Connecticut Green Living

When I stayed with my late mother in South Texas in 2016, there was a Zika Virus * scare, and so even sweeping the back porch was a fraught exercise in mosquito dodgeball. I remember scurrying about so fast that I likely made more of a mess than I helped. Spending summers in South Texas at my grandmother's, I was always mosquito-bite ridden. It was annoying, I itched, but I was young. Remember youth? We were never going to get really sick, much less die. But these days I take, and you should take, the threats posed by mosquitoes and ticks very seriously. ............................ SciLine, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently hosted a panel of scientists to discuss said threats ("Ticks, Mosquitoes and Rising Disease Risk"). Some of the takeaways were that climate change can, but does not necessarily portend, the deletirious effects of mosquito and tick season on a population. Interestingly, changes in land use also play huge facto...

North Carolina State University researchers say they have created insecticide-free, mosquito-resistant clothing using textile materials. In a press release issued last week, North Carolina said this was proven in experiments with live mosquitoes after developing materials from a computational model of their own design. Researchers modeled for the behavior of Aedes aegypti , the mosquito that carries viruses that cause human diseases like Dengue fever, yellow fever and Zeka, prompting the experiments detailed in the journal Insects . In encounters with the pesky insects, they prevented 100 percent of bites when a volunteer wore their special clothing - a base layer undergarment and a combat shirt initially designed for the military - in a cage with 200 live, disease-free mosquitoes. Researchers think their computational model could be used more widely to develop clothing to reduce transmission of disease. "The fabric is proven to work - that's the great thing we discovered,...

I will admit, I find it laughable that we're worrying about mosquitoes in Connecticut. I spent seven months in South Texas and couldn't even venture outdoors to rake for 10 minutes without coming back looking like I had measles on my legs. Not just bites, but huge blotches. That said, I am aware that we do have mosquitoes in the Northeast and I do not want any of those nasty bites, especially considering the risks attached to them (e.g. Zika virus). Enter PARA’KITO™. That's a very fancy way to write the name of a product to keep bugs away, but I will indulge the company's creative team. I am told that it touts "a unique blend of essential oils, patented slow-release technology and super-smart product design" and PARA’KITO™ products "offer the ultimate mosquito protection in a stylish way". Stylish, yes. For example, the wearable bands and clips are waterproof, easily adjustable and offer a slow release of mosquito-get-the-heck-away protection over ...