Date: 13/05/10
Its 2:16 on clock...it's hot! And adding to it are the mosquitoes sucking a few millilitres of my blood...the blood suckers!
Why don't they jus shoe off...I am bugged, truly!
I wish my blood was poisonous...no no not to me but to these mosquitoes...I wish...aargh got another bite...Losers!
A quick thought chain...People with sickle cell anaemia don't get malaria, are they unbitten by the mosquitoes too? (By at least the mosquitoes carrying malarial parasite)
Reframing it, have mosquitoes developed a strategy...putting it in the right words "evolved" a stratergy wherein atleast for the time being the malarial parasite bearing mosquitoes can avoid sickle celled individuals in whom the parasites future just doesn’t exist??? But then in that case the host mosquitoes are loosing on their hosts (humans)...and that too for a hitchhiker!!!
Can be, may be ...its jus a speculation...can happen too...parasites are drivers of evolution in many scenarios...so you never know…if the logical reasoning goes fine for once…we can at least expect it to happen! Pretty unsure…
For now let us assume that the above mentioned phenomenon of avoiding sickle celled anaemic occurs…it will have to be tested!
And the way of testing the above, makes a hilarious sound! (Unfortunately this comes from a person with average or rather below average sense of humour…so be prepared if it turns out to be lame)
Nonetheless this is how it goes…
Advertisement for volunteers for the “Mosquito Bite Project”
Volunteers required for- being bitten by female anopheles mosquitoes carrying, if your unlucky falciparum and if your super unlucky vivax and if you are super duper unlucky both"
Don't Panic - you will also be bitten by mosquitoes with absence of malarial parasite! It's not all that bad you see.
You can just be a lucky volunteer too...How? Be a negative control volunteer
Or a second chance to be super unlucky - Be a positive control volunteer
All you have to do is stand in a chamber and you will be attacked with n number of mosquitoes for time m (m needs to be calc and for determining n it is necessary to consult a statistician cause the experimenter just doesn't want to “harass” the volunteers with too many mosquitoes; neither wants to repeat the experiment just because the mosquitoes were too less)
* Volunteers with sickle cell anaemia a plus point for you; you will only get bitten by mosquito and no malaria or might not even get bitten in the first place (hoping for the later to happen)! So hurry up! Offer not valid for non-sickle cell anemics for this season. If the above works out... you might be considered for season 2! So keep checking the site for updates.
So hurry up, be the first one to send your consent.
Send in your consent with the answer to the following question:
Why you want to be a part of this "Mosquito bite" project?
a) You care for the Mosquitoes
b) You want to contribute to the cutting edge research on Malaria
c) You have nothing more challenging and exciting to do
d) You have also experienced Mosquito bite n number of times in your life and now want to end it once and for all! And this research according to you is a step in that direction!
