Life Imitates Comic Books: Polluted Streams Breed Super Strong Mosquitoes
Sometimes, science is remarkably like a comic book. Here's the newest example: mosquitoes that live in contaminated streams lay more eggs, and those eggs grow into bigger mosquitoes that fly faster and reproduce more than mosquitoes that grow up in clean water. To which I can only say: ugh, ugh, ugh. Mosquitoes are bad enough, with their disease-bearing ways and infuriating itchy bites. Now they have to adapt better than we do to a polluted planet?
A new study looked at mosquitoes that laid their eggs in waterways contaminated with sewage and mosquitoes that used clean water. The eggs raised in sewage were bigger, stronger, and faster. Apparently, sewage is full of ammonia phosphates, which are feed microorganisms. The microorganisms, in turn, become the breakfast (and lunch and dinner) that little mosquito larvae need to grow up big and strong. As an added bonus, polluted streams have fewer fish to eat mosquitoes and their larvae.
This is one more argument for why clean water matters to human health, and why we need to protect our water sources as well as filtering and treating them for human consumption.
Possibly the best part of this story, by the way, is that the research in question was conducted in Georgia. Atlanta, Georgia. Not Tbilisi. It's easy to assume that problems like bad water and disease bearing mosquitoes are a developing world problem, but they're an issue everywhere. Research on these topics benefits everyone.
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