‘Shocking’ data shows the climate crisis and invasive mosquitos mean chikungunya could spread in 29 countries

‘Shocking’ data shows the climate crisis and invasive mosquitos mean chikungunya could spread in 29 countries

An excruciatingly painful tropical disease called chikungunya can now be transmitted by mosquitoes across most of Europe, a study has found.

Higher temperatures due to the climate crisis mean infections are now possible for more than six months of the year in Spain, Greece and other southern European countries, and for two months a year in south-east England. Continuing global heating means it is only a matter of time before the disease expands further northwards, the scientists said.

The analysis is the first to fully assess the effect of temperature on the incubation time of the virus in the Asian tiger mosquito, which has invaded Europe in recent decades. The study found the minimum temperature at which infections could occur is 2.5C lower than previous, less robust, estimates, representing a “quite shocking” difference, the researchers said.

    • chaogomu@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      4 hours ago

      Yeah, the story is wild, but also it’s always tied back to nukes.

      An example is cattle mutilation. See, there was a project called “Plowshare” where some people, wanting to have more nukes, tried to find “peaceful” uses for nukes. So, the detonated a nuke, deep underground in the South West, in an effort to fracture the rock and release natural gas.

      This worked, except for the little fact that all the gas was contaminated with radioactive isotopes and was rendered unusable.

      But this gas was leaky, because the ground was nuked, so in order to track the cancers caused, government agents secretly vivisected cattle, mostly to remove lymph nodes to track a common radiation linked cancer. As always, they didn’t tell anyone local that they were doing this, which prompted local authorities and farmers to investigate.

      With some careful prodding, a few hints, and a placed agent or two, the guy investigating was convinced that it was aliens doing experiments.