DEET Mosquito Repellent Could Lose Its Bite

By Brandon Keim May 3, 2010 | 3:00 pm | Categories: Animals, Biology


More than half a century after DEET’s invention, scientists still don’t know how the popular mosquito repellent works.

Now, using a combination of artificially accelerated evolution and painstaking anatomical observation, researchers have answered a fundamental question about DEET’s mechanisms – and in the process showed that mosquitoes may become resistant to it.

“It’s a fundamental piece of research. It will give us a lot more knowledge, rather than just going out and spraying something,” said study co-author Linda Field, a molecular biologist at England’s Rothamsted Research institute.

How DEET — short for N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide – actually works has been a subject of scientific controversy since its discovery after World War II by U.S. Army researchers who tested thousands of man-made compounds, and were simply happy to find one that repelled bugs.


Researchers later hypothesized that DEET prevented insects from detecting lactic acid, one of the odors mosquitoes follow to unlucky animals. But DEET still worked in the absence of lactic acid, leading some scientists to speculate that DEET interferes with some other molecule’s detection. However, other scientists think DEET acts directly on an as-yet-unidentified olfactory receptor, irritating them instead of just hindering them.

The argument would be of little interest to anyone except entomologists, but for the fact that some mosquitoes aren’t deterred by DEET. For people in the developed world, that’s annoying. For people in tropical areas where insect repellents and insecticides control mosquito-borne disease, it’s a pressing concern.



Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/deet-resistance/

destroying their livers to avoid mosquitoes.

Liver death, west nile virus death...yikes what a choice.

right? So if you are dead from a horribly painful disease, what the hell does "possible liver damage" mean?
Stop being idiotic. I'm also going to mention yellow fever, dengue fever as well. Mosquito born illnesses are FAR more evil and destructive than DEET!

you can make a point without resorting to being nasty, can't you? If not, put me on ignore so that you can resemble a human.

Signed,
Former malaria vaccine researcher.

the liver. Is that what you are asking?

I used it once, at the urging of a friend. Just on my forearms.
got sick as hell for 2 days.

Avon skin so soft has worked wonders down here in the South for me for years.

:banghead:
Why the bleep doesn't anybody in this thread think about OTHER countries?

because it didn't affect biting one way or the other, but it's quite a moisturizer.

YMMV.

responsible for more human deaths than any other animal.

I've to to admit that last year I was only bitten just a few times and I live a block from a river and not far from the marsh in the center of the city. There is even a stain of encephalitis named after my city: http://www.dhpe.org/infect/lacenceph.html