Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over
Speaker 1: there be a Little Prankster. Yeah. Pre show Shenanigans. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: well this is stuff you should know dot com. No podcast,
Speaker 1: there is a stuff you should know dot com. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was my not so subtle way of working in
Speaker 1: a plug car our website. I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: How about plugging Twitter and yeah, you should do that
Speaker 1: as well. Okay to Twitter and Facebook. Yeah, look up
Speaker 1: that s y s K podcast. That's right. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of people if you go to iTunes to
Speaker 1: uh listen to our show, you might think, man, these
Speaker 1: three hundred episodes are awesome. I love these guys. Here's
Speaker 1: a fact for you. We have close to seven fifty
Speaker 1: or more? Is it more now? I think we'll be
Speaker 1: right at it, right at seven fifty right now? That's right.
Speaker 1: So you were getting really short changed. So all you
Speaker 1: need to do is go to stuffy sho dot com.
Speaker 1: We have our entire podcast archives. Yeah. I think it's
Speaker 1: stuffy dot com slash podcast slash archives something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should go listen to the early episodes when we
Speaker 1: just rambled on about nothing for five minutes at the
Speaker 1: beginning of every show before we got tight and professional bam,
Speaker 1: tight as a drum. Mosquitoes go, I hate them. Who doesn't,
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody hates mosquitoes. And I was thinking, well, like,
Speaker 1: it's kind of I understand, Like mosquitoes need some blood
Speaker 1: to go procreate, So what's the big deal if they
Speaker 1: take a little of your blood and go lay some eggs,
Speaker 1: And it's fine, It's part of the circle of life.
Speaker 1: And then I remembered how many mosquitoes need your blood,
Speaker 1: and that how much disease mosquitoes carry their disease vector. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a pretty good one too. I'm one of those
Speaker 1: people that, um, they flocked to. Oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: My mom used to say it's because I was sweet,
Speaker 1: But what she really meant was, it's because you're a
Speaker 1: sweaty monster. It's because you probably admit a lot of
Speaker 1: no nonnal the hide. I admit a lot of everything. Well,
Speaker 1: you definitely do no nonal the hide. What I don't
Speaker 1: Why can I say that non nonal Your eyes just
Speaker 1: roll back. I mean it's spelled you can pronounce it however,
Speaker 1: you like n O, n A n A L. But
Speaker 1: it's a an oil that mosquitoes are bonkers for it.
Speaker 1: I must have it in spades, chuck is half that
Speaker 1: none at all bam, and then it's technically non an
Speaker 1: all the hide. I was just inhabited by a spirit
Speaker 1: that can really say some words. He's gone, all right. Mosquito, buddy,
Speaker 1: is Spanish for a little fly or a little gnat
Speaker 1: or a little nat. Yeah. I think in Europe they
Speaker 1: called them nat or maybe still calling that, right, I think,
Speaker 1: so are they not on the mosquito train? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I haven't asked somebody from Europe. Let us know, let
Speaker 1: us know what you call mosquitoes. That's right. And the
Speaker 1: use of the word mosquito dates back to about fifteen
Speaker 1: eighty three in North America, which is weird that they
Speaker 1: can they can trace the etymology back to that. But
Speaker 1: I saw no sourcing, no like, oh, well it was
Speaker 1: Vasco de Gama or something like that who said mosquito.
Speaker 1: It's a little that let's call him that. No idea
Speaker 1: where it came from. But I've seen it as honed
Speaker 1: as fifteen eighty three. Yeah, that sounds made up maybe
Speaker 1: online etymology dictionary is usually pretty some point. And they
Speaker 1: said fifteen eighties but had no attribution. Really interesting, Well,
Speaker 1: they've been around for thirty million years no more. Yes,
Speaker 1: well I figured at least thirty million. The oldest fossilized
Speaker 1: blood that's ever been found was found and I think
Speaker 1: wyoming in a mosquito, know that was forty six million
Speaker 1: years old? Was that one in amber? And did they
Speaker 1: extract it's DNA to make dinosaurs? It was in grant
Speaker 1: it but it was still colored so you could see
Speaker 1: the blood it was. It's crazy. It's intact like it
Speaker 1: went and eight and I was like, oh, something killed me.
Speaker 1: Now I'm fossilized to the blood of tuk Tuk. By
Speaker 1: the way, you go listen to a fossils episode. That
Speaker 1: is fascinating stuff. It is a good one, agreed, sir. So. Mosquitoes, um,
Speaker 1: they like to drink your blood, which we'll get into later,
Speaker 1: but they do this that makes them, by the way,
Speaker 1: hematophogic and jerks one of those too. Yeah, It's there's
Speaker 1: nothing creepier than being on your deck and seeing a
Speaker 1: brand new mosquito land on you and you smash it
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of blood already there, and you
Speaker 1: know it's not yours. You know it's not yours because
Speaker 1: to you it's brand new. You're covered in your neighbor's blood.
Speaker 1: Guy down the street, who knows, and who knows what's
Speaker 1: in that blood, which is why mosquitoes are disease vectors.
Speaker 1: That's right. So they're going to find you and attack
Speaker 1: you by using UM. And I like how this article
Speaker 1: puts it. It sounds more like a military aircraft than
Speaker 1: an insect because all these sensors, they have chemical sensors.
Speaker 1: They can sniff out that carbon dioxide and lactic acid
Speaker 1: up to a hundred feet away. Yes, and if you're breathing,
Speaker 1: you're giving that junk out. Well, yeah, U xhale c
Speaker 1: O two and mosquitoes hone in on that. They actually
Speaker 1: have a neuron receptor that's designed to accept c O
Speaker 1: two and say, oh, well, there's a bunch of CEO
Speaker 1: two over here, I'm gonna go attack whatever it's coming
Speaker 1: out of. There's a blood meal waiting to happen, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so they trek CEO two. They trek not analde hyde.
Speaker 1: I got it um and other stuff too. It comes
Speaker 1: out of you, lactic acid in your sweat. They track
Speaker 1: that too, so very much the way that we smell things,
Speaker 1: or taste things, or see things or hear things. Mosquitoes
Speaker 1: sense CEO two and other volatile compounds that humans and
Speaker 1: other warm blooded animals emit. Yeah, they actually have visual
Speaker 1: sensors as well. So, um, if you're in the green
Speaker 1: woods and you're wearing a white T shirt, if it
Speaker 1: contrasts heavily with the background, you're gonna stand out. You
Speaker 1: want to wear camouflage clothing at all times, all all
Speaker 1: the time, even when you're not in the woods, just
Speaker 1: to show off to others. And that movement if you
Speaker 1: if you're moving around, if you're doing a dance out
Speaker 1: in the woods with your white uh frock, you're gonna
Speaker 1: get attacked because you can be sweaty too. If you're
Speaker 1: at if you're a member of the Polyphonic Spree at
Speaker 1: a show in the woods, you're getting bit by a mosquito.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh And what else? Heat sensors, This one
Speaker 1: is pretty unbelievable. They actually can detect heat infrared like
Speaker 1: the predator. Yes, they are basically like the predator. So
Speaker 1: you want to talk about body Parts. Yeah, Tommy, I
Speaker 1: mean we kind of have to, you know. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry it was Joey was an airplane, right, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was Joey. I saw that about half of that the
Speaker 1: other night for the first time, and forever it's I
Speaker 1: could watch it every week. It's so classic. And Emily
Speaker 1: wasn't laughing. I was like, this is not your bag
Speaker 1: as it and she said I laughed a lot when
Speaker 1: I saw it when I was twelve. She didn't like
Speaker 1: it anymore. I didn't hold up. She's not a big
Speaker 1: fan of the Absurdist. That's the shame. It's a good
Speaker 1: movie still. Yeah, Like I haven't seen their plane two
Speaker 1: him forever, but I'm quite sure it's still pretty good. Joey,
Speaker 1: you ever been to a Turkish prison? It's so wrong.
Speaker 1: You couldn't even make that joke today, you know. It's like,
Speaker 1: write a pedophile joke into your new comedy. And she
Speaker 1: quickly that kid's like, why don't we just take that out?
Speaker 1: It sound funny. You're coming out of ruper at Everett. Um, alright,
Speaker 1: so body parts, Um, you have your head and that's
Speaker 1: where all these lovely sensors are that we talked about
Speaker 1: the chemical, visual and heat sensors, and the biting apparatus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which the probiscus, depending on whether it's a male or female.
Speaker 1: You know, it's longstanding. What you would think is a
Speaker 1: myth of some sort that it's just females that um
Speaker 1: bite female mosquios. It's absolutely true. The men are just
Speaker 1: like little hippies eating flower nectar. They don't bite. They
Speaker 1: don't they're not even equipped to bite. Nope, they're incapable
Speaker 1: of biting you. So if you're ever bitten or stung
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it by a mosquito, that's
Speaker 1: a lady. It is a lady, although she's not acting
Speaker 1: very ladylike. Blood meals aren't very lady like. No, she's
Speaker 1: like the bride, that's right. Uh. You're also going to
Speaker 1: find two compound eyes, um, some antennae, and then the
Speaker 1: mouth parts which we just mentioned the probiscus mouth and
Speaker 1: part for the lady. Just call it a mouth mouthparts
Speaker 1: so gross, yeah, but I get it, it's science. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the palp us is another mouth part, another
Speaker 1: disturbing word, thorax. That's the body segment where the wings
Speaker 1: and legs are attached. Yes, all this makes it an
Speaker 1: insect has two wings and six legs. Yeah, attached to
Speaker 1: a thorax. That's an insect, buddy, that's right. They actually
Speaker 1: have a heart, little compound heart in that thorax. And
Speaker 1: then they have their abdomen, which is where they store
Speaker 1: the digestive organs and that's where the poops from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's where the blood is to I imagine, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: where their blood meals stored blood meals really gross it is.
Speaker 1: That was from what the flea episode, ticks and fleas
Speaker 1: and yeah, anything that needs a blood meal, no, thank you. Uh.
Speaker 1: Species of mosquitoes all over the world in about thirteen
Speaker 1: genera right here in the US. And Chuck, there's actually three,
Speaker 1: the Big three is what they call them. Well, that's
Speaker 1: what I call them, the bigg Jordan's Magic Johnson, Larry Bird.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't include Lebron in that list, not yet, I
Speaker 1: think already. He just surpassed like Jordan and two other
Speaker 1: guys I think last night. Instead, he needs to win
Speaker 1: some more championships before he's on that list. Jordan half,
Speaker 1: he went like seven or six. Yeah, I hear that.
Speaker 1: I see your point. Lebron's got time though, So that
Speaker 1: yeah he does. Jordan doesn't. No, Jordan's time is up,
Speaker 1: he's finished. Um, sorry, Michael Jordan. We still think very
Speaker 1: highly of you. He's gonna have someone he's gonna put
Speaker 1: out a hit on both of us. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we we saw his plane once at a p DK airport.
Speaker 1: Had to have been his plane his because it said
Speaker 1: air Jordan's. It had the air Jordan's logo. But in
Speaker 1: North Carolina blue, We're like, pretty sure that's Michael Jordan's airplane.
Speaker 1: And it was nice. That's awesome. I wouldn't saw him
Speaker 1: play baseball. When he played minor league baseball. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty neat. He wasn't very good. No, he
Speaker 1: went over four, but um, it was just neat. You know.
Speaker 1: Sure to see Jordan's absolutely went over to Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's we played for them. Were the feeder
Speaker 1: team for the White Sox. Uh yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: It shows how hard baseball is. You know, he's like
Speaker 1: one of the greatest athletes of all time and he
Speaker 1: cont a curveball. Yeah. Um, all right, I was talking
Speaker 1: about the Big Three and you facetiously pretended I was
Speaker 1: talking about basketball players, But now I was talking about
Speaker 1: the big three species of mosquitoes that afflict the US.
Speaker 1: All right, so break it down for me. What are
Speaker 1: they aidis floodwater mosquitoes, right, yeah, and um, those include
Speaker 1: the yellow fever mosquito, which basically does what it says
Speaker 1: on the tin, spreads yellow fever. That's right, as advertised. Um.
Speaker 1: And the Asian tiger mosquito, which I think is probably
Speaker 1: my favorite mosquito. It's just because of how it looks.
Speaker 1: Uh really they just look compact and striped and just
Speaker 1: like little sleek meant for business. Yes. Um. The second
Speaker 1: one is all the n O n O felis and
Speaker 1: they breed in permanent fresh water. And uh, the malaria
Speaker 1: mosquito is a member of that one, so that's not
Speaker 1: that's when you want to avoid as well. Yeah, no good.
Speaker 1: And then lastly there's q lex or selex. I think
Speaker 1: it's q lex. Yeah, that's what I would say, c
Speaker 1: U L e X. And they breed in um quiet
Speaker 1: standing water, water that's entered introspective repose, you know, like
Speaker 1: the stuff that builds up in like an old tire
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, they sound like the dumbad.
Speaker 1: What the standing water like in an old tire in
Speaker 1: your yard, because that's going to breed the heck out
Speaker 1: of some mosquitoes, especially sue lex or culex. They sound
Speaker 1: like kind of the dummies of the mosquito world. They
Speaker 1: only live for a few weeks in the summer. And um,
Speaker 1: I think these are the ones that attack me most
Speaker 1: in Georgia. I'm not mistaken. They're weak flyers, is what
Speaker 1: it says. So yeah, and you can imagine those ones
Speaker 1: that kind of like come at you like I can't
Speaker 1: land very well, I just need to bump into you
Speaker 1: with my probiscus um. But they actually the culex prefer
Speaker 1: birds over humans, kind of like that weasel jumping on
Speaker 1: the back of the woodpecker. That's right, I just saw.
Speaker 1: God I feel terrible when I think about a bird
Speaker 1: being bitten by mosquitoes and not having an arm, just
Speaker 1: a hand to smack it. Yeah, you know, I do
Speaker 1: the same thing when they're around my animals too, smack them. Oh,
Speaker 1: I just I don't like it. Oh No one eats
Speaker 1: the blood meal off of my dog except me. All right,
Speaker 1: how about we go splash our faces down with some
Speaker 1: aqua velva and continue talking about the life cycle After
Speaker 1: this all right. We mentioned that mosquitoes were insects, and
Speaker 1: that means that they hatched from eggs. That's right. Like
Speaker 1: all insects, they could also be precocial birds, but in
Speaker 1: this case they're not. They're insects. The females are gonna
Speaker 1: lay their eggs in that water, Um, than the larva
Speaker 1: and pupa stages are going to live in that water.
Speaker 1: Pup potentially change into adults. Um, they leave the water
Speaker 1: and they become the annoying pests that you hate so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I didn't realize this, but mosquitoes they can live
Speaker 1: from a few days to several weeks, depending on the species,
Speaker 1: depending on the environmental conditions. And I would have thought
Speaker 1: that the they live a shorter period in colder weather,
Speaker 1: but actually the opposite is true. They hunker down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they a female can stay alive in a cool, damp
Speaker 1: spot over the wintering months until spring comes around. You
Speaker 1: can get a blood meal and and lay some eggs,
Speaker 1: which is why she she needs your blood. You have
Speaker 1: proteins in your blood that she needs and she needs
Speaker 1: it to lay some eggs. So let's say she's got
Speaker 1: a blood meal, right, she's stuck you and she goes
Speaker 1: and she lays some eggs, and she's going to lay
Speaker 1: them in water. And again, depending on the species, different
Speaker 1: types of water are gonna attract them. Like eighties, which
Speaker 1: is a very tough word to say, it's almost all
Speaker 1: vowels um. They're going to lay their eggs in a
Speaker 1: place that will eventually water will come in contact with
Speaker 1: it and carry them away other than directly into water.
Speaker 1: If you've ever seen the standing water, like in that
Speaker 1: old tire in your backyard, and you see a little
Speaker 1: grouping of little white uh, looks like a lot of
Speaker 1: little eggs floating together, those are mosquito. Those are eggs
Speaker 1: floating together. That's exactly what they are. Exactly. They're sort
Speaker 1: of laid there in a group. And I think you
Speaker 1: said this, but it's one blood meal per hatch her
Speaker 1: egg laying. Yeah, anytime they want to lay eggs, they
Speaker 1: have to drink that blood meal. And is that the
Speaker 1: only reason they drink the blood meal? That's all That's
Speaker 1: what I saw. Yeah, So when you have a mosquito
Speaker 1: biting you, that means that they have eggs that they're
Speaker 1: ready to hatch. Yeah, so when you're killing that mosquito,
Speaker 1: you're actually even better killing all of its future. Ye, well,
Speaker 1: that makes me feel even better. So um, and then
Speaker 1: you can also apparently you can tell what kind of
Speaker 1: mosquito species is. Um, you're looking at based on what
Speaker 1: hatches out of the eggs the larva, because the eggs
Speaker 1: hatch and live, they spend the larval stage in the
Speaker 1: pupil stage in water. I think like you said, that's right.
Speaker 1: The larva are also called wigglers and um, if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen that same group of eggs look like teeny tiny,
Speaker 1: tiny little worms, that's the larva. Yeah, and so um
Speaker 1: and awfully's larva will be parallel to the surface of
Speaker 1: the water, like almost like floating right below it or
Speaker 1: on the water surface. And then eight s and q
Speaker 1: lex extend down into the water and they breathe through
Speaker 1: air tubes like um bugs bunny using a read like
Speaker 1: a bamboo read. Um, they're going to the larbarre gonna malt,
Speaker 1: which is shedding their skin a few times. And I
Speaker 1: believe that's on that fourth malt is when they become real,
Speaker 1: is that right? No, they become pupa Okay, they become
Speaker 1: the pupi pupie or tumblers is what they're called and
Speaker 1: basically they stop eating and they get ready to spin
Speaker 1: a sort of cocoon of sorts around themselves. Although they're
Speaker 1: not spinning, they're enclosing themselves. And then they go in
Speaker 1: and they turn into adults. They grow their wings, their
Speaker 1: legs grow out, their probiscus grows out. If they're the
Speaker 1: hippie male version, their hair grows out down to their shoulders.
Speaker 1: They actually bust out of that case with air pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I looked this up. This article makes it's it
Speaker 1: makes appearances all for the Internet in various forms, like
Speaker 1: it has been ripped off plenty of times. And I
Speaker 1: can't find anybody who's like and this is how. This
Speaker 1: is how they use their pressure to break open the cocoon.
Speaker 1: I have no idea. The only thing I can think
Speaker 1: of is that they flap their wings enough that it
Speaker 1: increases the air pressure inside of the enclosure and it
Speaker 1: breaks open. Oh see, I was gonna say they blow
Speaker 1: it out their probiscus or something. But what if it's
Speaker 1: a male like they don't have a probiscus. They can
Speaker 1: blow it out mouth parts, they can blow it through
Speaker 1: their mouthparts. No, I don't know. Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: that's is a legitimate and suggestion is mine or maybe
Speaker 1: science got to that point and they're like who cares, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just kill you know. Uh. When mosquitoes finally do spread
Speaker 1: their wings and fly um like beautiful doves, they want
Speaker 1: to go out and like most animals, find a mate
Speaker 1: and mate so to make more of themselves. That's right,
Speaker 1: it's like their job basically. And so the males they're
Speaker 1: just sitting there feeding on plant nectar and they're like me, me, okay, me, yeah,
Speaker 1: you great, And the females like, yes, um, let's do this.
Speaker 1: And then I'm gonna go get a blood meal and
Speaker 1: you go off and die and then I'll die later on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Pretty much not a lot of purpose to the mosquito's life. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that a little bit later. Um about
Speaker 1: whether or not we even need mosquitoes. Oh good, I
Speaker 1: would love to talk about that, Okay, but not right now. UM,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the bites. When they bite you with
Speaker 1: that probiscus um, they actually have an anti coagulant, a
Speaker 1: protein in the saliva that they're gonna spit out on you,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna keep keep that blood free. Flowing while
Speaker 1: they're sucking it up exactly. Um, a female mosquito will
Speaker 1: eat until she's full. And apparently if you cut the
Speaker 1: sensory nerve to her abdomen and cut off her indicator
Speaker 1: that she is full, she just eating until she exploded.
Speaker 1: Like that's what the sadist with too much time on
Speaker 1: his hands does in very tiny tools. Yeah, he captures
Speaker 1: some cs severs that thing so they can gorge themselves.
Speaker 1: Like here here's an arm go to town. Could you
Speaker 1: imagine seeing that? O? My god, I kind of have
Speaker 1: seen it. There was a Tabasco commercial from years ago
Speaker 1: where like this kind of Cajun dude is eating pizza
Speaker 1: with Tabasco on it, remember, and then like a mosquito
Speaker 1: comes and like sucks his blood and flies off and
Speaker 1: it's flying away and explodes in flames. So you have
Speaker 1: seen it kind of on TV. That's very nice. Um,
Speaker 1: After you get bitten, the saliba is what causes that
Speaker 1: immune response that you know as the bumpy itch, but
Speaker 1: science calls it a wheel w H E A L. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the puffy area around the little center prick part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's your body's immune response being mounted against that
Speaker 1: anticoagulant saliva that remains after the mosquitos flown off UM,
Speaker 1: and the wheel will eventually get better and go away,
Speaker 1: but the itch will remain. And the itch is an
Speaker 1: indicator that your white blood cells are still fighting off
Speaker 1: or breaking down that protein in the anticoagulant saliva. UM.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard the old wives tale that if
Speaker 1: you put an X or cross with your fingernail, it
Speaker 1: won't itch. M No, you never heard that. That was
Speaker 1: a big, like childhood thing, like if you cross make
Speaker 1: an X on the mosquito bite with your fingernail really deeply,
Speaker 1: it won't itch anymore. And it always seemed to work.
Speaker 1: And I looked that up and it's actually a thing.
Speaker 1: Researchers at the American Allergy Institute UM released findings about
Speaker 1: four years ago that UH said that's actually an effective technique,
Speaker 1: and they set it outproof form. They did studies on
Speaker 1: several hundred people and outperformed any anti itch remedies like
Speaker 1: over the counter stuff that you could put on it,
Speaker 1: and they they reckon that it works because UM it
Speaker 1: limits the immune response from the binding of antibodies to
Speaker 1: antigens in the saliva. Basically, it just digs deep and
Speaker 1: disrupts that. So there you have it. Apparently it's true
Speaker 1: bold vives right again. That's right, Um, so chuck. In
Speaker 1: addition to having an itch from a bite and having
Speaker 1: the anticoagulant protein from the mosquito saliva stuck in your skin,
Speaker 1: it gets way worse than that as far as mosquitoes go. Mosquitoes,
Speaker 1: like I said, and I said it before and I'll
Speaker 1: say it again, mosquitoes are a disease vector to the
Speaker 1: nth degree and one of the things that they're very
Speaker 1: famous for spreading. As a matter of fact, as we saw,
Speaker 1: there's a mosquito species that included a type called the
Speaker 1: malaria s. Mosquito is malaria, and malaria is a viral infection. No,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's a parasite that you catch from the
Speaker 1: anopolies mosquito. And it takes anywhere from a few days
Speaker 1: to a few months for symptoms to develop as the
Speaker 1: infection grows in your bloodstream. And um, you're in big trouble. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be headachy and muscle achy and feverish and chili. Uh.
Speaker 1: It can kill you. Um. But they do have anti
Speaker 1: malarial drugs and I think that's one of those you
Speaker 1: can get not a vaccine, but can't you take drugs
Speaker 1: before you go on a trip like that? Malaria? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And um, you can drink gin and tonics, which originally
Speaker 1: developed by the British when they took over India. Um,
Speaker 1: and we're exposed to malaria. Really. Yeah. Tonic water contains quinine,
Speaker 1: which is found in the bark of the chichon a tree,
Speaker 1: a k a. The fever tree. And um, it's been
Speaker 1: like it cures and prevents malaria. So they would drink gin,
Speaker 1: which they already had on them all the time, and
Speaker 1: this tonic water. And then apparently tonic water was even
Speaker 1: more bitter back in the day than it is today,
Speaker 1: so they would add something like lime or cucumber or
Speaker 1: something like that. But lime had the added benefit of
Speaker 1: chasing off scurvy as well or preventing scurvy. So the
Speaker 1: average safe sailor in the British navy in the mid
Speaker 1: eighteenth cent or nineteenth century had a supply of gin,
Speaker 1: tonic water, and limes. Put them all together, you got
Speaker 1: a gin and tonic and you're preventing malaria or preventing
Speaker 1: mesquite stead and ward off mosquitoes, does it. No, it
Speaker 1: prevents malaria, like I guess, it prevents the parasite from
Speaker 1: spreading in your body's something like the chinchona. The quinine
Speaker 1: prevents the parasite from taking hold. Well, I guess I'm safe.
Speaker 1: Then you're safe. But apparently a one million and people
Speaker 1: die every year still from malaria. Unbelievable. It's that's inexcusable
Speaker 1: in this day and age, with the ubiquity of malarial
Speaker 1: drugs in the West. Agreed, it's like share the wealth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a million people a year from malaria, that's really sad.
Speaker 1: It is. Um yellow fever is another big problem. We
Speaker 1: don't have it here in the U. S Or Europe anymore,
Speaker 1: but it is still all over the place in South
Speaker 1: America and Africa. And it's sort of symptomatic like malaria,
Speaker 1: worse except worse but um nausea, vomiting, jaundice, and it
Speaker 1: can also kill you. Yes, they can't treat. They treat
Speaker 1: the symptoms, but there is no like cure, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: the only and there's no cure and the only prevention
Speaker 1: really is to prevent mosquitoes from biting you, which is
Speaker 1: a tall order. I imagine in parts of South America. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then there's encephalitis and the most famous of the encephalitis
Speaker 1: that's spread viral and scephalitis that's spread by mosquitoes. West
Speaker 1: Nile virus. Yeah, I thought this is interesting. It said
Speaker 1: several types include Western Equine, Eastern Equine, West Nile, and St. Louis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just sort of stood out as odd to me. Uh,
Speaker 1: you will get a high fever, stiff neck, headache, confusion, laziness, sleepiness. Um,
Speaker 1: I might have West actually, And now that I think
Speaker 1: about it, um, And we'll talk a little more about West.
Speaker 1: Now when we talk about mosquito repellents, there's a couple
Speaker 1: more that mosquitoes are well known for spreading dan gay
Speaker 1: fever spread by my favorite the Asian tiger mosquito that
Speaker 1: produces everything from viral flu to hemorrhagic fever. Apparently it
Speaker 1: was it just mainly stuck around East Asia and then
Speaker 1: in it made its first appearance in the United States,
Speaker 1: introducing ding gay fever in the US. And the worms too.
Speaker 1: They spread worms, specifically types of worms that like to
Speaker 1: root into your eye and make you blind. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're diseased actors. HIV is not spread by mosquitoes.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows this by now, but um, don't you remember
Speaker 1: being a kid though and being like, oh god, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember growing up in that generation thinking wait a minute.
Speaker 1: And I didn't even see it on the news or
Speaker 1: as a concern, Like I remember having my own original
Speaker 1: thought of hold on a minute, if you can get
Speaker 1: HIV through blood and mosquitoes, or that's not my blood,
Speaker 1: and it's like a little needle, I know. I was.
Speaker 1: Actually it was like someone's gonna get this and things
Speaker 1: are gonna change. But luckily, thankfully, they found out that uh,
Speaker 1: the virus cannot survive in a mosquito. No, apparently it's
Speaker 1: really it has a lot of trouble surviving outside of
Speaker 1: its human host. It just doesn't live very long. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we really need to do an HIV I know, it's
Speaker 1: been long. Promise we will. We will do that very soon. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we talked about all this stuff. Mosquitoes can spread and UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of these things like UM yellow fever, uh
Speaker 1: in West Nile virus. They're they're difficult to treat and
Speaker 1: the best thing you can do is to prevent mosquitoes
Speaker 1: from biting you. And actually I mentioned what was it
Speaker 1: Dengey fever that made its appearance in the United States
Speaker 1: in I don't know if you remember this or whatever,
Speaker 1: there was a panic all of a sudden in New
Speaker 1: York State. I think something like five or six people.
Speaker 1: Um seven people died in just over a month from
Speaker 1: September to October of and they died of an in
Speaker 1: viral encephalitis, right, And the health officials were like, what
Speaker 1: is going on? And they couldn't find anything in common
Speaker 1: with these people. They there was no normal um epidemiological marks, right,
Speaker 1: They just couldn't figure out where it's coming from. And
Speaker 1: then they finally identified it as West Nile virus that
Speaker 1: was being carried by mosquitoes, and everybody freaked out. Part
Speaker 1: of the problem with this was that at the time,
Speaker 1: a lot of people were suddenly questioning what we were
Speaker 1: using as mosquito repellent, which is also called deep That
Speaker 1: was the primary mosquito repellent that was in use and
Speaker 1: still is today. And at the time people were just
Speaker 1: starting to question because there are a lot of studies
Speaker 1: about whether deet was safe, specifically for pregnant ladies and
Speaker 1: um kids. Yeah, do you want to read the word
Speaker 1: that is deep? Sure? All right, go ahead, and and
Speaker 1: di ethel m tulum medea to lua Mede's almost had it, man,
Speaker 1: try it again, and and di ethel m to luamde. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right, my friend. Which is Deep somehow,
Speaker 1: that's what it's abbreviated, asked, Yeah, d E E T.
Speaker 1: And it was created by the U. S. D a H.
Speaker 1: The Department of Agriculture in ninety six, of course for
Speaker 1: the Army's a military thing, like so many things created
Speaker 1: and and um. Eventually it made its way over to
Speaker 1: consumers in the nineteen fifties. And like you said, over
Speaker 1: the years it's been sort of uh maligned and embraced,
Speaker 1: um like a roller coaster, you know. But in the
Speaker 1: in the height of this West Nile panic, it was
Speaker 1: also like the it was the height of or the
Speaker 1: bottom of faith. Indeed, as a safe thing, a safe product.
Speaker 1: That was Deep's lowest day. Yes, it's the dark day.
Speaker 1: So um. One of the reasons that people were suspicious
Speaker 1: of Deep is that it's a plasticizer, which means it
Speaker 1: can melt plastic. Yea, that's one thing. So that's enough
Speaker 1: for me, So spray that on your skin, um, and
Speaker 1: then there was a study of UH in two thousand
Speaker 1: two of about nine pregnant women in Thailand, and it
Speaker 1: investigated their bloodstream for DEEP. And the thing is with Deep,
Speaker 1: when you put it on your skin, most of the
Speaker 1: time you're it's absorbed at a rate that your liver
Speaker 1: can break it down, and when you finally pee it out,
Speaker 1: it's been completely metabolized and it's safe if I guess right,
Speaker 1: that's what they say. Well, this study in Thailand showed,
Speaker 1: it showed something different, and it scared everybody. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: showed that, Um, they actually found the chemical in the
Speaker 1: umbilical cord of eight percent of the women, so that
Speaker 1: across the placental barrier, and that freaked people out so understandably, right,
Speaker 1: that spread like wildfire. Everybody was freaked out about Deep.
Speaker 1: And then simultaneously there there were long standing reports of
Speaker 1: children having seizures from using Deep. Is that true? I
Speaker 1: can't quite tell. What I get is if you use
Speaker 1: Deep in normal concentrations on your skin, which they say
Speaker 1: it used to be, But then they found that anything
Speaker 1: over fifty is really about the same, right, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: diminished return. So you want to just use fifty or
Speaker 1: no more than fifty and when they figured that out,
Speaker 1: they just dropped it down to thirty. They rounded down
Speaker 1: for some reason. Um, but apparently, if you use it
Speaker 1: in a normal concentration on your skin, um you're okay. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of different groups have come out and said, deets, okay,
Speaker 1: as long as you follow the label and you're using
Speaker 1: a normal concentration. If you get in your mouth, for example,
Speaker 1: though then all of a sudden, the concentrations are hundreds
Speaker 1: of times higher than if it's on your skin. So
Speaker 1: these kids licking their arms and stuff. Supposedly that was
Speaker 1: the common link to the seizures and kids, but apparently
Speaker 1: it was never demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction. And some people
Speaker 1: are like, well, seizures are way more common in children
Speaker 1: than in an adults, so maybe it's just a coincidence
Speaker 1: that these kids also had bugs bray on at the
Speaker 1: time they have their seizure. I don't I try not
Speaker 1: to use the no And you are one of enough
Speaker 1: people that there's a pretty decent market for alternatives, a
Speaker 1: deep for mosquito repellents that have been developed over the years.
Speaker 1: That's what I usually do. What do you use? Oh?
Speaker 1: I mean back in the day, use the the old
Speaker 1: skin so soft, which, yeah, I don't know, maybe it
Speaker 1: worked a little bit. Well, you know what's funny is
Speaker 1: like this whole deep scare people started asking questions about
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, how does it work? And apparently
Speaker 1: scientists were they had to say, like, we're not. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we think that it confuses the the um it
Speaker 1: masks the c O two that's omitted by humans. Interesting,
Speaker 1: So that's what they think. They've also found that since
Speaker 1: DEED is really effective at doing that, they found other
Speaker 1: compounds too that do similar things that that fit a
Speaker 1: CEO two receptor or a non all in all receptor.
Speaker 1: And um, so the mosquitoes confused and doesn't know where
Speaker 1: to bite or sting or whatever. Um. I think uh,
Speaker 1: Emily made a little homemade concoction once. I think out
Speaker 1: of that lemon eucalyptus oil that you mentioned in your
Speaker 1: own article. Yes, that's that's one lemon eucalyptus oil. Um,
Speaker 1: there's soybean oil. Yeah, that's supposed to work pretty good, right. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: a two percent concentration of soybean oil prevents mosquitoes from
Speaker 1: biting between one and a half and seven hours. That's
Speaker 1: pretty great. And this is soybean oil. This is the
Speaker 1: same stuff you can like eat in your food, so
Speaker 1: it's very safe. What about citranilla oil, because Jerry came
Speaker 1: in here bragging about all her citranilla oil plants that
Speaker 1: she has surrounded her lavish gardens. Jerry was wrong. So
Speaker 1: the citranilla oil apparently does kind of work, but it
Speaker 1: works way better if you extract the active ingredients gerenniol.
Speaker 1: So if you've got the the citranilla torches, uh, then
Speaker 1: that's doing a better job than just having the plant
Speaker 1: around her. I would guess if anything, that's probably attracting
Speaker 1: them through the heat. Oh, attracting them, I would guess.
Speaker 1: But see, I think the smoke helps get rid of them.
Speaker 1: So there's two things you can do with mosquitoes, right.
Speaker 1: You can protect yourself by masking yourself like the from
Speaker 1: this the volatile compounds that you're emitting, right, and then
Speaker 1: you can also distract and bait them. And they they
Speaker 1: somebody did a study in two thousand thirteen at u
Speaker 1: C Riverside. They analyzed half a million compounds that had
Speaker 1: a structure that fit mosquito ceo two receptors, and they
Speaker 1: found a hundred and thirty eight that we're safe fish,
Speaker 1: and they zoned in on two of them. One is
Speaker 1: ethel Pyra eight, which has a fruity smell that humans
Speaker 1: find pleasant and testing it's safe for use in foods
Speaker 1: and um. It apparently masks the skin as well as
Speaker 1: deep does. And then there's also cyclopentanone, which has a
Speaker 1: minty smell that attracts mosquitoes that you could use for
Speaker 1: like a trap. Did you put like in the back
Speaker 1: of your yard right? I will say this the you know,
Speaker 1: they make a lot of things like mosquito traps, um
Speaker 1: bug zappers, which do not work. Uh. If you have
Speaker 1: a bug zapper, all you're doing is killing a lot
Speaker 1: of like really cool insects, you know, like moths and things. Um.
Speaker 1: Those things that you hook up to like a tank
Speaker 1: and roll out into your yard. I don't think those
Speaker 1: are supposed to work very well. It's like propane. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. I've seen it before, though, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's propane. UM. I'll have to look
Speaker 1: into that, but I've heard they don't work. Do you
Speaker 1: remember that, UM, Like years back, it was kind of
Speaker 1: a trend among UM radio stations. They said that they
Speaker 1: were playing a low frequency sound that mosquitoes that humans
Speaker 1: couldn't hear, but repelled mosquito that why, just to listen
Speaker 1: to their stations. I don't know if it was actually
Speaker 1: transmitted or if it was just a hoax. It sounds
Speaker 1: like a hoax to me. So you said you had
Speaker 1: something about mosquitoes and whether we actually need them or not, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but real quickly. They also make um mosquito proof clothing
Speaker 1: where this this they're iron suits, you know, but chemicals
Speaker 1: are actually in in the fabric itself to ward off mosquitoes.
Speaker 1: I remember I wrote something about that at one point,
Speaker 1: and I just remember thinking, I'm never gonna buy something
Speaker 1: like this and wash them with my regular clothes. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm an alarmist. Supposedly there's um there's a chemical that
Speaker 1: is just to be used on your clothing, not your skin.
Speaker 1: Why is because it's a deadly, deadly poisoned neurotoxin to humans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is we should actually say the name of that permethrin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is for clothing only. And um, if I see
Speaker 1: something like that, I'm just not gonna use it, Like,
Speaker 1: don't get any on your skin, but you can put
Speaker 1: it on your T shirt just fine, and don't look
Speaker 1: at happy fun ball. Uh. So we have another article
Speaker 1: on our website called what if mosquitoes went It's ext
Speaker 1: inked because apparently there are some scientists that have been investigating,
Speaker 1: like how to increase the male population enough that there
Speaker 1: just aren't females anymore. Uh, and you know, no more offspring.
Speaker 1: And there's a few things. There are some birds in
Speaker 1: the Arctic tundra that you know, migrate and feed on mosquito,
Speaker 1: so it could disrupt that. And then of course the
Speaker 1: whole chain reaction thing that we've talked about before in
Speaker 1: the food chain. You know what could that mean? Um?
Speaker 1: There there's actual mosquito fish and an other fish feed
Speaker 1: on mosquitoes and their larvae. Um. But the general consensus
Speaker 1: from sciences, you know, if mosquitoes went away, they'd probably
Speaker 1: just adapt and find other meals and it wouldn't set
Speaker 1: off some awful reaction like bees would. You know, Well,
Speaker 1: we could use this as proof positive once and for
Speaker 1: all that humans are capable or never ever should intervene
Speaker 1: in ecology and ecological stuff. Let's let's do it. Let's
Speaker 1: see if we can remove mosquitoes from the planet. You know,
Speaker 1: there's not I was waiting for some big thing like
Speaker 1: mosquitoes are really so important, but not really. Nope, like
Speaker 1: the animals, they'll just those fish. The mosquito fish, I guess,
Speaker 1: will be the the whatever, the gnatfish or the fly fish.
Speaker 1: It's the like fly larva more. Anyway, I don't care. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say that's worthy of an experiment. Let's get rid
Speaker 1: of it. I have feel not bad at all about
Speaker 1: saying that. Uh well, if you want to know more
Speaker 1: about mosquitoes, you're born enemy. You can type that word
Speaker 1: into the search part how stuff works dot Com. And
Speaker 1: since I said search parts, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: I am going to call this one. What what is this?
Speaker 1: Oh my, I'm gonna call this I I see dead people.
Speaker 1: Um guys, I've been listening to your awesome show for
Speaker 1: about a year, and I'm working my way through the
Speaker 1: back catalog. Last week I listened to you How Stunt
Speaker 1: Men and Stunt Women Works. Great episode, Chuck mentioned the
Speaker 1: Vic Morrow helicopter accident from the Twilight Zone, and uh,
Speaker 1: I said it was actually on YouTube, which is something
Speaker 1: I never knew. Despite the warning from Chuck not to watch.
Speaker 1: I did it. Next time, I'll listen. It is rough.
Speaker 1: One thing I did learn, though, from the accident was
Speaker 1: um the subsequent research on it was that John Landis
Speaker 1: directed that segment, which I knew because he brought on charges. Um.
Speaker 1: This brings me to the reason I'm writing. I met
Speaker 1: John land Is, said a couple of years ago at
Speaker 1: the Burbank Airport. He was really friendly and jovial and
Speaker 1: took a picture with my friend. Uh. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: in the opinion of many others, by the way landis
Speaker 1: Is actions heavily contributed to the tragic deaths of Vic
Speaker 1: Morrow and the two children. Despite living in l A
Speaker 1: and working in the entertainment industry, I really don't meet
Speaker 1: any many celebrities and consider life to be easier because
Speaker 1: of it. However, other celebrities I have met included Aaron Hernandez,
Speaker 1: who's the New England Patriot that's in for murdering now
Speaker 1: and Ray Lewis, who was acquitted of murder back in
Speaker 1: the day. Uh. And while I didn't officially meet him,
Speaker 1: Charles S. Dutton was in my office once and we
Speaker 1: exchanged the polite nod. So when you add them all up.
Speaker 1: The celebrities I personally encountered range from definitely to possibility
Speaker 1: possibly responsible for nine violent deaths. Wow, how about that?
Speaker 1: Jeez um, Charles Dutton, did he got somebody? Yeah, he
Speaker 1: spent like his youth in prison. Oh that's right, he
Speaker 1: went to prison and got out and became famous. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've learned a great deal from your podcast over the
Speaker 1: year that I've been listening, and now I have learned
Speaker 1: that for my own safety and for the betterment of
Speaker 1: humanity in general, my celebrity interactions must be kept to
Speaker 1: a minimum. I know. For legal reasons, this email will
Speaker 1: never make it a listener mail reverse psychology, I got
Speaker 1: that kind of always works. Actually, I don't see what
Speaker 1: the legal reasons are. Nothing. This guy's like signed a
Speaker 1: lawyer inflammatory in here and that is from name redacted.
Speaker 1: M thank your name redacted. You have an unusual name. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He also goes by anonymous. Oh or yeah, Detroit. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's what we should use as a name redacted or anonymous,
Speaker 1: Yeah Detroit. All right, So thank you, yeah Detroit for
Speaker 1: that email. Way to go you had, Detroit. If you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us and let us
Speaker 1: know any weird stuff about yourself that's pretty cool. Um.
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at Housetuff works dot com and has always
Speaker 1: joined us at at home on the web, Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, does it how stuff works dot com