Sunday 24 February 2013

shoo fly

Experimentation is possibly demonstrating the waning efficacy of pesticides, namely in tests involving the pervasive chemical DEET. Mosquitoes that are spreading the scourges of mankind that defy overcoming on first exposure avoid the active ingredient, developed by the US military to make jungle warfare more tolerable, but upon their second encounter, seem inured to the taste and don’t seem to mind it so much, like acquiring a taste for coffee or beer and maybe even a liking for it.

Seeing mosquitoes ignore the intended effects after just the next exposure is interesting enough and I’m no advocate of dousing oneself or one’s surroundings with concoctions of dubious value (or making it a pedigree of one’s fruits and vegetables), but it gets really interesting when one raises the question whether such circumstances exist in the field, do mosquitoes get the opportunity to return to the same watering-hole a second time, would be a fair question—or are the laboratory stocks of mosquitoes and their forebears too acclimated to such synthetic experiments, like little trained fleas whose talents run in the family. Departure—prematurely, from the scientific method builds up undeserved confidence and we would do right to wonder about what’s not dispensed with moderation