Word: mosquito
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...intelligence officials insist that the Communist guerrillas are so disturbed by Thieu's attempt to paint all of South Viet Nam into his corner that they have launched a campaign to deface the ubiquitous flags. Even so, the whole effort struck some as absurd. The Vietnamese satirical magazine Mosquito, for example, has recommended that to help the government distinguish between Communists and loyalists, "each citizen should have his head shaved like a monk and then have the national flag painted...
...brief period after DDT was first put to use In 1945, the pasture mosquito seemed under control in California. But within seven years, the insects had become so resistant to the new chemical that researchers had to develop another organic compound, ethyl parathion. That failed in 1961-as did methyl parathion in 1963, and fenthion in 1968. Today, California has no chemical able to kill the pasture mosquito in safe dosages...
...compound the problem, aerial spraying used to be so effective that mosquito-control agencies permitted farmers to forgo installing drainage facilities to reduce the insect's breeding grounds. As a result, the Central Valley's heavily irrigated crop lands have become huge hatcheries for Aëdes nigromaculus. Now that insecticides are useless, farmers are being ordered to drain their fields-a costly process that may force many small operators out of business...
Until drainage is adequate, California may have increasing trouble with its Anopheles mosquito, which can transmit malaria from infected to healthy humans. Though not immune to insecticides, that bug proliferates in stagnant water and may spread more and more disease. Reason: about one percent of returning Southeast Asian veterans are infected with malaria. What really worries health officials, though, is Culex tarsalis, the second mosquito species that has foiled all insecticides in California. Culex transmits encephalitis, a disease that attacks the human brain. California's most recent encephalitis outbreak occurred in 1952, the year DDT failed, and a major...
Biological Controls. To combat California's rampant mosquitoes, researchers hope to develop new pesticides, but mainly for "emergencies." They now prefer to use the bugs' natural enemies. Culex, for example, can be controlled by the mosquito fish (gambusia) and the common guppy which eat mosquito larvae in water. Certain bacilli, when applied to pasture land, also kill mosquito larvae. Another method includes releasing large numbers of male mosquitoes of the same species but of different strains. Because of genetic incompatibilities, the eggs of the females fail to hatch...