Bart Knols has done quite a bit of research to discover and create a few new methods that could potentially eliminate malaria.
One thing Bart does during this presentation is try to put the deadliness of malaria in perspective. Every 30 seconds, a child somewhere in the world dies because of malaria. In Africa alone, malaria is daily responsible for the same number of deaths as 7 jumbo 747 jets crashing into the ground. This is an incredible amount of death from one little parasite.
It's also interesting how different people smell more appealing to mosquitoes. When my family is sitting around a campfire, my mom and I are always attacked by mosquitoes while my dad and brother are left almost untouched. My mom always jokes about us smelling sweeter to mosquitoes, and it turns out there's some truth in it. What makes some people produce more of these "attractive" chemicals than others? Since people don't have a sensitive enough sense of smell to detect the differences, what are the evolutionary reasons for people secreting different chemicals? Wouldn't nature select for people who didn't attract deadly mosquitoes? So why does such a large population still produce these particular chemicals? As far as Knols being able to produce a synthetic chemical that attracts mosquitoes, how does he use this to people's advantage? Does he lace a trap with this chemical to draw the mosquitoes away from the people? But would having this ultra-attractive chemical in someone's bedroom end up pulling in more mosquitoes than normal, resulting in just as many human bites despite a greater number trapped? And considering it's based on the scent of strong cheese, would it be unpleasant for people to have it in their living spaces? Or are the people that this product apply to not overly concerned with a little Linberger aroma?
Other than scent attracting mosquitoes, mosquito larvae and people with the malarial parasite both have a distinct smell which dogs can be trained to detect. Between these sniffing dogs finding the larvae-infested pools to be doused with insecticide and finding the infected people early enough to be treated, the entire population of mosquitoes in an area and therefore malaria could eventually be eliminated.
The last method of mosquito-killing that Knols talks about is a pill that people ingest which causes mosquitoes to die after biting them. But what sort of long-term side effects could this pill cause? I can't help but think that taking a pill that causes your blood to become poison for another species might not be the best for us either. However, this is an interesting solution: let as many mosquitoes as possible bite you to save others from being bitten by the same mosquitoes later. It sounds almost chivalrous.
Clearly malaria is a tremendous problem, but what sort of impact could the elimination of an entire species have on the environment? Mosquitoes, as an insect at the bottom of the food chain, are the main food source for other species like bats. Without mosquitoes as a food source, many bats would die, and the same effect would move up the food chain. In addition, with the elimination of a huge source of human fatality, would an eventual influx of population cause other problems for people in these developing countries, like even more competition for already scarce resources? Getting rid of all of the pesky little biting bugs sounds like a nice plan, but could it create even bigger problems than it solves?
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Bart Knols: http://www.ted.com/talks/bart_knols_cheese_dogs_and_pills_to_end_malaria.html
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