GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

20-03-2006, 11:20 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible

(Glenna Rose) writes:
I'm still wondering why there is not more widespread use of products such
as mosquito dunks, they work and work very well. It seems to be a more
effective method than spraying chemicals. I take special pleasure in
placing them in my fish pond knowing the mosquitoes will come, lay their
eggs, and end that lineage. How would the cost of providing such
substances compare with the cost of DDT and other sprays? Seems killing
the larvae is the key as they never get into the air to bite and breed.

Some years ago I read a science brief that it had been discovered that
during the host stage of malaria (when a person's blood is infected) the
organism is part plant, i.e., it contains chloroplasts, IIRC. What benefit
chloroplasts could offer the parasite was not suggested. But it was
theorised that with this fact in mind, it might at some future stage be
possible to attack the disease by administering something as cheap and
simple as a safe-for-humans weedkiller, e.g., of the glyphosate genre.
Since then, I have heard nothing more on this amazing peculiarity of
malaria.

This being a group dealing with plants, I thought I'd just mention it--in
the faint hope that another avid reader of science might be able to
corroborate my recollection. No one else has been able to. :-(
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)