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A comment on Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human immune system (2018). Parent comment

Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by Kenji on Monday August 23, 2021 @05:29PM (#28282225)
That's interesting. I seem to kill small mosquitoes when they bite me. I've observed it multiple times. It lands, it bites and it becomes completely unresponsive. Because I was drunk at the time, I chalked it up to blood alcohol content which will yield quite a bit of alcohol if a mosquito drinks so-and-so many times its own body weight (I did some basic math) but since then it also happened when I was sober.
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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by Uberphallus on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @03:44AM (#28286059)
I had this happen to me. For most of my life, barely ever got bitten by mosquitos, and when they did, they usually died while feeding, on my skin.

From age 30 onwards, I suffer them as much as the next guy, not sure what could have changed since.

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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by ProjectArcturis on Monday August 23, 2021 @06:41PM (#28282954)
Even if you were at 0.5% BAC (legal driving limit is 0.08%, and 0.5% would kill a lot of people), that's still about the alcohol percentage in NA beer. Unlikely to have any effect.
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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by throwawaylinux on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:22PM (#28283328)
Leaving aside the vast differences in physiology and effects of alcohol on humans vs mosquitoes, mosquitos can drink maybe 2x their body weight in blood. If you drunk 500 bottles of 0.5% a/v beer in 10 minutes it would likely have some effect.
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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by dragonwriter on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:43PM (#28283477)
> If you drunk 500 bottles of 0.5% a/v beer in 10 minutes it would likely have some effect.

If you drank the same amount of 0% ABV water in that time, you’d probably die of water intoxication, so I’m not sure any adverse effects of the alcohol would be noticeable.

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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by throwawaylinux on Monday August 23, 2021 @09:00PM (#28283994)
I'm thinking exploded stomach.

Point is it could be a lot of alcohol for the mosquito.

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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by xorcist on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @05:56AM (#28286792)
> If you drunk 500 bottles of 0.5% a/v beer in 10 minutes it would likely have some effect

No, the alcohol wouldn't. Unless you distilled all that beer and ingested the alcohol alone. The massive liquid intake would kill you though.

The liver doesn't store alcohol, so how many grams you ingest in total doesn't matter, only in what concentration. Keep in mind that alcohol is perfectly soluble in water too.

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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by ThePadawan on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @01:41AM (#28285482)
I'm sorry for reading this as "north american" beer instead of "non-alcoholic" beer.
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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by actaeon169 on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @08:35PM (#28296772)
It's an easy mistake to make.
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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by loonster on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:23PM (#28283335)
A mosquito can drink 2-3x its body weight. It would not be the same as a NA beer. It would be more like getting a blood transfusion from a drunk.
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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by maxerickson on Monday August 23, 2021 @08:43PM (#28283884)
If it was a pint and the drunk was heroic, it'd be like having 3 or 4 drinks.

(~10 pints of blood in the donor, 1/10 of a lot of alcohol...)

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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by parsecs on Monday August 23, 2021 @06:25PM (#28282786)
That's very interesting as well. Could you expand a little on what you mean by them becoming completely unresponsive?
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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by Kenji on Monday August 23, 2021 @08:43PM (#28283885)
Basically it remains "stuck" in position and completely stops moving, even if I wait 5 minutes. Poking it causes no reaction. I can just pick it up and put it away. It is either dead or it passed out.
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Re:Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human i... by nrdvana on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @03:39AM (#28286032)
I’ve never heard anyone have that experience before. Maybe you should share this phenomenon with some relevant scientists?
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