I recently came across an article that told about a new bug repellant that can “save lives.”
According to the article, the repellant works not just for mosquitoes but for other insects like ants, flies and moths and works the opposite of the way DEET does —
“We decided to take a more aggressive approach and, rather than turn off the mosquito’s olfactory system, we could look for something that would turn it too far on, to see if we could design a new generation of insect repellents based on overloading their smell system,” Zweibel said.”
The researchers were funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The repellant isn’t on the market yet and there is some debate over whether mosquitoes are “good” for the environment — (I believe you all know how I feel about that!).
For now, I continue to use the ThermaCell cartridges that work pretty well to ward off any mosquitoes that head my way. It doesn’t work for ticks though which I assume are on my property although I have yet to see one in the three years I’ve lived here.
The Kite Patch, that uses a patent-pending formulation that blocks mosquitoes’ ability to track humans for up to a day, is also not on the market yet. It is supposed to be used in Uganda to help decrease the spread of malaria and once they get the kinks out they hope to offer it worldwide. This is one project that I helped to fund as anything that wards off mosquitoes has my attention.
Below, I have a link to the article I read on the new mosquito repellant that is being worked on. Happy reading!
A Bug Repellant That Could Save Lives
Other News: Â Mosquito virus hits the Caribbean and possibly heading to the U.S.Â
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