http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/science/a-low-tech-mosquit...
It's also worth noting that previous attempts at preventing malaria in Africa have failed not because of any technological limitation, but because they view it completely differently than we do in the West.
> As medical anthropologists have consistently found, because malaria is so common in much of sub-Saharan Africa, and because the overwhelming majority of cases go away on their own, most rural Africans consider malaria a minor ailment, the way that Westerners might think of the cold or flu.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/02/opinion/la-oe-shah-2...
Local hint: in Spain, we are being invaded by the tiger mosquito[1], which is faster, stronger, and stealthier than regular mosquitoes. They don't care about oscillating fans. So don't trust the fan thingy. I would recommend DEET-based repellents or Autan, which contains Icaridin[2] and has never failed me. I've seen those fuckers hover my legs in rage, unable to land and bite me.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aedes_albopictus
[2] http://www.scjohnson.co.uk/nqcontent.cfm?a_name=Autan.uk-FAQ...
http://belmont-ca.patch.com/groups/editors-picks/p/deadly-as...
This is a revealing article. I somehow didn't think about, now rather obvious, cultural difference in perception of malaria. I also didn't know that "the overwhelming majority of cases go away on their own". I thought of malaria as a certain death without treatment.
The treated nets did, however, have technological issues, as pointed in the article: "Among other design flaws, their tight mesh blocks ventilation, a serious problem in the hot, humid places where malaria roosts".
Kite patch is simple enough to actually make it work. I just hope it is indeed effective.
Let's not pussy-foot around the issue. The LA Times article mentions that some African people think that mangoes cause malaria - in this case the African view is wrong and the Western view is right. Perhaps it is also wrong to hold the view that (a) malaria is no more harmful than the flu; and (b) having ventilation is preferable to a bed net.
I realise that changing people's attitudes is difficult, particularly when the message is delivered by white people who have such a poor historical record in Africa. But malaria causes a quarter of childhood deaths in sub-Saharan Africa [1] and insecticide-treated bed nets are 90-95+% effective, even when they have small holes [2].
I'm not saying that Western culture is always right - or even right when it comes to malaria. Lets just be careful to avoid automatically excluding other cultural viewpoints from criticism.
[1] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...
This is interesting and someone linked it last time DDT came up: http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_07_02_a_ddt.htm
[citation needed]
Checkout the New York Times article from 1962 titled "Fateful Voice of a Generation Still Drowns Out Real Science" [2]
A choice quote:
"Ms. Carson used dubious statistics and anecdotes (like the improbable story of a woman who instantly developed cancer after spraying her basement with DDT) to warn of a cancer epidemic that never came to pass. She rightly noted threats to some birds, like eagles and other raptors, but she wildly imagined a mass “biocide.” She warned that one of the most common American birds, the robin, was “on the verge of extinction” — an especially odd claim given the large numbers of robins recorded in Audubon bird counts before her book."
You may also want to check out the story of Professor Kenneth Mellanby who ate DDT for 40 years. [3]
Make sure to take a look at the scientific paper mentioned in this Times article. It concludes "DDT is practically harmless to humans who get it on their skins or breathe it into their lungs." [4]
[1] http://www1.umn.edu/ships/pesticides/library/baldwin1962.pdf
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/science/earth/05tier.html?...
[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4264030/DDT-is-safe-just-...
[4] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,812248,00.h...
WHO gives indoor use of DDT a clean bill of health for controlling malaria
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr50/en/
"Extensive research and testing has since demonstrated that well-managed indoor residual spraying programmes using DDT pose no harm to wildlife or to humans"
I saw it before in Social and English but damn, the liberal slant of the system has never been so obvious in the sciences.
For a conservative province this is very surprising. It is one thing to be pragmatic and use facts that are just there to be used but cherrypicking data for students to learn and then testing them on it in a subject where it is supposed to be unbiased?
Sickening yet fascinating.
[1] http://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155440679/revisionaries-tells-...
Food-grade FDA-approved chemicals make up a fairly small subset of chemicals.
How do you hide a CO2 footprint, when that same footprint could be smelled by a from musquito 100 meters away? Why not just tell us?
Here you go, there's an article under the video:
>If we had to guess, we'd say the FAQ are referring to this study, published by Ray and his team in a June 2011 issue of Nature, in which the researchers identify three groups of chemicals that can which disrupt a mosquito's carbon dioxide receptors
And also a helpful comment by "ciller" below the article:
>DEET works by blocking the CO2 receptors on mosquitos, this causes the mosquito to be unable to figure out non food sources from usable ones. If this kite patch blocks the CO2 receptors as well as DEET does, then it should be effective.
>I work in a laboratory that deals with mosquito related problems quite a bit and we are more then willing to test these things out in a small scale field study. A viable alternative to DEET that you dont have to apply over your entire skin surface area would be rather ideal.
If the mosquito can find you from 100 meters away, that doesn't mean it can find you once it gets 1 meter from you and its CO₂ receptors are confused.
Something sounds fishy to me....They seem to be all about results-based investing, and I just don't see the foundation providing funds without providing enough to "see it through" the development and testing phase.
Am I wrong here?
Also, I'd guess that the $75k goal barely covers production, shipping & travel costs... and their manufacturing pipeline seems to already be set up.
1. Cost. People in Africa are poor, so unless these can be produced and sold for pennies a piece, it probably won't take off. Using the 'buy one, donate one' method probably doesn't scale enough to solve the malaria problem. 2. Behavior. Condoms are a fairly effective method to practice safe sex, and despite a massive amount of money and education, adoption has been slow, or non-existent in Africa. I can see similar issues with Kite. 3. Effectiveness - While they may work, they may not have been shown to be effective enough to warrant further funding. 4. For-profit? I can't seem to find anything on the companies website, but the gates foundation prefers to give their money to non-profits. If they are a for-profit company, I could see reluctance on the foundations part to continue providing funds.
On a personal note, this seems like a cool product that I would use when camping/hiking. But for some of the reasons mentioned above, I would be skeptical to declare this as the solution to malaria in third-world countries, not that I would mind to be proven wrong. I wish them the best of luck.
"Kite Patch is designed for clothing, not skin. A few news articles did get it wrong – but our technology is designed to be placed on clothing, baby carriers, backpacks, Camelbacks and other outdoor gear (for outdoor enthusiasts), etc. Kite is NOT a skin patch."
Source: http://www.kitepatch.com about 5 pages down.
Manufacture's website: http://olfactorlabs.com
Does Kite provide 100% protection against mosquito bites? Kite provides a steady stream of our patent-pending spatial (airborne) compounds that block mosquitoes’ ability to track us for up to 48 hours, but it does not guarantee mosquitoes will not bite us. It is being designed to be a replacement for spray-on, fan-powered, or lotion applications, but does not take the place of bed nets at night and/or appropriate clothing in mosquito-impacted areas
So, they have put some compounds, that have been proven to repel mosquitoes in laboratory conditions, on a patch. The "minor" problem is that this patch can't possibly exude enough of those compounds to protect a human in real life conditions. I'm only refraining from calling this a scam because it seems to be a real company with scientists and all. But I won't be spending any money on this patch, that's for sure. http://xkcd.com/1217/
Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything (read: consumer-available products) come of it. Upon a bit of searching, I found a patent[3] for a nootkatone-based insect repellent... filed in 1998!
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nootkatone
[2]: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135468567/repelling-bugs-with-...
The words aren't enough. We need sound reinforcement to lend emotion. Hmmmm... Apple used quirky, plucky, minimal for their quirky, plucky, minimal industrial design product launches... I KNOW! I want people to think I'm a quirky, plucky, minimal start-up that puts stinky color stickers on people!!!
