There's been some discussion in the columns of Nature recently concerning the possibility of eradication of mosquitoes. In an article entitled A World Without Mosquitoes, Janet Fang (1) presents a variety of opinions whether large-scale mosquito eradication is practical and if so whether such a course of action is desirable. In the latest issue of Nature, a collection of four letters revisit the controversy.So, there are two issues here: Can we?, and should we?[caption id="attachment_1044" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Anopheles gambiae feeding"][/caption]Some years ago, I had a brief foray in to the world of the Anopheles gambiae species complex, an experience which was quite novel for me as my experiences had been with a very different and more docile fly, Drosophila melanogaster.  And for several years I maintained a colony of A. gambiae in my laboratory, which while not in itself particularly difficult was certainly quite arduous and one strain required considerably more commitment and care than keeping several hundred Drosophila strains. At that time, there was quite a deal of excitement about the prospects of driving transgenes through wild populations, using as a model the spread of P-elements through wild populations of D. melanogaster during the 20th century.  There have always been concerns about the extent to which the entities known as 'species' really are homogeneous populations with consistent gene flow through them across their range: certainly within the A. gambiae species complex, there appear to be 'incipient species' which represent fairly hefty gene flow barriers within the individual sibling species of the complex.One caveat would be that even if one could eliminate an entire species, or a species complex, what would fill the vacant niche?  A. gambiae may be the most significant malaria vector in sub-Saharan Africa, but there are others, that I guess could move in an colonise a vacant niche.  An argument for species control by transgenic means might be for eliminating a species that's newly colonised areas in which they haven't formerly been present: a good case might be if A. gambiae were to be introduced into South America.  More subtle interventions might be to introduce transgenes that impact on malaria parasite propagation within the mosquito: the downside would probably be that given the huge scale of the parasite population out there, somewhere there is likely to be parasites that can evade the introduced transgene.Sterile male release can be effective in controlling insect pests, but is really most effective where the female generally mates only once.  Drawbacks can include fitness of the males, either from irradiation used to sterilise them or because the laboratory-bred strains are uncompetitive in the wild.  Sophisticated technologies exist by which terile males can be made, so this may not be so major a hurdle in the future.Other, more traditional, methods of insect control are really very blunt instruments such as insecticide usage.  Obvious drawbacks would be collateral damage to other insect species, with the potential for massive ecological damage.  There are also health implications.  In the past, mosquito control by application of DDT was quite effective in Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, until over-enthusiatic and inappropriate use of DDT caused the appearance of DDT-resistant mosquitoes.  In the intervening years, malaria incidence had dropped, with the consequence that the resurgence of the disease as mosquito populations recovered was particularly severe (2).  I would be surprised if global eradication by insecticide would ever be approved.  And I cannot see a means by which wholesale eradication of many different mosquito species could be undertaken.  Fang's article provides a concise overview of the eradication/control techniques that have been tried in the past, and some that may be options in the future.In the context of should we eradicate mosquitoes, I'm really less well informed about the ecological implications of such a course.  Much of the online discussion seems to revolve around the ecological consequences of eliminating all mosquitoes, across all ecosystems, even in sub-Arctic tundra regions.  It would not be surprising to me if the ecological effects would be severe, but it also occurs to me that those consequences might well be unrecoverable. At the end of the article, Fang concludes that in her penultimate paragraph that:

Given the huge humanitarian and economic consequences of mosquito-spread disease, few scientists would suggest that the costs of an increased human population would outweigh the benefits of a healthier one. And the ‘collateral damage’ felt elsewhere in ecosystems doesn’t buy much sympathy either. The romantic notion of every creature having a vital place in nature may not be enough to plead the mosquito’s case. It is the limitations of mosquito-killing methods, not the limitations of intent, that make a world without mosquitoes unlikely.

Team Grumpy have been riding the Duo Normand since 2003, only missing one year since then. We've had quite good placings in that time, either in the Veteran or Corporate categories. We came second in the corporate category last year, but that doesn't quite indicate the magnitude of the whipping we got from the winners! The Duo Normand website has started listing riders registered to ride. At the moment there are only two teams in the Corporatif category, one being Team Grumpy. Plenty of time for more entries to flood in, though. So is there anything to be said in a preview for this event?Well, we're staying near Cerisy La Salle - in the same location as last year - though our travel plans will preclude any significant 2-up technique practice before the event. And Team Grumpy's 2-up outings this season have been less than stellar (the Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up ‘25′ and the Icknield 32k). I guess we're just hoping that we've done it so long that we'll just fall naturally back into the swing of things.As usual, we'll take the opportunity to do a little exploration of the Normandy countryside on our tandem, see for example 2008 and 2009, enjoying the local food and drink, particularly the moules et frites, a particular favourite of mine.  And of course, drinking freely of the Team Grumpy official energy drink.Finally, for those who've never ridden the Duo Normand and want to see what the course is like from the rider's perspective, can I recommend the world's most unlikely video, which we dubbed Silent Movie.  This was recorded on a small video camera mounted on Gerry's handlebars.Here are our previous performances:2009 - CorporatifsWe may have been second, but just look at that margin!  The BikeRadar team of Jones and Coomber came flying past us...and can be seen in the video of the event.1 COOMBER Robin - JONES Jeff 01:15:222 ORAM Gerard - SAUNDERS Robert 01:25:022008 - CorporatifsBy 2008, Gerry had persuaded me to switch to the Corporatifs category.  Not entirely sure why, but the effect is to ride at a better time of day than the Unlicenced and Veteran categories.  Also the Veterans category has no handicapping.  The guys who won rode a storming race, particularly since they didn't look much like time triallists and were riding road bikes with clip on extensions.

Astonishingly, we evaded the worst prognostications of the BBC weather forecast, as none of the forecast rain showers hit us during this time trial.  On the other hand the outward leg was rendered rather uncomfortable by a stiff headwind.  In recent weeks, our colleagues at TeamMK had faced hostility from residents in a nearby village - tonight we were visited at the start by a slightly grumpy resident of Stony Stratford, who objected to us starting a time trial there.  In discussions about the first incident, I'm afraid I was a bit didactic - but I feel pretty strongly about our rights as cyclists!Being polite time trial types, we delayed the start for a bit while a horse (and rider!) cleared the start area - I was off last on a pretty small start list of 11 riders, and was irritated by a display snarl-up on my bike computer an while this only distracted me for a short while, it did leave me uncertain as to my progress.  This course is far from being a favourite of mine, principally because of the combination of rough surfaces and the climb to the turn.  On this occasion, I really suffered, dropping to around 12mph at times (unless my blurred vision was deceiving me).Of course it was correspondingly good returning down hill, but as ever, it never fully compensates for the tough outward leg. I finished with 28:09, which was about right for the rubbish legs I had this evening.  In the bigger scheme of things, I began my build up for the Duo Normand a week or so ago - the Duo is on the 19th September.  This has involved significant turbo training, and with hindsight, perhaps 40 or so miles on the turbo the day before this event might not have been the wisest course of action.  However, in my own defence, I was treating tonight's time trial as part of that build-up.Anyway, results below.  Particular congratulations to Lindz Barral who pulled out the stops to finish less than half a minute behind Tony.

At the beginning of July, Rupert Murdoch's press empire moved to charge for access to The Times and The Sunday Times web sites. Up to now, this has been at a charge of £1 for a day's access, or £2 for a week's access.  Perhaps I'm just a cheapskate, but when I'm referred to these sites I decline to pay to read it, moving on to other sites.  I was interested to see that Media Week has some interesting statistics on the effect of the new paywall strategy (Times loses 1.2 million readers - Media news - Media Week). The numbers are quite startling:

News International launched its separate Thetimes.co.uk and Thesundaytimes.co.uk websites on 25 May. It made registration compulsory and began redirecting users from the old site on 15 June and started charging for access to both sites on 2 July.According to ComScore, the combined number of unique visitors to the two new sites has fallen to 1.61 milion in July, from 2.22 million in June, and 2.79 million in May.The average number of minutes each user spent on the site was 7.6 in May, 5.8 in June and 4 in July.Page views have dropped from 29 million in May to 20 million in June and 9 million in July.

After Wednesday's puncture, I inspected the rear tyre on Saturday evening, and decided to ditch it in favour of a new Velofex Record in view of the number of cuts I could see.  I popped in an equally unused Vittoria inner tube.  On Sunday morning I topped up the tyres with a bit more air, and noticed that I'd snapped off the threaded nut off the valve core.  Oh, well I thought - at least the air that's in will stay there.  Well, so I thought, but this was merely the prelude to a comedic series of minor disasters that afflicted my ride in today's '25'.The weather was OK, though a little autumnal with a light and lifting mist.  More annoying was the rising north wind that promised assistance on the southbound outward leg of the course, but would be correspondingly troublesome on the return leg.  Tony and I had travelled over, very conveniently our start times were only five minutes apart - I was #21, Tony #26.  Not too bad a start, reasonably warm as I lined up.  At the appointed moment I departed, quite briskly, off to the roundabout and slip road to join the A1 southbound from Tempsford.  I even negotiated the potholes at the little flyover roundabout.  The wind wasn't giving me as much help as I'd expected, as I proceeded south through Girtford and across the Sandy roundabout, where I unfortunately got slowed by traffic.On again, and safely and cleanly across the next roundabout.  I was feeling pretty good, and reeling in riders ahead of me when I became aware of the bumping so characteristic of a rear wheel puncture.  Groaning to myself, I pulled into the slip road of the BP garage just short of the Baldock roundabout turn (so about 12 miles from the race HQ).  Well, I thought, at least I brought a tube and gas inflater along with me (which had amused Tony no end back at Tempsford).  I removed the wheel, which is a pretty dirty business with the Cervelo due to the rear facing dropouts, and started effecting a repair.  I saw Tony come by, and he shouted that he'd come and pick me up in the car.Nevertheless, I decided to carry on with the repair, not least because is was something to do!  I got the tyre off and removed the tube.  Popped in the replacement tube and refitted the tyre.  Next I tried inflating the tyre with the single CO2 cylinder I had for the inflator.  This proved an unmitigated disaster - it was hard to use the inflater chuck on the trispoke (but this reflects cack-handedness rather than an inherent problem), and the inflater chuck had come apart in my seatpack.  Once all that was sorted, I proceeded to contribute to global warming by releasing the entire cylinder contents into the atmosphere.  At least Tony was coming to rescue me.Which he did, having ridden to a 56:28 result.  Back to the HQ to have a cup of tea and see what other riders had managed.  Matt Bottrill looked to be the clear winner with 50:52, an astonishing performance and indicative of good chances for a placing at the forthcoming British Time Trial Championship in three weeks' time.Postscript.  Back home I went to pump up the repaired rear tyre, only to find the tube was defective and wouldn't hold even a smidgen of air.  So the CO2 would have all dissipated even had I got the inflater attached correctly.

So there I was, on my own with plans to get out on the bike somewhat thwarted by heavy rain showers, and very much at a loose end.  So I took it upon myself to tidy up this website.I've checked over the menu links, which now all seem to be properly functional.  I deleted some that were merely hangovers from a prior incarnation.  A few new menu items were added.In the Main Menu:

• Recently Played Music - now links to a page with information from my Last.FM page, in turn derived from audioscrobbling from my Squeezebox (so it doesn't include CDs and LPs that I play, not anything I listen to on the iPod
• Books from my Library - links to a widget from LibraryThing that scans through my library 25 books at a time, randomly selected.  This replaces a sidebar module that used to show books currently being read, but which was usually out of date.
• About flies&bikes - explains abit about the websites I maintain.

• Recent Publications - properly integrates a feed from an institutional publication repository.
• Why Study fruit flies? - link now works!

• Links tidied up to point to a new browser window/tab.
• Added link to the Team Grumpy website.