Speaker 1: Also media trudio muski to annoyse the intro.
Speaker 2: How do we do that? That's why you get you
Speaker 2: can hear them, Okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, here we are. That's it. That's the introduction.
Speaker 1: That's all you're getting, and you will be grateful for it.
Speaker 1: It's it's me. It's Cherine Higgerene Hi, James Hi, Tarina.
Speaker 1: What are we? Are we doing vegetables today? Are we
Speaker 1: doing genocide? Which part of the vegetable genocide spectrum? Wheel.
Speaker 2: I feel like we're closer to vegetable than genocide, but
Speaker 2: you can argue the opposite as well, because I get
Speaker 2: eat it alive by these things.
Speaker 1: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think we're kind of in the middle here. I
Speaker 2: think it's a good even metal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we've very split the difference. Look, let us go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's right, it's things to eat serene alive today is
Speaker 1: flesh eating bacteria day, It's not. Does not have a
Speaker 1: flesh eating bacteria that I thought we were doing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd like to surprise you sometimes, just see how you act.
Speaker 1: We're doing mosquitos actually, scheren mosquitos Yep, yep. Little guys,
Speaker 1: little friendly guys.
Speaker 2: Who they're not friendly and they're always little.
Speaker 1: But yeah, some of them are absolute chunks. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: seen some big dogs recently. Did you know the mosquito
Speaker 1: serene is the most deadly animal in the world. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an animal. Yeah, I mean it's in the animal kingdom, right,
Speaker 1: I suppose it's insect nuisance.
Speaker 2: No, it's not insect on animals and nuisance. I guess
Speaker 2: I couldn't realize it was considered the most deadly animal.
Speaker 2: Why is that just from like valaria?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and all the other diseases at vectors. Right, it
Speaker 1: can do parasites, bacteria, and viruses, so it's really like
Speaker 1: a triple threat when you can get like chuck and gun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Dane Gay, I've got a whole list of them.
Speaker 2: Why are they still around?
Speaker 1: That is an interesting question, Sharene.
Speaker 2: I've always wondered that like bees have benefits, like they
Speaker 2: make they're cute little guys, and they make honey, and
Speaker 2: they just want to pollinate around.
Speaker 1: Lots of mosquitoes do too. Lots also, or they don't
Speaker 1: make honey. Lots of species of mosquito just feed of flowers.
Speaker 1: They're not out there to get you. It is just
Speaker 1: the the lady mosquitoes of certain species.
Speaker 2: What was the lady insects man? The queen bee? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's the black widow.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, it's it's true. Yeah, it's I
Speaker 1: guess maybe they're a matriarchal society, you know, and they're.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I guess technically a spider is not insect, right, it's.
Speaker 1: Like a yeas to correct me on the reddit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: please please post your genus and species stuff on the
Speaker 1: on the reddit. I would love that. So, yeah, mosquitoes,
Speaker 1: they're stacking some bondies, about three quarters of a million
Speaker 1: people a year in fact, which is quite a lot
Speaker 1: of people for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess for culture to the genocide and on
Speaker 2: the spectrum.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Sadly, I don't know, the mosquitoes
Speaker 1: don't have so much agency, so I don't feel like
Speaker 1: they're quite as like evil. You know, the word of
Speaker 1: course a moscow. The moscow is a fly in Spanish.
Speaker 2: And then each I think, of course, like why I
Speaker 2: don't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you might know that, you know, like I don't
Speaker 1: know that. I'm just gonna look this up. Mosquitoes or
Speaker 1: origin word? Well, now, mosca is a fly, ito is
Speaker 1: a diminutive ending, so it means like a little fly. Oh,
Speaker 1: little fly, yeah, a fly.
Speaker 2: Lit And there's also a Spanish word that means long legged.
Speaker 1: Hold on from mosquito.
Speaker 2: The Spanish called the mosquitoes mosquetas, and the Native Hispanic
Speaker 2: Americans call them zenkudos. Mosquito is Spanish or Portuguese and
Speaker 2: it means a little fly, while zen kudos is a
Speaker 2: Spanish word that means long legged.
Speaker 1: Ah. Okay, there we go and learning the etymology today
Speaker 1: here and then I didn't have that. I just had
Speaker 1: a little fly based on it being a little fly
Speaker 1: in Spanish.
Speaker 2: That's kind of cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that long legged. Well, we have daddy
Speaker 1: long legs, I guess, but he's a mosquito. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: technically mosquitoes are actually micro predators, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a fun word. I feel like I've met some micro
Speaker 1: predators in my time, but they were not mosquitoes, and
Speaker 1: that is because some of them thrive by drinking human blood.
Speaker 1: Tell me about it. Yeah, that is the reason, sharing
Speaker 1: that you have encountered mosquito. So I want to I
Speaker 1: want to talk first about their life cycle and then
Speaker 1: about their their predation on Charine so mosquito say the
Speaker 1: eggs in stagnant water, that that's water that's not moving.
Speaker 3: Right, I know somethings, Jane, Okay, okay, not everyone knows
Speaker 3: about stagnant water, Charine. There are listeners too.
Speaker 1: They might not know. So their eggs hatched into lava,
Speaker 1: and the lava become pupa. These stages are all aquatic, right,
Speaker 1: They all happen in the stagnant water, right, and then
Speaker 1: the adult mosquito hatches from the pupa and it hatches
Speaker 1: on the surface and then it flies off and it
Speaker 1: sucks up your evening.
Speaker 2: I don't realized that you had anything to do with water.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why, Like did this not happen in La
Speaker 1: a few years ago? They this council was like sending
Speaker 1: people around San Diego to like scope out your garden
Speaker 1: to see if you had standing water. Right, if that
Speaker 1: did happen, I have no memory during peak. Yeah, let's see,
Speaker 1: maybe that's why it was peaked, like zeko panic.
Speaker 2: Oh that makes sense that that would happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it does. And we definitely get them, like
Speaker 1: I have to put a little over side like a
Speaker 1: thing that kills the eggs into my chicken water. If
Speaker 1: I'm having a big standing thing of chicken water, yeah,
Speaker 1: I try and have smaller and refresh it more frequently now.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you definitely have to be careful of stagnant water.
Speaker 1: And as we'll see, like one of the main ways
Speaker 1: to control them is like limiting the amount of stagnant
Speaker 1: water for some species only the females that a species
Speaker 1: are the bloodsuckers, and in some cases they don't need
Speaker 1: the blood, and in other cases to lay their eggs
Speaker 1: they need to have a blood meal as it's called
Speaker 1: h which is a nice words unsettling. Okay, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: the mosquitoes that are vectors for human diseases, so they're
Speaker 1: like the transportation vector vehicle for the disease between one
Speaker 1: person and another, those are the guys who often need
Speaker 1: a little blood meal to day the eggs. They don't
Speaker 1: only attack people, actually, they sort of have a preferred species,
Speaker 1: but in a pinch, they'll go after anything with blood.
Speaker 1: And I've seen them get really thick on cattle and
Speaker 1: stuff in the summer, or horses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can imagine that. Yeah, because cow's just sit there.
Speaker 1: I mean, if they're being mosquito attack, they get pissed off.
Speaker 1: But there's only so much they can do. In some cases,
Speaker 1: I think it's horses. Equinumcephalitis is spread by mosquitos, so
Speaker 1: they can actually get it. They can get diseases from
Speaker 1: two terrible little guys, and they can like literally die
Speaker 1: from being overbitten. And if they get like completely swarmed
Speaker 1: on wow, yeah, that's like if they're unable to get
Speaker 1: away from them. Because if you have a water tank, right,
Speaker 1: and then mosquitos are breeding in the tank, it's where
Speaker 1: you want to keep that tank moving like right.
Speaker 2: So it's not stagnant water, because stagnant water means it's
Speaker 2: not moving.
Speaker 1: There, you go look at that actually and putting knowledge
Speaker 1: into it. I let that be like one of those
Speaker 1: Guo Linga things where you learn a word then use
Speaker 1: it in a sentence exactly. Yeah. All I do is
Speaker 1: use that word. Yeah. Yeah, So yeah, musket has come
Speaker 1: out adorn or dusk, which is to say they are crepuscular,
Speaker 1: another word that everyone already knows.
Speaker 2: I mean I did learn that word. I did like
Speaker 2: an audiobook and I had to look this word up,
Speaker 2: and so I know what it means only because of that.
Speaker 2: But it's a very interesting word. I will say it
Speaker 2: isn't it sounds like creepy, Like I would have no
Speaker 2: idea what it meant if I didn't look it up,
Speaker 2: Like there's nothing that clues me in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, crepusculate. It sounds like, yeah, of gress because like
Speaker 1: diurnal nocturnal you can kind of if you know one,
Speaker 1: you can work out. But crepuscular, it is coming out
Speaker 1: of fucking left field.
Speaker 2: That's crepust Does that mean which remind me? It means
Speaker 2: that they're active don and desk or that they're eating it.
Speaker 1: I think it means they Yeah, they are. I'm not
Speaker 1: actually sure if it means it active or they're eating.
Speaker 1: That's a good question.
Speaker 2: Because I feel like I've heard cats are also described
Speaker 2: as that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cats are definitely that way animal appearing active in
Speaker 1: Twilight active.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's very poetic. The first animal I see here
Speaker 2: as a cat, Yeah, lion, American woodcock, firefly, short eared owl. Cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're real, the pantheon and animals. So they do
Speaker 1: the feeding at doorn a desk and they actually use
Speaker 1: compounds in your exhale breath to sniff you out. So
Speaker 1: they are they are hunting for people. They specifically prefer
Speaker 1: to feed on people who have type O blood, an
Speaker 1: abundance of skin bacteria, high body heat, and pregnant women.
Speaker 1: If you fit one or all of those criteria. I
Speaker 1: guess that because people like definitely, I feel like I
Speaker 1: have type of blood. Yeah too, I feel like I'm victimized,
Speaker 1: like more than most people by the mosquito and they
Speaker 1: choose me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like me and my mom are both TYPEO
Speaker 2: and we get you know, live, So that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they somehow they can smell that on you.
Speaker 2: I'm always cold, though, so I don't think I have
Speaker 2: high bars heat. Not always cold, but I can. I
Speaker 2: don't know I have beat circulation, not pregnant. I guess
Speaker 2: I must have an abundance of skin bag.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be a skin bacteriasuring by process of deduction.
Speaker 2: No, but TYPEO makes sense. I think like that is enough.
Speaker 1: I suppose. Yeah, they because when it's a lot of them,
Speaker 1: you know, and when one of them starts feeding on you,
Speaker 1: that's going to trigger more of them to come feeding
Speaker 1: on you.
Speaker 2: How because they're like, look at this, this idiot, let's
Speaker 2: go feed off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, look at this. It is delicious blood that
Speaker 1: is typo. Yeah, got it, Yeah, yum yum. And then
Speaker 1: they're giving off their little feeding sort of vibes and
Speaker 1: then the other mosquitoes come, which can be useful to
Speaker 1: trap them. But it's a fair point. The trapping of
Speaker 1: mosquitos's I learned when I was doing this. Very fucking interesting.
Speaker 2: Actually, ooh, okay, tell me more. Actually maybe not now,
Speaker 2: but whenever you get to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we'll get to a tune. They have a
Speaker 1: very interesting set of mouth parts and including the labium,
Speaker 1: which is like a gutter shaped cueube mouth tube okay,
Speaker 1: I guess, And it's super sharp and they can use
Speaker 1: it to saw through your skin painlessly, so you never
Speaker 1: that's what you don't feel.
Speaker 2: So that's the that's the needle looking thing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like the little thing they poke you with.
Speaker 1: And then well they do that, then they have little
Speaker 1: needle looking things that kind of that it contained within
Speaker 1: the gutter shape that they use to suck out your blood. Gross.
Speaker 1: They're saliva stops your blood from clotting, and it prevents
Speaker 1: vascular constriction in the area where they're biting, so they
Speaker 1: can get a little bit extra blood before it clots.
Speaker 1: I guess. Some people can become desensitized to their bites
Speaker 1: over time if you're getting bit and all the time,
Speaker 1: others can become more sensitive and then increased sensitivity is
Speaker 1: known as Skeeter syndrome.
Speaker 2: Skeeter syndrome what it looks like because I'm very sensitive
Speaker 2: to them.
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe we've got two diagnoses in one episode. We've
Speaker 1: got skin bacteria and Skeeter syndrome.
Speaker 2: I don't know what I need to have to have
Speaker 2: Skeeter syndrome, but I will say I'm extreme insensitive to
Speaker 2: mosquito bites. When I get bit in they become gigantic.
Speaker 2: I won't even will now I'll wote itch them because
Speaker 2: I know not to at this point. But I'll get
Speaker 2: these like gigantic welts essentially, and they're bright pink, and
Speaker 2: then over the course of like a week or something,
Speaker 2: and they become bright red and they look like someone
Speaker 2: put paint on my leg. It's like it's a crazy
Speaker 2: color of red. And then when they eventually do stop itching,
Speaker 2: I'll have that welt there in that red mark for.
Speaker 1: Like months, damn months. It's like it becomes like this
Speaker 1: weird scar. Yeah, you could be a squito syndrome, I guess,
Speaker 1: so yeah, yeah, I will say when I.
Speaker 2: Was a kid in Syria, when we would go visit there,
Speaker 2: they have so many mosquitoes. I got in alive because
Speaker 2: we would go there in the summer too. But there
Speaker 2: was one time I got bit in on my eyelid
Speaker 2: like this, that sucks, and so I genuinely couldn't open
Speaker 2: my eye for like a week and a half. That
Speaker 2: was the worst one.
Speaker 1: I think I'm like that with beastings, like they they
Speaker 1: swell up like crazy, Like I don't think I'm like anaphylactic.
Speaker 1: But a couple of times time I was racing in
Speaker 1: Laguna Seca, which is like a car racing track in Monterey,
Speaker 1: and I'm racing along and I guess I'm riding along
Speaker 1: with my mouth open. It's just just like you know, thriving,
Speaker 1: and a mosquito flew in and bit me. I do
Speaker 1: a mosquito a bee, and my whole face just was
Speaker 1: like in your mouth. Yeah, it was crazy, it was bad. Ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was fucked. One had just stung me before, like
Speaker 1: the extent which I swell like when be staying me.
Speaker 1: I got stung in the leg on a training ride
Speaker 1: and I had to upgrade to like EXL shorts because
Speaker 1: like my thigh just become like yeah, and then one
Speaker 1: got me in the mouth. It was a bad day.
Speaker 1: I had an EpiPen, I had I think I had
Speaker 1: some ivy bed drill at some point. Oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: was fucking well.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm glad you're not in a phylactic, but
Speaker 2: it's pretty close.
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah, yeah, it's better you can get one
Speaker 1: time I got. I got stung in a face when
Speaker 1: I was to go to lecture as well, and like
Speaker 1: walked in with like elephant man face and my stream. Wow,
Speaker 1: we're just like dude, it's like.
Speaker 2: Those photos or videos you see of like animals like
Speaker 2: a dog at a to b and their faces like gigantic.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah it is, Uh it's two dogs. Do you
Speaker 1: love to eat peas?
Speaker 2: I will say, I don't know if you've ever done
Speaker 2: twenty three and Me, but I did it years and
Speaker 2: years ago for another show I was on and on
Speaker 2: twenty three and Me. You can select if you want,
Speaker 2: like health traits as well as like ancestral traits or whatever,
Speaker 2: like yeah, and on that it said I am more
Speaker 2: likely to get a bitten by mosquitoes.
Speaker 1: They gay. Maybe it just need your blood.
Speaker 2: Type, but I didn't give them my blood given my spit.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's crazy. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: something in it has no blood type. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We've just discovered that shream is on
Speaker 1: a eugenics podcast.
Speaker 2: No, it was for my podcast that was about this
Speaker 2: is tea Ankay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some real problematic folks do love twenty three and me.
Speaker 1: It's very funny when the white nationalists got one twenty
Speaker 1: three and me and find out how they get upset.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I love that and it's always fun to see.
Speaker 1: So the real problem with mosquitos is not just that
Speaker 1: they make you a trip, but they're vectors for disease
Speaker 1: and they infect seven hundred million people a year with
Speaker 1: their little bitey mouths. They can spread all kinds of diseases,
Speaker 1: including viruses, parasites, and bacteria. Some of their greatest hits
Speaker 1: include yellow fever, Dangay malaria, Tuderimia, zeka, chicken gunya, and
Speaker 1: West Nile virus. Speaking from experience, some of those are
Speaker 1: really shit, and you are best avoiding all of those.
Speaker 1: That's going to be my advice. To you as a
Speaker 1: doctor in one European history, it really fucking sucks to
Speaker 1: get some of these. I've had some diseases from some mosquitoes,
Speaker 1: and I would not recommend The mosquitoes don't actually get
Speaker 1: sick themselves. And it's like it's immune system can destroy
Speaker 1: the virus, but if it bites someone else and then
Speaker 1: bites you before it's immune system destroys the virus' genetic code,
Speaker 1: you can get sick and at some parasites. Apparently malaria
Speaker 1: can make mosquitoes more apt to go biting. Interesting, it
Speaker 1: kind of turns them into zombie brain mosquitos. It's how
Speaker 1: I like to think about it. With malaria, which is
Speaker 1: kind of the main mosquito vector disease. I guess that
Speaker 1: we think about the parasite replicates in the liver cells
Speaker 1: and then moves about by the bloodstream. If you get
Speaker 1: bitten again, the blood could then pass that malaria to
Speaker 1: the next victim of the mosquito. I'm going on a
Speaker 1: trip soon for work. I'll probably be on it when
Speaker 1: you will hear this. And like, because people are traveling more,
Speaker 1: all these different diseases are becoming more common. Right They're
Speaker 1: endemic in one area, and then people come from that
Speaker 1: area to another area, and then mosquitos are hopping around
Speaker 1: when they're in a new area that they're now spreading
Speaker 1: in that area. So we've talked to some folks like
Speaker 1: on the areas where migrants travel north, all the types
Speaker 1: of malaria are now currently present, which is great because
Speaker 1: you've got people from all over the world, right, and
Speaker 1: then the mosquitos are hopping from someone from China to
Speaker 1: someone who's come from Mauritania and spreading their little mosquito
Speaker 1: vector diseases around. So that is bad treating. Do you
Speaker 1: know what else is bad?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry my mind was so blank, But ads are
Speaker 2: not good. No, they're not bad.
Speaker 1: Ads are great. As are so good that we love them.
Speaker 2: Oh yay ads.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're back, and I want to talk about how
Speaker 1: we stop the mosquito nennis. Please help. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to talk about eliminating them, and then I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk about some products and services actually that you can
Speaker 1: avail yourself off. I'd been thinking about this a lot
Speaker 1: recently for work reasons, right, Yeah, doing some jungle travel
Speaker 1: in the next few months. So how do we prevent
Speaker 1: them from biting us? First of all, we can stop
Speaker 1: them having little useful pools of stagnant water to replicate
Speaker 1: in right, Like this means like if you're like me,
Speaker 1: one of my friends referred to my my garden as
Speaker 1: a quote Alaska yard, which it's a way of saying
Speaker 1: that it's a mess and there are lots of like
Speaker 1: car parts and like little little things that I am
Speaker 1: fixing soon, you know, And I guess having an Alaska
Speaker 1: yard is bad for the mosquitos, like especially things like tires,
Speaker 1: right Like, you know, if you have a big car tire,
Speaker 1: water pools in there, and they can have a little
Speaker 1: breed in there, same as buckets in marshy areas. What
Speaker 1: people do is they dig ditches that allows water to
Speaker 1: move so that water doesn't sit completely still. And then
Speaker 1: introducing certain fish it can also help certain fish will eat,
Speaker 1: including the mosquito. Fish will eat the LoVa of the mosquito.
Speaker 1: Tilapia also do this so like you can have a
Speaker 1: nice little if you're a person who eats fish, a
Speaker 1: nice still situation where you're reducing the disease burden. And
Speaker 1: also like providing a food source, which is something they're
Speaker 1: working on. You can drain swamps. Of course, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: famously has drained the swamp right, yeah, I hear no
Speaker 1: malaria do you see anymore because of Donald Trump? But
Speaker 1: doing so obviously destroys an important habitat. Certainly you don't
Speaker 1: want to just be draining swamps. I was reading about
Speaker 1: something in Florida they do called rotational impound management, where
Speaker 1: they kind of allow water levels to fluctuate, and then
Speaker 1: they have these clever little gates that mean that that
Speaker 1: other species like the fish and the crustaceans can move about,
Speaker 1: but they're keeping them water moving. To stop the little
Speaker 1: mosquito eggs. For me, the other way to do it
Speaker 1: is to try and kill them, right, So there are
Speaker 1: various ways of doing that. One of them is to
Speaker 1: create an environment where they would want to lay their eggs,
Speaker 1: but then have that environment kill their eggs. So there
Speaker 1: are various at home ways of doing this. So like
Speaker 1: you could make a stagnant water thing and then blitz
Speaker 1: up the eggs or filter them out, or you can
Speaker 1: put things oversides in there which to kill the eggs.
Speaker 1: Some of them also kill the mosquitos when they come
Speaker 1: and lay their eggs. You can also use their little
Speaker 1: hunting senses against them, right, So you can create an
Speaker 1: environment that attracts them either by seeming like a person
Speaker 1: or by seeming like a good place for them to breed.
Speaker 1: And then you can filter out the eggs from where
Speaker 1: they lay them, right, you can kill them when they
Speaker 1: come on in. There are things called lava sides. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's what I'm using with my chicken thing actually that
Speaker 1: destroy the lava. There are little bricks that you dissolve
Speaker 1: in your water, and there are some pretty low risk
Speaker 1: insecticides that you can use. And there are also high
Speaker 1: risk in sexicides, or at least underpopular intexticides. And this
Speaker 1: is where a friend of the Cauzone media network DDT
Speaker 1: comes in. Are you familiar with DDT treed? No, there
Speaker 1: are friends, Yeah, there are friends. We love DDT Big
Speaker 1: Appetise on pod. We love them because until about sixty
Speaker 1: years ago, the US government fucking loved DDT. Right. It's
Speaker 1: an insecticide. They would put it in walls, in mattresses,
Speaker 1: People rubbed their pets with it. For a while, people
Speaker 1: thought they treated polio. They would even go through towns
Speaker 1: spraying down whole neighborhoods with DDT right, and people kind
Speaker 1: of became aware the DDT actually isn't a great idea,
Speaker 1: both pre ecological and health reasons, about sixty years ago
Speaker 1: when Rachel Carson published a book called Silent Spring. It's
Speaker 1: kind of one of the foundational texts of the environmental movement.
Speaker 1: And I think people are asked in credit like Rachel
Speaker 1: Carson with being the only person that that's not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: Like you can look at migrant farm workers actually and
Speaker 1: see that they have been for a long time being Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's great that you're dosing us with
Speaker 1: this pesticide all the time. Like, maybe stop spraying us
Speaker 1: with the DDT, you stop playing the places. I want
Speaker 1: to quote a really good piece there in the New
Speaker 1: Republic on DDT. We now know that DDT causes tumors
Speaker 1: in mice and rats. It thins birds eggs to the
Speaker 1: point that mothers indivertently crush their gestating offspring. It may
Speaker 1: disrupt bird sense of orientation, sending them out to seed
Speaker 1: to die. It fundamentally alters the reproductive ordin and so
Speaker 1: array of critters. It can poison animals even decades after
Speaker 1: spraying has ended. Further, a growing body of evidence has
Speaker 1: linked DT to numerous forms of cancer in humans, especially
Speaker 1: breast cancer. Studies have shown how the levels of DDT
Speaker 1: in our bodies track inequalities in human society. For instance,
Speaker 1: there are higher DDT levels in black people than in whites,
Speaker 1: and higher levels in poor people than in rich ones.
Speaker 2: Sounds like you reliant to me when you said that
Speaker 2: there are friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like within the cool zone media network
Speaker 1: of making podcasts about evil shit. DDT I think fits perfect.
Speaker 1: That's terrible, Yeah, it's terrible. There's recently like a resurgence
Speaker 1: in I guess, like people standing DDT again and questioning
Speaker 1: some of it, like research around it. But we know
Speaker 1: for sure that it's ecologically damaging, and what we don't
Speaker 1: know is the consequences of wiping out a bunch of
Speaker 1: species in the ecosystem, so we probably don't want to
Speaker 1: use DDT. One thing we can do to kill them
Speaker 1: is introduce predators, which is kind of cool. Tilap Year
Speaker 1: is one predator. Dragonflies or another. I love a dragonfly,
Speaker 1: big interesting flies, so Bekina fasso. They're working on a
Speaker 1: fungus with a mosquito specific neurotoxin, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: It can just grow and kill the mosquitos. The World
Speaker 1: Mosquito programs also trialing a bacteria that when mosquitos carry it,
Speaker 1: it amps up their immune system, so like they kill
Speaker 1: the virus or the parasite or whatever it is right
Speaker 1: more quickly, so then they're less lightly to be vectors.
Speaker 1: There's also programs which introduce male mosquitos which are not
Speaker 1: able to have kids, either they're sterile or they're breeding
Speaker 1: results in eggs that won't hatch, So that's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting to control the population that way. And they also
Speaker 1: have these really interesting genetically modified mosquitos that need antibiotic
Speaker 1: tetracycline to grow, So they raise a batch in the
Speaker 1: lab and give them the tetracycline that they need, right,
Speaker 1: and then they let them out to breed, and then
Speaker 1: when they breed, because they're young, don't have tetracycline, they
Speaker 1: don't grow and they don't make it. It's really interesting
Speaker 1: to think about. Like some folks are advocating for completely
Speaker 1: eradicating them, just wiping them off the face of the planet,
Speaker 1: which would seem to have many benefits, right with all
Speaker 1: these diseases that they vector. I'm one of those people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a mosquito. Genocider. I found its interesting pieces that
Speaker 1: they're like a forest's defense fromanism against humans. Like if
Speaker 1: we look at that, like the ecosystem's.
Speaker 2: Way of being like get out of here, yeah.
Speaker 1: Like leaves this place alone. Yeah, which is interesting, But
Speaker 1: like I know, it's hard because the people who mostly
Speaker 1: die from mosquito vector diseases and the people with the
Speaker 1: least access to resources, right right, yeah, even things like
Speaker 1: you know, when you're very sick with some of these things,
Speaker 1: you need to be you know, kept hydrated and kept
Speaker 1: cool as your temperature gets up and stuff, and you
Speaker 1: don't have AC and you maybe you can't get an
Speaker 1: IV or whatever, like a very preventable death could occur, right,
Speaker 1: and so right, it's hard, real hard for me sitting
Speaker 1: in America to be like, no, we shouldn't. But I
Speaker 1: guess I understand that argument. But if we go about
Speaker 1: it by fucking dousing whole areas and DDT again, then
Speaker 1: that's not great either. Right, that can have it. That
Speaker 1: can then can have its downside. Anyone else has its downside.
Speaker 1: Shrewm What it's having to pivot to add every ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen minutes in this job that we do. So
Speaker 1: we're going to do it. Now we're back. We are
Speaker 1: entering the final trimester of our podcast and yeah, if
Speaker 1: you like that, I like to I'd like to think
Speaker 1: of them as trimesters, the last slice of this little
Speaker 1: podcast cake for you guys. Yeah, So I wanted to
Speaker 1: present some little strategies I like to use please when
Speaker 1: I am going to places where I am worried about
Speaker 1: being eaten alive by the little flies.
Speaker 2: Wait, okay, you see all these like DIY, like this
Speaker 2: is how track mosquito somewhere else, But like none of
Speaker 2: those have been mentioned, So is.
Speaker 1: That all bullshit? What do they taught me through?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I have to look it up, but
Speaker 2: I feel like I've seen like little things where it's
Speaker 2: like put this bucket of water here, or like put
Speaker 2: like lemon or honey or like something to attract like
Speaker 2: general insects and then mosquitos or like even like light
Speaker 2: can attract mosquitos. You put like a light somewhere. But
Speaker 2: this sounds all like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can do that. You can even use a fan, right,
Speaker 1: because I know, honestly, very good flyers like they you
Speaker 1: can just kind of blow them away from you. So yeah,
Speaker 1: in terms of like small scale mosquito prevention. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: going to get into some of those. Okay, cool. The
Speaker 1: most useful thing for me is mosquito in its actually,
Speaker 1: so like in the jungle, I like to sleep in
Speaker 1: a hammock. This one called the Jungle Nest, the Eagles
Speaker 1: Nest Outfitters make that has like a built in mosquito
Speaker 1: in it. That's nice. Yeah, it's really nice. Like I like,
Speaker 1: so I don't have to fuck around with like draping
Speaker 1: it and worry about like the little gaps, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I use that a lot. I use a whole
Speaker 1: little system that they make, and it's it's really nice.
Speaker 1: If I'm in hotels, seat a Summit makes a sleeping
Speaker 1: bag liner A I like to take seeking bagline up
Speaker 1: when I'm going places like I I got fucking fleas
Speaker 1: from a hotel bed in Rwanda. Oh no, yeah it
Speaker 1: was bad, like if you think mosquito had to try
Speaker 1: it having And for people who haven't seen me, I'm
Speaker 1: a hairy person, like have long hair and had a beard,
Speaker 1: and fleas were just upon me and it was bad.
Speaker 1: So I like to take a little sleeping bag liner
Speaker 1: now that's treated with a mosquito repellant, but it must
Speaker 1: be safe for skin and stuff though, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's embedded in the fabric called permethrine. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: it in a second. Literally, the last thing I use
Speaker 1: is a head bugnet. I'm a massive advocate for the
Speaker 1: head bugnet. I know you look like a complete lemon,
Speaker 1: but like, it's just I don't like to be bitten
Speaker 1: in the face.
Speaker 2: No, I have been been in the face, so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, take it from Charine bite sur either. If you
Speaker 1: have a brimmed hat, it's much nicer because it sort
Speaker 1: of hangs in front of your face then. But I
Speaker 1: wear with these all the time. If you like to
Speaker 1: see wildlife, it's nice too because it's kind of camouflaging,
Speaker 1: like it takes the glare off your face. You get
Speaker 1: really bad insects up in Scotland, like when I've been
Speaker 1: out there in the summer time at Form one, and
Speaker 1: I wear a lot. In California, there are some places
Speaker 1: like to hike where we have year round water here,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely pretty gross by like the end of
Speaker 1: the summer, you know, like it's been sitting for a while.
Speaker 1: But water is a bit constraint on your on your
Speaker 1: hiking out here, right, so you kind of need it.
Speaker 1: So I'll go down there and filter my water. But
Speaker 1: I wear my little bug face net and it works great.
Speaker 1: I love it. So after that you can also do repellance.
Speaker 1: These come in two forms, so it's the one that
Speaker 1: you put on your clothes and the ones that you
Speaker 1: put on your body. Right. The one that you put
Speaker 1: on your clothes is called permethrine. The thing with permethrin
Speaker 1: is that it's a neurotoxin for cats, which is very
Speaker 1: bad for cats. So Soya makes a little spray bottle
Speaker 1: of it and you can spray it on your own
Speaker 1: clothes and treat them, right, But if you have cats
Speaker 1: you have you must do this outside, like you can't
Speaker 1: do it in your house with your cats. It's safe
Speaker 1: once it's dry, so that you can spray them, let
Speaker 1: them be on your washing line or what have you,
Speaker 1: and then when it's dry you can you can bring
Speaker 1: them aside and then it's safe, honestly, Like you can
Speaker 1: also send them off to a company I think it's
Speaker 1: called insect Shield and they'll spray them for you. In
Speaker 1: the way they do it somehow bonds it for much longer,
Speaker 1: like normally at lasts for about six washes, but with
Speaker 1: and you can get like ten times as many washes.
Speaker 1: And you can also buy shit like I've just got
Speaker 1: a hoodie from a company called first Light, who make
Speaker 1: like fancy hunting stuff that has the insect stuff built in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like that because then if you have a hoodie
Speaker 1: as well, you can put you know, you get like
Speaker 1: a lot of coverage.
Speaker 2: But like, if a cat likes sat on this clothing.
Speaker 1: It's fine now because it's bonded. Yeah, your cat could
Speaker 1: like go curl up in it and then have a
Speaker 1: sleep and things. So even if it gets wet, that's okay.
Speaker 1: It's when the permethro in itself is wet the first application,
Speaker 1: that's when it's risky. Okay, I see, I see. If
Speaker 1: you're going to do that, you want to do your
Speaker 1: socks as well, because they fucking love to bite around
Speaker 1: the ankles. Yep, my legs are their their prime target. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's their their favorite area to bite here. I don't
Speaker 1: know why.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're probably easier to access and you're less
Speaker 2: likely to see them, I suppose. Like, and also I
Speaker 2: feel like if you're sitting, you're moving, probably your upper
Speaker 2: body more than your lower body.
Speaker 1: So it's like I don't know. Yeah, it's still like
Speaker 1: and sneak in there. Lasted. So things to like repel them.
Speaker 1: One of them is have you seen the thermo cells?
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with them? It's a brand called Off
Speaker 1: that makes them too. It emits something called metha flutherin,
Speaker 1: and methad lutheran is like a non toxic I was
Speaker 1: looking at the EPA guidelines for this. It's mostly non toxic.
Speaker 1: It should be fine in your house, but it is
Speaker 1: toxic to aquatic invertebrates, fish and bees because with all
Speaker 1: these things, like I don't want to just be spraying
Speaker 1: and insecticide into the world, right yeah, and damaging like
Speaker 1: innocent non micro predators. So what the thermo cell does is,
Speaker 1: you know when people have those little things in their
Speaker 1: houses where they put an essential oil in and it
Speaker 1: puffs and the picture house not nice. Yeah, it's like that.
Speaker 1: It's like that, okay, and it does that. But with
Speaker 1: this methaplutherin and they work okay, Like if you're in
Speaker 1: your tent stuff, they work like they don't work if
Speaker 1: it's windy, they don't really work. They can be nice
Speaker 1: like if you set them up and let them get
Speaker 1: going for a while and then come into a space,
Speaker 1: they can be really nice. You have other things like
Speaker 1: a fan. You can have the electric traps, right, which
Speaker 1: kind of bring even electrocute them.
Speaker 2: How do those electric traps attract them? Just the light
Speaker 2: or like.
Speaker 1: What I think it's a UV light because yeah, it
Speaker 1: has that really bright I actually don't know that. I
Speaker 1: think that electrocutes them, like when they land on it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's the light. Yeah. Those seem to be
Speaker 1: like a more multi purpose insect zappa though, right, So
Speaker 1: I've not preferred those. I don't want to be killing
Speaker 1: everything else, like just try and you know, leave no trace.
Speaker 1: And then the last thing is for some reason, I've
Speaker 1: become obsessed with this recently, the different creams you can
Speaker 1: put on yourself to stop mosquitoes going away. Ideally you
Speaker 1: can kind of layer up all the things right to
Speaker 1: limit you know, like the amount of just chemicals you
Speaker 1: have to rub on your skin. Deep is the most
Speaker 1: popular one. People are pretaty familiar with Deep. It was
Speaker 1: developed by the US Army in the forties. The big
Speaker 1: thing with deep is it's really hard on plastics, so
Speaker 1: I'm not a contact lens or glass wearer. I don't
Speaker 1: know a contact lens is made of glass or plastic. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have worn both, and I have no idea. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say like that with that perfect vision, I have
Speaker 1: one either. So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think it's crazy. Who was made
Speaker 2: out of glass or plastic?
Speaker 1: Right? What are contact lenses? Welcome to the portion of podcasts.
Speaker 1: We're sure he googles the thing.
Speaker 2: I guess there are types of plastic, but not the
Speaker 2: kind of plastic that comes to mind when you hear
Speaker 2: the word high tech polymers that allow oxygen to flow
Speaker 2: through to reach the cornea body body blow.
Speaker 1: So I guess, yeah, sure, yeah, be careful with your deep.
Speaker 2: Actually, there's a question that says our contacts glass or plastic.
Speaker 2: So I guess I'm a dummy because that's a legitimate question. No,
Speaker 2: it's a good question that just like sounds crazy to me. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I don't know if the deep can get to them.
Speaker 2: It can definitely, Oh yeah, it does contact lenses.
Speaker 1: There we go. It can damage your contact lenses. It
Speaker 1: definitely will mess with your rain gear, your tent, your sunglasses,
Speaker 1: especially in higher concentrations. So like deep you can get
Speaker 1: ten percent deep, you can get one hundred percent deep.
Speaker 1: You get maximum protection at thirty percent deep. So after
Speaker 1: that it's just you're buying yourself more time between applications. Also,
Speaker 1: it gets more concentrated your risking damaging your gear. And like,
Speaker 1: I don't like the way it makes my mouth feel,
Speaker 1: like with the spray. If you spray it, you get
Speaker 1: this like metallic dry mouth. It seems like you're killing
Speaker 1: yourself when you walk into a cloud of deep. Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: cool cool. I like pickcard in. It's a synthetic version
Speaker 1: of an element that's found in pepper plants. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I usually use on I go camp. Yeah, their
Speaker 1: little Sawyer makes a really nice picard and actually it's
Speaker 1: got like a blue label on the bottle.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's the what I use.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Soyer. Yeah, we like Sawyer. I got to try.
Speaker 1: The reason I've I've suggested so many Soy products is
Speaker 1: because the Sawyer Foundation. We're there in the Marshall Islands
Speaker 1: when I was there.
Speaker 2: Oh nice, I mean I like their shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah I do. I think they're a really cool company. Actually,
Speaker 1: they seem to make stuff that like solves problems and
Speaker 1: then just like keep making it. They don't make a
Speaker 1: new thing every year, different color and trying to rehype it,
Speaker 1: you know. Like they did really cool shap in the
Speaker 1: marsh Lands. It's cool to see and like, Yeah, as
Speaker 1: companies go, I think they're pretty right on. They also
Speaker 1: gave us some water filters to help with the migrants
Speaker 1: the other day, which is very nice of them. We
Speaker 1: needed some water filters for folks crossing the border and
Speaker 1: they gave us some. So they are my friends. But yeah,
Speaker 1: their one is good. They make a nice sun cream
Speaker 1: mostly as well, so you can you can double dip there.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's not up to the standards of your
Speaker 1: your imported sun creams, but.
Speaker 2: That means sunscreen British translation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you can't make the logical leap from suncream
Speaker 1: to sunscreen, yeah that is that is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: In the British air defense though it is definitely a
Speaker 2: cream and not a screen, so yeah, that's on us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another incidence of British excellence. Oh my god, to
Speaker 1: be fair, one of the few. What have we got
Speaker 1: We've got that we have the Baking show and that's
Speaker 1: about it. Ye can't think of much else. So there
Speaker 1: are also like natural ones, you know, like citronella is
Speaker 1: the one that people like. But I have just found
Speaker 1: that those don't work very well.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's a hit or miss. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: was gonna say, I feel like it's like kind of
Speaker 2: for fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you'll feel great that you've done something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they just work by being strong smells that
Speaker 1: kind of mask your other smells. M And you can
Speaker 1: get synthetic and natural plant oils. And there are people
Speaker 1: who will sell you bracelets with like a little thing
Speaker 1: that's supposed to secrete the citronella.
Speaker 2: Oh, I use I've used those. The ones I have
Speaker 2: used look like like phone cords that are all spirally. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but they little bracelets and I have ifill my ankles,
Speaker 2: put them on my wrists. Sometimes they work and sometimes
Speaker 2: I look like a dummy. But I don't know, so
Speaker 2: it was I've tried everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sometimes I just burnt incense and that kind of works. Again,
Speaker 1: I think just kind of it's a strong smell and
Speaker 1: the mosquitoes don't like it. Okay, that makes sense having
Speaker 1: incense and a box fan. It's not a bad solution,
Speaker 1: like I've done that in places where you know, nothing
Speaker 1: else was available, and that's pretty good. But yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're in a place where they see the problem and
Speaker 1: it's coming a bigger problem. Right, the world is getting hotter,
Speaker 1: the climate is changing. These swampy marsh areas are drying up,
Speaker 1: so we're getting more stagnant water and less through flow.
Speaker 1: Like this becoming a bigger problem, and our healthcare system
Speaker 1: is continuing to be fucked and getting worse, certainly in
Speaker 1: the United States, but so United Kingdom and other places.
Speaker 1: So yeah, be careful of the mosquitoes. Remember to do
Speaker 1: your sun cream before your before your mosquito cream or
Speaker 1: lotion or whatever you're using, screen your mosquito screen. That's
Speaker 1: sort of a I got a mosquito scream? You got
Speaker 1: anything to add?
Speaker 2: No, I think that's a good little summary about what
Speaker 2: to do for mosquitos. I hate mosquito so much, and
Speaker 2: I'm one of those people that don't think they should
Speaker 2: be around, But since they are, I guess we got
Speaker 2: to deal with them. So yeah, it's nice to know
Speaker 2: that I use like a good thing. Like I think
Speaker 2: if I use something that you use, I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 2: I did something right.
Speaker 1: Soly true. Your way ahead of me on the air
Speaker 1: this sun cream.
Speaker 2: But no, I think it's a it's helpful to know.
Speaker 2: I'm sure many people out there are sensors to mosquito
Speaker 2: bites and anything will help if they.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it sucks.
Speaker 2: It's getting so hot and they're everywhere. And now what's
Speaker 2: really bothering me is that they're getting smaller and harder
Speaker 2: to see. But they're just as annoying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the bite still even if there's Yeah, yeah, you've
Speaker 1: got to get a really fine mesh f your mosquito
Speaker 1: nets for that. You can't be using other products. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't have a mosquito net. I should go one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get a mosquito net. I love a head mosquito net.
Speaker 1: It's great. It serves you some. It stops the mosquitoes
Speaker 1: biting you, it stops other people talking to you. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's a great. It's great thing to have. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have seen these videos of like someone having a
Speaker 2: mosquito it on them and then like the mosquitoes, you
Speaker 2: see it poking and not being able to reach.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny, like mosquito ares very funny. Yeah, yeah, exactly, But.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cool Yeah, thanks James.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fine. It's a podcast brought to you by
Speaker 1: me hyper focusing on things, which is what I do,
Speaker 1: is the way I deal with my anxiety about going
Speaker 1: to places which don't necessarily places people go for fun.
Speaker 2: Word all right bye, So yeah, it could Happen here
Speaker 2: as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
Speaker 2: from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com,
Speaker 2: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 2: for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zonemedia
Speaker 2: dot com slash sources.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.