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The unpleasantness of mosquito bites is not something useful for mosquitoes, but it *is* useful for the ones who suffer it
  • I understand the saliva has a benefit for mosquitoes, but not the swelling and the itching (the "unpleasantness" in the title). In essence, our bodies hung this not-otherwise-useful allergic response on something the mosquitoes couldn't/wouldn't/didn't give up and which was firmly specific to their bites, to single them out.

    If there was no saliva our bodies would be pressured by natural selection to pick some other mechanism to make their bites unpleasant. An allergy to their chitin or a phobia to the sound of their wings, etc.

    Evolutionary pressure from mosquitoes has probably been no small thing.

  • The unpleasantness of mosquito bites is not something useful for mosquitoes, but it *is* useful for the ones who suffer it

    The way our bodies react to mosquito saliva motivates us to avoid being bitten. Which must have had evolutionary benefits, keeping us away from diseases.

    I.e. all those people that didn't mind them and never got itchy from mosquito bites appear to have died out. And mosquitoes really wish that wasn't true.

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    Trump mocks Kamala Harris' name but her campaign is putting it front and center
  • Her name is a nod to her Indian heritage on her mother's side and in her 2019 memoir, Harris wrote that she pronounced it "Comma-la" and that it means "lotus flower." [...] Still, Trump continues to say "Kah-MAH-la."

    I was sure this was going to be the other way around. Strange and less bad than I expected. It's mostly just an accent thing, not a change in sounds.

  • InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)NO
    NoSpotOfGround @lemmy.world
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