Formed Molds Are Made in the air , Earthworms in the Garden/Earthworm Facts to close in on her target. British researchers found that mosquitoes would respond to animal bodies up to forty-five feet away. Mosquitoes become inactive when temperatures , Mosquito Disease drop below forty-five degrees F or above eighty-two degrees F or when wind speeds are higher than six meters per second. Some repellents are very effective at binding the mosquito sensory antenna. Repellants composed of heavy irregular shaped molecules work best. They block the pores of the sensory hairs of the mosquito antenna forcefully changing the mosquitoes point of view, causing her to fly past a living target. Area repellants like candles and incense with citronella have been proven effective at averting mosquitoes and even a plain wax candle can work as a decoy to trick mosquitoes. One of the best and most familiar repellents is a chemical product , Hydrangea Forever & Ever Red called Deet, which was developed by the USDA and patented by the US Army in 1946 and then registered in 57 for use by the general public. It is a broad spectrum repellent targeting many different insect pests, , How to Grow Wildflowers however one thing that might not be so well known is that Deet should not be used in conjunction with any other insecticide containing Permethrin as it can cause severe cellular damage according to Duke Universities Journal of Toxicology and Environmental , Save On Outdoor Lighting And Think Solar Lights Health. One of the most interesting, and recent repellants I have discovered while researching this article is the use of a common perennial herb , Enhance Your Walk-Through Garden with Wind Chimes or weed , Spring is Around the Corner - How is Your Garden? called catnip. Researchers at Iowa State University and the US Forest Service released information , Yellow Headed Spruce Sawfly in 2001 on the effectiveness of nepetalactone, an essential oil found in catnip that works 10 times more efficiently than Deet although they say nothing about its duration comparison. Iowa State had submitted a patent application for the use of catnip compounds for insect repellents and commercial products , Save On Outdoor Lighting And Think Solar Lights are already available to the general public, (although I do not know if that means that thorough testing on humans or animals were completed). Caveat Emptor. Obviously cats will be meowing all over the neighborhood once these products , For Lighting Fixtures and Landscape Lighting Get Solar Power Installed become popular. (Skeeter-free, Natures , Spring Planting Tips Herbal, Natural , Theme Gardens Herbal Shield are a few). Some companies may be cheating the law by not calling there products , April Gardening Tips - Southwest Region a "Repellant", so as to bypass FDA regulations. , April Gardening Tips - Southwest Region You may want to try mixing your own concoction of catnip repellant. It's available at nurseries and in the wild if you know what it looks like. Catnip was introduced to the US from Europe in the late 18th Century, and has been used for seasoning and teas for years. It is thought to have many healing properties , Spring is Around the Corner - How is Your Garden? among them help for (inducing sleep, migraine headaches, fevers, sedative, fatigue, restlessness, pain killers, improving circulation and symptoms associated with the flu.) It is also high in vitamin C. Catnip was also called the "Hang-mans Root" and was used by early American colonial executioners to put them in the mood before an execution. In England it was used to flavor beer because it cost less than hops. Over the years their have been many other plant-derived repellants to combat insects such as lavender extract, cedar wood, , Industrial Blowers neem oil, Rosemary, peppermint geranium, lemongrass and others. As far as electronic devises sold to repel insects, be sure the experts who tested these devices were not on the companies payroll, or be careful of which expert you listen to. Some of these products , Are You New To Organic Gardening do more damage than good. In May 2001 the FTC sent warning letters to 60 companies selling these devises, warning them not to make claims without scientific evidence. In August 2002, Lentek International was charged by the FTC, for making false claims that their electronic mosquito repelling devices, repel mosquitoes. (WWW .ft c.gov/opa/2002/08/lentek.htm) One proven method that partially worked for my dad when I was growing , Wild Flower Garden - Make Amends...Your Plants Will Love It up, was the nightly mosquito hunt. Each night before bedtime the five of us kids were assigned a rolled up newspaper and a room, , Landscaping Your Patio and we could not go to bed , Flower Shops until every mosquito in the house , Choosing Lawnmowers For Cutting Grass On Tennis Courts was extinguished. It worked 90% of the time and gave the walls , A Few Things About Flowers and ceilings that natured texture look. The funny thing bout it was the other 10% of the time the mosquitoes only got dad. Mosquitoes play an important role in the food , Time for a Flower Garden Tune-Up chain, mostly in their larvae and pupae stages, transforming algae, bacteria and organic , Landscaping Your Patio matter into meals for fish , Tillers - How to Find the Right Tiller for the Job and other aquatic creatures and wading birds , Time for a Flower Garden Tune-Up etc. and it would not be beneficial to eliminate all of them. Last year out of 830 reported human infections, 27 were fatal. In November 2003 a bio Technology Company called Acambis started the first human clinical trial of a West Nile Virus vaccine. So far it has performed well in hamster, mice, monkeys and horses. Most cases of the disease , Snakes - They're Not as Slithery as Some People I Know! occurs in the elderly and others with impaired immune systems, there have been cases of transmission through blood transfusions, and organ transplants. In most cases those who have West Nile Virus do not even know they have it. A few will develop flu like symptoms 4 to 10 days after the infection, and a rare few will develop encephalitis. Copyright Jim Burnell 2005 Sources: University of Ca. Publication 7451 Author: Bruce Eldridge, Dept. of Entomology, and UC Davis Catnip as a Mosquito Repellent Author: Jeffrey s. Hoard National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy Dept of Health and Human Services Center for Disease , Snakes - They're Not as Slithery as Some People I Know! Control and Prevention Grow your own mosquito repellant Author: Ann Lovejoy Integrated Pest , Teak Furniture: The Premier Outdoor Furniture Management of Alaska Iowa State University Extension Fact Sheet Mosquito Iowa State University Joel Coats, Entomology Brian Meyer, Agriculture , Hydrangea Forever & Ever Red CommunicationsJim Burnell is a carpenter/cabinet maker and small business owner with a lifetime of varied hobbies from boat building , Tillers - How to Find the Right Tiller for the Job to studying Zeno's paradox. Currently he is studying the effects of catnip on mosquitoes and other insects, the testing and raising of certain beneficial insects in the garden , How to Pick Up the Most Necessary ing Tools? and in captivity, and simplifying certain gardening , Choosing Lawnmowers For Cutting Grass On Tennis Courts procedures in transplanting and cloning. For links to his other articles, journals and ideas he can be reached at his website: http://www.spreadtheworld.blogspot.com |
  
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