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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsWhile harvesting the raspberries growing all over my yard, I came to a radical conclusion.
I hate mosquitoes more than thorns.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)our rainy Spring has certainly increased their presence. I have 2 zappers in the backyard and still they are a problem.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Mosquitoes are indeed useless little bloodsucking vermin ...
NNadir
(33,544 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 15, 2019, 09:08 PM - Edit history (1)
If the most obnoxious blood sucking vermin wouldn't be subject to swatting a present, since the secret service might take offense.
at140
(6,110 posts)but I must be allergic to mosquito venom, because every bite turns into a large red pimple which itches and lasts 3 weeks before dying off.
3catwoman3
(24,041 posts)...a time machine so he could go back in time and kill the first 2 mosquitos that existed before they had a chance to mate and make more.
Cirque du So-What
(25,973 posts)Woulda been great if he had
3catwoman3
(24,041 posts)He also wanted to know what color dinosaur skins really were. It bothered him that no one knew for sure, because skin could not be fossilized, so the colors were only a guess.
To this day, he does not like unanswerable questions and is a complex thinker.
NNadir
(33,544 posts)Crisanti remembers failing over and over. But finally, in 2011, the two geneticists at Imperial College London got back the DNA results theyd been hoping for: a gene they had inserted into the mosquito genome had radiated through the population, reaching more than 85% of the insects descendants1.
It was the first engineered gene drive: a genetic modification designed to spread through a population at higher-than-normal rates of inheritance. Gene drives have rapidly become a routine technology in some laboratories; scientists can now whip up a drive in months. The technique relies on the gene-editing tool CRISPR and some bits of RNA to alter or silence a specific gene, or insert a new one. In the next generation, the whole drive copies itself onto its partner chromosome so that the genome no longer has the natural version of the chosen gene, and instead has two copies of the gene drive. In this way, the change is passed on to up to 100% of offspring, rather than around 50% (see How gene drives work).
It's controversial.
unc70
(6,119 posts)lastlib
(23,286 posts)...to anybody doing lots of outside work where skeeters, chiggers, or ticks are a problem. It seems to work well for me.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)One of the advantages to living in a city is the relative lack of flying insects. I can keep my windows open at night and I am rarely bothered.
However, when I go up to visit my sister in Maine or my brother in Vermont, or another brother in the Baltimore suburbs, the insects are out in full force. It's awful. They have fire pits and citronella candles, but it still doesn't really keep the bugs away and I don't really like the smoke from the fire either. I always can't wait to get back to the city where we rarely see bugs anywhere.
I think the country is so relaxing, but I really can only tolerate it if we are in on a screened in porch. I can't handle the bugs at all!
Harker
(14,034 posts)were it not for the rasps getting stuck in my teeth.
NNadir
(33,544 posts)We all split a large portion of them with the birds. The birds, of course are responsible for the wild perfusion of raspberries here, since their droppings contain those annoying seeds.
I have refused to mow them or cut them back since they are an improvement on grass. I'm surrounded on three sides of my property by woods, and they've been inching in, with various kinds of trees.
I'm sure that my neighbors are largely unimpressed with my landscaping style, but I'm kind of fond of it, and man, I love the raspberries. They should continue to give yields for another week or so.
Harker
(14,034 posts)of style. Practically anything beats grass, and having woods on three sides sounds sublime. We're going to try for that, or for woods on all four sides.
It may be a cheap cop out, but maybe I'll press raspberries through a sieve.