Monday, September 14, 2026

Antimalaria pesticide may have backfired, helping mosquitoes find love Poison appears to have caused mutation that helps insects home in on mates in noisy cities (ETBYANIRBAN MUKHOPADHYAY, SCIENCE Magazine, August 4, 2026)

From SCIENCE MAGAZINE:

Antimalaria pesticide may have backfired, helping mosquitoes find love

Poison appears to have caused mutation that helps insects home in on mates in noisy cities

Anopheles mosquito and larva
Anopheles mosquitoes have developed resistance to a pesticide—with a twist.SINHYU PHOTOGRAPHER/SHUTTERSTOCK

Antimalaria pesticide may have backfired, helping mosquitoes find love Poison appears to have caused mutation that helps insects home in on mates in noisy cities 

4 AUG 20261:00 PM ETBYANIRBAN MUKHOPADHYAY

It’s a classic case of evolution in action. Beginning in the 1950s, malaria control programs sprayed a powerful insecticide known as dieldrin on the inside walls of homes, where Anopheles mosquitoes—the insects that spread the disease—often rested. Within a few years the bugs had developed a genetic mutation that made them impervious to the poison.

Dieldrin was eventually abandoned as resistance spread and concerns mounted over its toxicity. But the story didn’t end there.

Decades later, the mosquitoes have held onto one of the mutations that helped them survive the pesticide, despite the fact it makes them less active. A new study may explain why: The mutation appears to make Anopheles mosquitoes more sensitive to sound, which may make it easier for them to home in on mates in noisy African cities, researchers report in a preprint posted late last month on bioRxiv. What once helped the insects avoid death may now be helping them find mates.

It’s “a fascinating new hypothesis,” says Francesco Baldini, a vector biologist at the University of Glasgow who was not involved with the work. The study, he says, “connects insecticide resistance, behavior, and sensory ecology in a way that has not really been considered before.”

The find emerged from two seemingly unrelated observations. Marta Andrés, a neurobiologist at the Spanish National Research Council, had found in earlier lab experiments that Rdl, the gene in which dieldrin-resistance mutations occur, dampens the activity of mosquito auditory neurons and their responses to sound. Blocking Rdl’s activity made those neurons more responsive. Then, during conversations with Diego Ayala, a vector ecologist at the University of Montpellier, Andrés learned that field observations had shown the Rdl variant was distributed differently between urban and rural populations across sub-Saharan Africa.

Male mosquitoes find mates by homing in on the faint whine of female wing beats. Andrés’s team wondered whether the mutation might sharpen that ability.

In the lab, Andrés, Ayala, and colleagues played sounds mimicking female flight tones. At frequencies of 300–550 hertz, the range corresponding to female wing beats, males with the pesticide resistance mutation were significantly more likely than males without it to fly toward and land on the speaker, suggesting greater sensitivity to those sounds.

But detecting females is not the same as mating with them. So the researchers placed 25 males in small cages with 25 females, then kept them for 48 hours in one of two incubators—one whose machinery was humming at about 70 decibels, the other filled with continuous white noise at about 93 decibels to simulate intense urban noise. Dieldrin-resistant males’ mating success was about the same under both conditions—about 40%—but susceptible males did much worse in the noisier incubator, with their mating success dropping from about 42% to 33%.

The finding is intriguing, yet puzzling, says Martin Göpfert, a neurobiologist at the Georg August University of Göttingen who was not involved with the study. If resistant mosquitoes hear better, he says, he would expect them to avoid noisy environments rather than thrive there. “If I would have very sensitive hearing, I wouldn’t go in a loud disco, yeah?”

The puzzle may reflect how little is known about mosquito hearing, says Joerg Albert, a neurobiologist at University College London who also was not involved with the study. The insects detect air-particle movement near a sound source, not the pressure waves that humans hear, he notes, making it difficult to define “noise” from conventional sound measurements. Truly understanding mosquito acoustics, he says, will require direct experiments on the hearing organs in the mosquitoes’ antennae, not just behavioral observations.

The researchers also tested their hypothesis in the field. Across seven urban sites in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, and four nearby villages, the frequency of the mutation increased with environmental noise. Females lacking the mutation were also less likely to have mated at noisy urban sites than in nearby rural villages.

Still, the field data remain difficult to interpret because urban habitats differ from rural ones in many ways besides noise, says Lauren Cator, an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College London who was not part of the work. Insecticide exposure, pollution, and differences in temperature and humidity may also help maintain the mutation at higher levels in cities, she notes. The study did not directly test whether the mutation alters female hearing or mate choice, Cator points out, making that part of the proposed mechanism more speculative.

Irrespective of the factors that explain the mutation’s persistence, Göpfert believes studying resistance mutations that linger long after a pesticide is gone is important as it could have profound consequences. “You use an insecticide for a while, a chemical, and you really change the genetics, and that means the physiology of an animal,” he says. “It really shifts the balance in the ecosystem.”


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Elect Ed Slavin to Anastasia Mosquito Control Board of St. Johns County, Seat 2

To St. Johns County voters: May I please have the honor of your vote for a seat as Commissioner of the Anastasia Mosquito District of St. Johns County?

Endorsed by both Historic City News and St. Johns County Democratic Party (2024).

Here's my 2024 Q&A with the League of Women Voters:

What motivated you to run for office?

It's our money. I've been a watchdog on mosquito control since 2006. Mosquitoes could bring us the next global pandemic. We will be prepared with data, research, education, and environmentally-friendly, non-toxic natural pesticides. My dad was an 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper, infected with malaria in Sicily. Dad recovered in Army hospitals, but we saw dad suffer lifetime effects. LWV's Ms. Robin Nadeau asked me to help her investigate Anastasia Mosquito Control of St. Johns County, buying a $1.8 million no-bid, luxury Bell Jet Long Ranger helicopter incapable of killing a single skeeter, not unlike buying a Porsche to use with a snowplow. We persuaded AMCD to cancel illegal, no-bid helicopter contract, saving $1.8 million in 2007.  

What do you see as the most pressing issues for this office and how do you propose to address them?
Advancing research and education while protecting scientific integrity and employee whistleblower rights; safeguarding the independence of AMCD, an independent scientific and technical organization; protecting public health, the environment and public funds. Let's assure that "whistleblower" ethical employees are heard and heeded whenever they raise concerns. Let's resist any further effort by the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners to take over independent AMCD, as attempted by former SJC County Administrator Michael Wanchick and County Commission Chairmen. I oppose allowing arbitration clauses in AMCD contracts, Yes, I've been a watchdog of mosquito control environmental protection and spending since December 2006.

What training, experience, and characteristics qualify you for this position?
Helped persuade our independent mosquito district to cancel unwise, no-bid luxury $1.8 million helicopter contract. Won declassification of our frail planet's largest-ever mercury pollution event (Oak Ridge, Tenn. Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant),triggering nationwide cleanups; recommended for Pulitzer Prize by DA. Clerked for USDOL Chief Administrative Law Judge Nahum Litt and Judge Charles Rippey. Staffer for Senators Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart & Jim Sasser. B.S.F.S., Georgetown U.; J.D., Memphis State U. Your watchdog, termed an "environmental hero" by FOLIO WEEKLY (after reporting City's illegal dumping of landfill in lake and illegal sewage effluent pollution of our saltwater marsh). Shall we ask questions, demand answers & expect democracy?

How important are environmental concerns when making decisions for the Anastasia Mosquito Control District?
Very important

Explain your answer.
Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" informs good science and use of non-toxic natural pesticides as much as possible. Amid global climate change, the next pandemic could be a mosquito-borne disease. Let's protect AMCD independence, education and applied research to protect public health and our environment. I support AMCD's leadership on natural pesticides. I once reported FEMA and AMCD to federal environmental law officials when bald eagles were exposed to organophosphate pesticides. Support AMCD working with other mosquito control districts and officials to share scientific knowledge to protect all of us "non-target species": mosquito control workers, residents, tourists, pets, horses, livestock, bees and other pollinators, flora and fauna. 

St. Johns County is growing rapidly. How does this impact the management of mosquito control?
Overdevelopment increases the expense of mosquito control and increases exposure of families to mosquitoes from wetlands. St. Johns County Commissioners, developers and their big money clout decide way too many unwise development decisions. This requires our nimble small mosquito control special taxing district to innovate, with sensitive adaptation of mosquito control techniques to protect entire new neighborhoods, which seem to spring up overnight, adjoining wetlands. Public education, applied research, sound science-based policies and non-toxic mosquito control methods, are all essential to protecting public health from mosquito-borne diseases. AMCD exists to prevent any outbreaks of deadly mosquito-borne diseases. We must do it right!



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SAVIN' WITH SLAVIN. MOSQUITO CONTROL BOARD, SEAT 2. CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE.

Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida: Ed Slavin for Mosquito Control ...

SAVIN' WITH SLAVIN.

My late mentor, Chief Judge Nahum Litt, taught me that any government budget can be cut by 10%. 

Our Florida governments need to work harder. 

Smarter.  

Ethically. 

I am running for independent Mosquito Control Board to help save your tax dollars.  

I am for wiser spending.

I am against wasteful spending.

IT'S OUR MONEY.

Against what Abraham Lincoln would call "flubdubs."

In 2006-2007, I was honored to work with two AMCD board members and diverse citizens to halt an illegal no-bid Bell Jet Helicopter contract, for a luxury jet helicopter without a plan, without a pilot, without hanar, without a clue.

IT'S OUR MONEY. Let's spend it wisely, my friends.

ED SLAVIN FOR ANASTASIA MOSQUITO CONTROL DISTRICT OF ST. JOHNS COUNTY, SEAT 2.  

VOTE ON OR BEFORE NOVEMBER 3, 2026.  

CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE.

LET'S MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida: Ed Slavin for Mosquito Control ...

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Slavin family values -- putting people first

Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida: Ed Slavin for Mosquito Control ...

On June 6, 1944, my late paratrooper Father parachuted into France and helped liberate the first French town from the Nazis, before the sun even rose that day.  

My Dad taught me, as JFK's dad taught me him, that "you have to stand up to people with power, or else they walk all over you."

In his spirit, my Mother helped organize the employees of Camden County College in Blackwood, N.J. into what became International Union of Electrical Workers Local 440.  Mom got some 40 union cards signed in an hour in 1970.  The clerical and custodial employees prevailed.  

One of my law professors in Memphis told a mutual friend that I was a "natural born attorney."  My Mother said, "I always knew you were an S.O.B."

My late mentor, the Honorable Nahum Litt, was the Chief Administrative Law Judge of the United Staes Department of Labor, 1979-1995.  

Chief Judge Litt stood like Horatius at the bridge, protecting the independence of hearings in whistleblower and in workers compensation cases for Black Lung disease sufferers from the coalfields.

Judge Litt helped me to understand. We worked to understand administrative law's perversion of justice by rich and powerful corporations.  

I later wrote about ACUS for Common Cause Magazine.  In response, Congress defunded a federal agency from 1995-2010: the prestigious Administrative Conference of the United States lost funding because it wasted federal tax dollars on worthless studies by pro-agency law professors.  ACUS sought to inflict Alternative Dispute Resolution on workers and corporations. ACUS sought to defang and declaw the Freedom of Information Act.  ACUS sought to stifle lawyer representation of workers in cases against powerful employers, while encouraging non-lawyer representatives. 

My Mother, my Father, and Chief Judge Litt taught me valuable lessons. 

Here in St. Johns County, we're learning what happens when soulless corporations control and contaminate our governments.  

Deforestation. 

Flooding.  

Unplanned overdevelopment. 

Overcrowded schools with hundreds of unsafe portable classrooms. 

Since 1981, I've investigated and helped expose corruption in our country.

 I've lived in St. Augustine since November 5, 1999. 

We've seen the murder of a Sheriff deputy's girlfriend reported in The New York Times and PBS Frontline, 

My Mother had decades of experience in purchasing for Camden County College and corporations like F.W. Woolworth.
 
When I learned that our Mosquito Control Commission bought a $1.8 million no-bid helicopter, I asked my Mother if she would buy a helicopter withoutn competitive bidding: "absolutely not."  
Working with the late Robin Nadeau, John Sundeman,Jeanne Moeller, Don Girvan,  and other community leaders, 

We, the People helped persuade our Mosquito Control District to cancel the no-bid contract.  Taxpayers won a full refund of our MCD's 10% deposit. 

Chief Judge Litt was tight as a tick with government money. Judge Litt taught me that any government budget can be cut by 10%. Here in St. Johns County, we have a $4.5 million mosquito museum, with 41% cost overruns. There's too much waste in government. 

Mosquito-borne diseases kill one million people annually.  My Father was bitten by a mosquito in Sicily in 1943 as an 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper.  

I believe in miracles. They called me a "miracle baby."

Likely due to my Father's suffering from malaria, it took my patents a dozen years, praying to Saint Jude, (patron Saint of hopeless causes), before they were able to have their only child (me).   Mom said the chances of my being born were less than one in 100,000.

We've achieved dozens of public interest victories. 

We can control pestiferous mosquitoes.

We can control corruption. 

Help me help you save money and save lives. 

I would be honored to have your vote to serve on the board of the Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission. Vote on or before November 3, 2026.


Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
www.edslavin.com
(904) 377-4998   
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Ed Slavin response to Sierra Club on Anastasia Mosquito Control of St. Johns County Commission (2024)

Here's my response to the March 2024 Sierra Club questionnaire re: Mosquito  Control Commission;


Good evening:
Thank you for your patience!  Excellent questions. 


Questionnaire to Candidates for St. Johns County 
County Commission 2024

Please provide answers to the following questions below, or on a separate sheet:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being the least important and 10 being the most important), where do
environmental issues rate when compared to other critical issues facing St. Johns County and
Northeast Florida? Please include a brief explanation of your rating.

Most important: 10.  Our frail planet, our city, county, state and nation are all threatened by pollution and climate change. Overdevelopment is destroying our quality of life.

2. What are the most significant environmental issues and challenges in St. Johns County? 

* Proposed St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore deserves our County's support.  First proposed by the Mayor of St. Augustine, Walter Fraser, both U.S. Senators and our Congressman in 1939, this is an idea whose time has come.  https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2023/10/support-st-augustine-national.html
* Developers demanding to be free of fair impact fees.  

* Secretive PACs and campaign contributions, corruption and conflict of interest. Corruption, as Al Gore wrote in 1992, in Earth in the Balance, often leads to environmental devastation.  

* Proposed 25 ideas for local government reform in 2022, one (1) heeded (County Sheriff body-worn cameras and dashboard cameras, long opposed by Sheriff David Shoar). County Commission has STILL not responded to 25 suggestions on government reform. Why not?




+ Support meritocracy amidst one-party rule by mediocrities in St. Johns County Commission





3. What actions have you taken in the past to demonstrate your concern or interest regarding our environment?
 

  2. Helping end pelagic whaling of endangered sperm whales by promoting development of jojoba oil seed crops, an exact duplicate for the oil of the sperm whale. The market system worked. (Working as intern and staffer for Senator Ted Kennedy, 1974-76).  
  3. Helping defeat coal slurry pipeline eminent domain legislation in U.S House of Representatives, helping preserve and protect precious scarce water from Madison Formation aquifer.  (11,500 word Crossroads Magazine (formerly Coal Patrol) investigative article, inserted into Congressional Record by U.S. Rep. Joe Skubitz, Republican of Kansas, except for parts on campaign finance).  July 19, 1978: House Defeated Coal Slurry Pipeline Eminent Domain Legislation



  4. Exposing U.S. Tennessee Valley Authority purchasing and policies that encouraged steep slope strip-mining, corruption, coal quality fraud, antitrust violations and and conflicts of interest. With support from Fund for Investigative Journalism, helped secure GAO investigation verifying  concerns of Appalachian activists, led by Save Our Cumberland Mountains.  TVA's Coal Procurement Practices--More Effective Management Needed



  5. Winning declassification of world's largest mercury pollution event (Oak Ridge, Tenn.) and testifying about it in Congressional investigation.  July 11, 1983: Al Gore's Mercury Pollution Hearing in Oak Ridge, Tennessee -- Largest Mercury Pollution Event in World History (4.2 Million Pounds). 



  6. Security clearance reforms protecting environmental, nuclear anjd other whistleblowers, and LGBTQ, people working for federal agencies and government contractors.  Helped win American Bar Association House of Delegates vote in February 1990, endorsing security clearance reforms that were implemented under President Clinton, halting a proposed Bush Executive Order that would have erased rights to fair hearings and due process.
  7. Environmental whistleblower law victories and precedents at U.S.Department of Labor, including landmark whistleblower case protecting federal environmental crimes investigators against retaliation for recusals or refusing to coverup wrongdoing.  FBI, HUD, EPA Senior Special Agent Robert E. Tyndall (Ret.), R.I.P.



  8. Exposed intimidation of nuclear weapons plant whistleblowers. February 5, 1992



  9. Questioned aerial pesticide spraying program and winning reversal of illegal, no-bid SJC Mosquito Control Board purchase of $1.8 million luxury Bell Jet helicopter unadorned by nozzles, tanks, pilots, hangar or any plans for aerial spraying, winning 100% refund of deposit.
  10. Defeat of multiple unwise development projects in St. Augustine and St. Johns County,
  11. Adoption of employee whistleblower policy and sexual orientation nondiscrimination policies for Anastasia Mosquito Control District of St. Johns County. 
  12. Successfully reported City of St. Augustine illegally dumping a landfill in a lake to National Response Center, resulting in fines and consent decree, after City Manager William B. Harriss had said he would not agree to put the contaminated solid waste in a Class I landfill without a court order.  2008 Folio Weekly cover story by Anne Schindler called me an "environmental hero."
  13. Reported City of St. Augustine illegal sewage pollution to National Response Center, resulting in fines and consent decree.
  14. Helped elect Nancy Shaver as in St. Augustine Mayor and Krista Keating-Joseph as County Commissioner, defeating pro-developer incumbents. 
  15. Helping secure preservation of historic iconic Fish Island as city park with state funds, rejecting proposed ruinous development by D.R. Horton, with fifty (50) witnesses, including former St. Augustine Beach Mayor Sherman Gary Snodgrass.




4. What organizations do you belong to? 

1000 Friends of Florida
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Democratic Party
St. Augustine Historical Society
Fort Mose Historic Society
Florida Historical Society
Sierra Club
Investigative Reporters and Editors  
American Assn. For Advancement of Science  
Florida Adventures in Railroading
WJCT

5. What is your position and suggested solution on these key issues affecting our county?   
- Climate change and sea level rise
+ Support federal, state and local legislation to preserve and protect us from carbon and methane pollution, protect our coasts and wetlands, promote biodiversity, restore balance,
+ Support County's acceptance of federal grants on climate change. 
+ Oppose Florida Governors' attacks on environmental protection, with frequent blog posts.
www,cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
+ Support a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. Spoke to every St. Johns County Legislative Delegation meeting since 2006 on National Park and Seashore.


- Growth management and development
+ Strongly support reform of our Land Development Code as we know it.  
+ We must have fair hearings, with full disclosures, lobbyist registration, expert testimony, cross-examination of all witnesses and background investigations of developers.  
+ Are our current local and state procedures are a honky-tonk medley of "regulatory capture," farce and kabuki dance?
+ James Madison wrote, "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. "
+ Affordable housing: we must reject "snob zoning," and allow duplexes and other auziliary dwellling units, preserving land and advancing affordable housing. 
+ We must adopt a Public Housing Agency.
+ We must comply with Fair Housing Act.
+ Let's start by re-writing our LDC and quasi-judicial hearing procedures.
+ For transparency, Commissioners must never meet with zoning applicants ex parte.  
+ St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver refused such meetings during her 1550 days as Mayor (making an exception when an applicant was allegedly being treated unfairly).
+ What kind of administrative judicial system lets zoning applicants meet secretly with elected officials?
+  Reject this corrupt system and will not be embroiled by it. 
+ We must require fuller corporate disclosure and better data. 
+ Require background investigations on zoning applicants -- know your customer! 
+ Are any zoning applicants involved in money-laundering,  
+ Environmental violations by zoning applicants must be researched by County staff and discussed publly in hearings.
+ We need full information on ex parte contacts with Commissioners, disclosed before hearings.
+ All ex parte meetings with Commissioners and staff must be videotaped and made a public record.  
+ As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "Secrey is for losers, for people who don't understand the value of the information.


- Trees and the proposed 14 point tree ordinance
+ Support proposed tree protection ordinance and spoke in favor of it, as did dozens of residents.  
+ I objected to four Commissioners' harsh response to First Amendment protected activity, evident retaliation against reform Commissioner Krista Joseph..

- Management of traffic and infrastructure
+ Support transit, impact fees and reform of zoning and planning as we know it.

- Septic tanks
+ Explore ban on new septic tanks in new construction
+ Monitor septic tank inspections and code enforcement.




6. What is your motivation for running to be a County Commissioner?
+ My first American ancestor escaped the British government-caused Irish potato famine in 1849, immigrating to Philadelphia with Irish neighbors at age six, the rest of her family died in famine.  My father taught me, as JFK's father taught him, that "if you don't stand up to people in power, they walk all over you."   JFK was killed 22 days after I proudly wore a JFK costume on Halloween, at age six. At age 17.5, I went to work for his brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy, the day before my first Georgetown class, inspired after hearing Ralph Nader speak on August 28, 1974 (Feast of St. Augustine).   
Love this magical place. We need to preserve what we know and love, with National Park Service help.  http://www.staugustgreen.com 
Moved here November 5, 1999, after falling in love with St. Augustine when we visited in August 1992, right after first environmental whistleblower trial against Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  
Faster than a speeding dump truck, what we love about St. Johns County is being destroyed. 



7. If you are elected or re-elected, what initiatives would you introduce or promote to protect the environment of St. Johns County?
* St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore
* Environmental Regulatory Commission.
* Independent environmental impact statements for government project, as under NEPA.
* Lobbyist registration and background investigations.
* Video of every County Commissioner "ex parte' meeting with putative "developers."
* County whistleblower protection ordinance
* Reform zoning and planning as we know it. 

Thank you. 
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
www.edslavin.com
(904) 377-4998


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