A bug repellant that could save lives

[Hum]

When is bug spray more than just bug spray? When it's a compound that, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University, is thousands of times stronger than DEET, works on many different insects and could very well save lives.

Scientists at the school say they've developed just such a repellant. Known merely as VUAA1 for now, they say it works not just on mosquitoes, but also ants, flies, moths and a host of other bugs that, at best, are a nuisance and, at worst, carry deadly diseases like malaria.

In fact, the project began as an effort to curb malaria, which will probably be contracted by as many as 500 million people this year, said Laurence Zwiebel, chairman of the biological science department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

But researchers soon discovered the chemical compound they'd created could have wider uses.

"It turns out if we found the world's greatest mosquito repellant, no one would care," Zweibel said. "So we needed to find something that would work against all insects."

The trick, Zweibel says, was taking the way bug spray as we know it works, then doing the exact opposite.

Most commercial insect repellents target the bug's olfactory system -- the way it smells -- to make it harder for them to find us and consider us as targets for a meal.

"We decided to take a more aggressive approach and, rather than turn off the mosquito's olfactory system, we could look for something that would turn it too far on, to see if we could design a new generation of insect repellants based on overloading their smell system," Zweibel said.

"They hate, just like we hate, overstimulation. They will move away from too much smell."

The researchers, who were funded in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, say that, so far, VUAA1 has worked on every insect they've tested it on.

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[DocM]

Excellent news! In spring & summer the midwest can be Mosquito Central because of all the standing water. I'm certain those in the southeastern US will also be pleased.