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While harvesting the raspberries growing all over my yard, I came to a radical conclusion. (Original Post) NNadir Jul 2019 OP
They have been obnoxious this year Sherman A1 Jul 2019 #1
Bit more of a long-lasting effect ... mr_lebowski Jul 2019 #2
Well, at least they're the kind of blood sucking vermin one can swat. NNadir Jul 2019 #11
The bites are one thing, at140 Jul 2019 #3
When my older son, now 29, was only 8, he wanted to invent... 3catwoman3 Jul 2019 #4
Obviously he didn't succeed Cirque du So-What Jul 2019 #5
Indeed it would have. 3catwoman3 Jul 2019 #8
The time machine may not be necessary. NNadir Jul 2019 #6
And then come the chiggers unc70 Jul 2019 #7
I recommend Vitamin B-1.... lastlib Jul 2019 #9
I HATE mosquitoes! smirkymonkey Jul 2019 #10
I'd love raspberries Harker Jul 2019 #12
Overall, it was definitely worth it. I split what I harvested with my wife and son. NNadir Jul 2019 #13
Some neighbors think they're the arbiters Harker Jul 2019 #14

Sherman A1

(38,958 posts)
1. They have been obnoxious this year
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 05:19 PM
Jul 2019

our rainy Spring has certainly increased their presence. I have 2 zappers in the backyard and still they are a problem.

NNadir

(33,368 posts)
11. Well, at least they're the kind of blood sucking vermin one can swat.
Mon Jul 15, 2019, 08:21 PM
Jul 2019

Last edited Mon Jul 15, 2019, 09:08 PM - Edit history (1)

If the most obnoxious blood sucking vermin wouldn't be subject to swatting a present, since the secret service might take offense.

at140

(6,110 posts)
3. The bites are one thing,
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 05:22 PM
Jul 2019

but I must be allergic to mosquito venom, because every bite turns into a large red pimple which itches and lasts 3 weeks before dying off.

3catwoman3

(23,820 posts)
4. When my older son, now 29, was only 8, he wanted to invent...
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 05:23 PM
Jul 2019

...a time machine so he could go back in time and kill the first 2 mosquitos that existed before they had a chance to mate and make more.

3catwoman3

(23,820 posts)
8. Indeed it would have.
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 07:14 PM
Jul 2019

He also wanted to know what color dinosaur skins really were. It bothered him that no one knew for sure, because skin could not be fossilized, so the colors were only a guess.

To this day, he does not like unanswerable questions and is a complex thinker.

NNadir

(33,368 posts)
6. The time machine may not be necessary.
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 05:59 PM
Jul 2019
Self-destructing mosquitoes and sterilized rodents: the promise of gene drives (Nature 571 , 160–162)

Austin Burt and Andrea Crisanti had been trying for eight years to hijack the mosquito genome. They wanted to bypass natural selection and plug in a gene that would mushroom through the population faster than a mutation handed down by the usual process of inheritance. In the back of their minds was a way to prevent malaria by spreading a gene to knock out mosquito populations so that they cannot transmit the disease.

Crisanti remembers failing over and over. But finally, in 2011, the two geneticists at Imperial College London got back the DNA results they’d been hoping for: a gene they had inserted into the mosquito genome had radiated through the population, reaching more than 85% of the insects’ descendants1.

It was the first engineered ‘gene drive’: a genetic modification designed to spread through a population at higher-than-normal rates of inheritance. Gene drives have rapidly become a routine technology in some laboratories; scientists can now whip up a drive in months. The technique relies on the gene-editing tool CRISPR and some bits of RNA to alter or silence a specific gene, or insert a new one. In the next generation, the whole drive copies itself onto its partner chromosome so that the genome no longer has the natural version of the chosen gene, and instead has two copies of the gene drive. In this way, the change is passed on to up to 100% of offspring, rather than around 50% (see ‘How gene drives work’).


It's controversial.

lastlib

(22,981 posts)
9. I recommend Vitamin B-1....
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 08:27 PM
Jul 2019

...to anybody doing lots of outside work where skeeters, chiggers, or ticks are a problem. It seems to work well for me.

 

smirkymonkey

(63,221 posts)
10. I HATE mosquitoes!
Sun Jul 14, 2019, 09:33 PM
Jul 2019

One of the advantages to living in a city is the relative lack of flying insects. I can keep my windows open at night and I am rarely bothered.

However, when I go up to visit my sister in Maine or my brother in Vermont, or another brother in the Baltimore suburbs, the insects are out in full force. It's awful. They have fire pits and citronella candles, but it still doesn't really keep the bugs away and I don't really like the smoke from the fire either. I always can't wait to get back to the city where we rarely see bugs anywhere.

I think the country is so relaxing, but I really can only tolerate it if we are in on a screened in porch. I can't handle the bugs at all!

NNadir

(33,368 posts)
13. Overall, it was definitely worth it. I split what I harvested with my wife and son.
Mon Jul 15, 2019, 09:07 PM
Jul 2019

We all split a large portion of them with the birds. The birds, of course are responsible for the wild perfusion of raspberries here, since their droppings contain those annoying seeds.

I have refused to mow them or cut them back since they are an improvement on grass. I'm surrounded on three sides of my property by woods, and they've been inching in, with various kinds of trees.

I'm sure that my neighbors are largely unimpressed with my landscaping style, but I'm kind of fond of it, and man, I love the raspberries. They should continue to give yields for another week or so.

Harker

(13,880 posts)
14. Some neighbors think they're the arbiters
Tue Jul 16, 2019, 12:40 AM
Jul 2019

of style. Practically anything beats grass, and having woods on three sides sounds sublime. We're going to try for that, or for woods on all four sides.

It may be a cheap cop out, but maybe I'll press raspberries through a sieve.

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