A progress report on a slow, steady approach to controlling malaria:
“Using carnivorous plants to control malaria-transmitting mosquitoes,” Jasper Ogwal-Okeng, Mary Namaganda, Godfrey Sande Bbosa, James Kalema, Malaria World, 2013, 4, 10. (Thanks to investigator Bart Knols for bringing this to our attention.) The authors report:
“This GCE project set out to develop a novel way of controlling malaria-transmitting mosquitoes by deploying live, insect-eating plants around houses and in mosquito breeding sites. Field surveys were undertaken to collect and identify carnivorous plants. Aldrovanda vesiculosa and Utricularia reflexa were collected from swamps in various locations in Uganda and brought to the laboratory where they were kept in distilled water into which larvae of Anopeheles gambiae were introduced and the impact of the plants studied.”
BONUS: An approach derived from the experimental (and Ig Nobel Prize-winning) discovery that common malaria-transmitting mosquitoes are strongly attracted to the smells of limburger cheese and the smell of human feet:
“Outdoor mosquito control using odour-baited devices: development and evaluation of a potential new strategy to complement indoor malaria prevention methods,” Fredros O. Okumu, Robert D. Sumaye, Nancy S. Matowo, Stephen P. Mwangungulu, Emmanuel W. Kaindoa, Irene R. Moshi, Edith P. Madumla, Dickson W. Lwetoijera, Malaria World, 2013, 4, 8.
BONUS: Bart Knols explains some facts about malaria-carrying mosquitoes:
BONUS: An Associated Press report about work that builds on that Ig Nobel Prize-winning work: “Stinky feet may aid malaria traps” (Thanks to investigator Hugh Henry for bringing this to our attention.)