Bacteria weapon in mosquito battle

The New Town Development Authority has started spraying the biological insecticide containing the bacteria called 'bacillus thuringiensis israelensis' (BTI) in the waterbodies of Rajarhat New Town to control breeding of mosquitoes and destroy the existing larvae, said NKDA and Hidco chairman Debashis Sen.

It was in April this year that the NKDA authorities had commissioned a study by a professor of zoology of Burdwan University for suggesting ways to check mosquito breeding. After field trials and surveys in the area, a set of recommendations was given as to how the mosquito menace in Rajarhat New Town could be tackled. The recommendation consisted of short and long-term solutions. The long-term actions included the use of BTI as a biological insecticide.

The report submitted had specifically mentioned that spraying mosquito larvaecidal agents like BTI, which is a naturally-occurring bacteria that kills mosquito larvae, is a very effective solution to control mosquitoes from breeding. These bacteria kills only mosquitoes, fungus gnats and blackflies and does not harm other insects or fish.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fussy eaters: the favoured food of Salmonella

Image
As antibiotic resistance increases the search for new anti-bacterial treatments becomes more and more important. One way to design anti-bacterials is to find specific biochemical pathways that the bacteria require to survive, and develop drugs that block off these pathways. Some pathways are better targets than others and for  Salmonella bacteria it was thought that pathways dealing with nutrient metabolises would be a lost cause. Salmonella lives in the intestine, which hosts a whole variety of different nutrients, so surely preventing the bacteria from using a specific one wouldn’t cause them much undue distress. It’s been found, however, that as they grow and spread in the inflamed intestine the bacteria are heavily reliant on one particular nutrient: fructose-asparagine. The chemical structure of fructose-asparagine, image from the reference. The importance of fructose-asparagine metabolism was originally discovered during experiments desig
Read more

Timing is key for bacteria surviving antibiotics

For bacteria facing a dose of antibiotics, timing might be the key to evading destruction. In a series of experiments, Princeton researchers found that cells that repaired DNA damaged by antibiotics before resuming growth had a much better chance of surviving treatment. When antibiotics hit a population of bacteria, often a small fraction of "persister" cells survive to pose a threat of recurrent infection. Unlike bacteria with genetic resistance to antibiotics, evidence suggests that persisters stay alive in part by stalling cellular processes targeted by the drugs. In a new study, Princeton researchers examined a class of antibiotics that target bacterial DNA. In bacterial populations, some cells repair damaged DNA before resuming growth, and others resume growth before making repairs. The researchers found that those that make repairs before resuming growth generally are the ones that survive as persisters. The research advances a long-term goal to make
Read more

Nanoparticles derived from tea leaves destroy lung cancer cells: Quantum dots have great potential

Nanoparticles derived from tea leaves inhibit the growth of lung cancer cells, destroying up to 80% of them, new research by a joint Swansea University and Indian team has shown. The team made the discovery while they were testing out a new method of producing a type of nanoparticle called quantum dots. These are tiny particles which measure less than 10 nanometres. A human hair is 40,000 nanometres thick. Although nanoparticles are already used in healthcare, quantum dots have only recently attracted researchers' attention. Already they are showing promise for use in different applications, from computers and solar cells to tumour imaging and treating cancer. Quantum dots can be made chemically, but this is complicated and expensive and has toxic side effects. The Swansea-led research team were therefore exploring a non-toxic plant-based alternative method of producing the dots, using tea leaf extract. Tea leaves contain a wide variety of compounds, including
Read more