DEVELOPING Person on fire outside Trump's hush money trial rushed away on a stretcher
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
As if rising sea levels, increased drought, and more extreme weather events won't be enough to deal with, climate change will also bring us longer mosquito seasons.
That's the conclusion reached by scientists at the University of Florida, who say their research on the pesky insects shows that the bugs can very quickly adapt to changes in the temperature around them.
In regions poised to experience newly tropical temperatures in a warmer world, they report, mosquitoes could become a year-round nuisance. In places that won't get quite that warm – Canada, for example – they may still be able to reduce the amount of time they spend dormant due to chilly conditions, leaving us fending off mosquitoes for much longer than we're used to.
The findings come from experiments the researchers conducted on 1,000 mosquitoes that were gathered in and around Gainesville, Fla.
As they detail in a study published this month in the journal Ecology, they placed the mosquitoes in vials and then placed the vials into a water bath. They then adjusted the water temperature, which in turn altered the temperature inside the vials.
As the temperature fluctuated, the researchers made note of when each mosquito became what is known as "cold bounded" – the hibernation-like dormant state that they enter when conditions are too cold for them to thrive.
Over a period of several months, they found that mosquitoes had a larger acceptable range of temperatures in the spring and fall than during the summer, suggesting the insects have evolved to cope with the wild fluctuations that can occur during spring and fall.
“We found that the mosquitoes in our study are what we call 'plastic,' meaning that, like a rubber band, the range of temperatures they can tolerate stretches and contracts at different times of year,” Brett Scheffers, senior author of the study and an assistant professor in the University of Florida's wildlife ecology and conservation department, said in a press release.
“That tells us that as climate change makes our autumns and winters warmer, mosquitoes in more temperate regions are well prepared to be active during those times."
By some estimates, summers in the Northern Hemisphere will last for as long as six months by the end of the century.
The researchers say it's not clear what allows the mosquitoes to adapt so quickly to changing temperatures, or if other insects are able to do the same.
One possibility is natural selection. Because most mosquitoes only live for a few days, it could be that those born during spring and fall need to be able to adapt to temperature swings, whereas those born in the summer can survive without developing that skill.
The next step for the Florida researchers is to determine whether that theory could be true, or whether there is something else at play.
Either way, the researchers are warning us about more than the nuisance aspect of mosquitoes. Because the insects are major carriers of infections such as West Nile virus and dengue fever, they say their findings point to the need to prepare for increased prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases as the planet warms.
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
The Senate legal affairs committee has rejected a motion calling for members to take a $50,000 field trip to the African Lion Safari in southern Ontario to see the zoo's elephant exhibit.
Ontario Provincial Police have landed a suspect following a fishy theft in Beachburg, Ont.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.