Oct 31
With all of the diseases that mosquitoes transmit, it’s medical science against the mosquitoes, and we have to fight hard just to stay even. Herein, a potpourri of facts about one of nature’s most notorious blood-sucking pests.One way to kill a mosquito, if you happen to catch it biting you on a convenient location such as the bicep of the arm, is to tense your skin to trap its little proboscis in your skin, then flex your bicep muscle. This apparently causes the mosquito to burst because of the pressure from your blood vessel, kind of like if you tried to drink from a fire hose. Amongst other experts, this fact has been confirmed by none other than Cecil Adams of the famous “Straight Dope” newspaper column. But even at that his conclusion was: “What’s the point?”Amongst some of the more unusual treatments for mosquito bite, some doctors say that applying a liquid antacid such as Mylanta is effective in relieving the itch and swelling of a mosquito bite. This is because it reduces the acidity of the anticoagulant chemicals in the mosquito’s saliva.The Japanese believe that being reincarnated as a mosquito is the punishment for living a criminal life. Thus, the fate of the immoral in the next life is to be a worthless plague on humanity, despised by all and eventually swatted.Part of the reason mosquitoes are so hard to eradicate is that the mosquito’s total lifespan, going by the average among all species, is only about twenty …