Posted on 10/11/2016 10:25:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Microsoft billionaire would rather cuddle with Jaws than wander outside into a cloud of skeeters.
Sharks seem so frightening, with their giant mouths full of gleaming teeth. We're convinced they're going to leap out of nowhere and make us lunch, even if we never get within 100 miles of an ocean.
But Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates wrote in a recent blog post that it's not sharks that scare him, but a creature that's a whole lot tinier and which at first glance may seem a whole lot less threatening -- the mosquito.
In a post that went up on his GatesNotes blog on Monday, the billionaire explains his reasoning. "Pound for pound, a shark isn't that scary compared with many smaller creatures," he writes, including a graphic displaying the number of people killed by different animals in 2015. The shark only gets credit for 6 worldwide deaths, while the mosquito notches a scarily impressive 830,000.
"The mosquito has the equivalent of a hypodermic needle, and by going directly into your blood, they bypass the normal disease defense mechanisms," Gates says in an accompanying video. "So any viruses that evolve to attack humans get in there very, very quickly."
Gates goes on to list the many diseases spread by mosquitoes, including dengue, yellow fever, zika, and last but not least, malaria, which he says "may be the most important disease in human history." Malaria has long been a top priority of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has a multi-year strategy aimed at eradicating the deadly disease.
"I think it's one of the most stunning things to say that this little mosquito, it's a small insect that you can, you know, kill with a slap of your hand, it actually kills more humans than any other thing," Gates says.
Bill Gates suffers from “microaggression” by mosquitoes but doesn’t fear “macroaggressions” from sharks. Will wonders never cease?
Go invent an electrically charged insect-repellant suit for God’s sake, Bill. Do something useful with your life.
It is fairly easy to manufacture. It was first synthesized in 1874.
It is legal to manufacture in the US but only for sale outside of the US. DDT is still used in some African countries. But there is huge political pressure on countries not to use it by the Green movement.
How can any third world leader choose not to use a product that is cheap and incredibly effective against a pest that kills so many of his people and makes invalids of many more.
It is possible to use DDT in the US but only in emergency for use against vector born disease or lice.
You have a better chance of being killed by the Clintons than you do being killed by a shark.
Get a ton or two of DDT and spray Africa, but then we would have a bigger population problem.
Still chuckling. That is funny.
As that scrawny little geek probably never goes in the ocean, makes sense.
Deer are probably the deadliest animal in Wisconsin. Every year a half dozen or so people are killed when their vehicle hits a deer.
Odd that one blood sucker fears another.
...but not the kind of pussy you want to grab.
Yeah Billy, but nobody created a a several-hundred million dollar movie franchise about a rouge mosquito terrorizing a liberal beach-side community. Follow the money, Bill. I know you can.
“Sometimes that mosquito he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a mosquito... he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched buzzin’.”
Trying to push more of his poison vaccines!
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