KILL 'EM ALL
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They buzz. They bite. And they have killed more people than cancer, war, or heart disease. Here’s the question: If you could wipe mosquitoes off the face of the planet, would you?
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-Oh, wait, you're listening to Radio Lab. -Radio Lab. -Short. -From. -WNYC. -C. -He? -NPR. -Hey, I'm Jada Boomerad. -I'm Robert Krowich. -This is Radio Lab, the podcast. What are we going to do today, Robert? I think we're going to get rid of something. -And here to tell us what and why is producer Andy Mills. -Okay. So a while back, I was talking with author Sonya Shaw. -I've had a very fraught relationship with mosquitoes for a long time. -She actually wrote a book about malaria and mosquitoes called The Fever. -And for her, it all really started when she was a kid. -Well, I grew up visiting India every summer. -And-- -Why were you going to India? -In my family's from there. All my cousins, all my grandparents, they were all there. -Summer vacation. -Summer vacations in India with my cousins. All I wanted to do was fit in. -But the mosquitoes would always call her out. -They knew. -They were the Yankee in the group. -They would just focus on me and say they wouldn't bite my cousins. They would be totally unscathed and I would be like covered in welts. I ended up having to sleep under a mosquito net, which is even more kind of isolating, right? Like we used to sleep on little mats on the ground. You know, we would just roll out all these mats on the floor and everyone was sleep like in a big, long row, except for me. I'd be like in a corner under this like suffocating net. -She says at night when mosquitoes would land on her net, she would think-- -I hate you. I hate you. But at the same time, I'm not allowed to do anything to them. -And here's when you get to the frot part, because Sonia and her family belong to this religion called Jane Dharma. -It's kind of an extreme, non-violent philosophy. You're not supposed to eat meat, obviously. You're not even supposed to eat any root vegetables because then you're killing the whole plant. You're not supposed to walk on grass because if you walk on grass, you can kill little insects when you pray you're supposed to wear a mask so you don't breathe in any microbes or insects and inadvertently kill them.
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They buzz. They bite. And they have killed more people than cancer, war, or heart disease. Here’s the question: If you could wipe mosquitoes off the face of the planet, would you?