They proved this to me by spraying it on chemical weapon detector paper, which promptly turned bright blue, indicating the presence of a neurotoxin.

This was 8 years ago. How is this news?

I will still equate green smears with bugless toxin, however. It’s a lifetime’s worth of conditioning, you understand.

The study finds that Deet is a potential neurotoxin, and potentially has synergistic toxic effects with carbamate insecticides.

More research is required to see if the potential effect is ever realised. For example, does Deet penetrate human nerve cells when applied topicaly?

You’re probably right that one study isn’t good enough to show lavender oil is harmful, but then you should apply the same level of skepticism to one study about DEET.

In both cases, dose is probably key. Lavender wouldn’t be the first pleasant plant fragrance that turns out to be toxic if you concentrate it well beyond natural levels. Thujone, for instance.

The warnings stuck, though, and I’ve used the stuff only a few times. And had to wonder whether it really worked because I got stung as much as when I hadn’t used anything. Sitting around a smoky fire with a little draft around the ankles works much better.

Y’mean like poison ivy? Holly berries? Rhubarb leaves? Aconite? Nightshade? The friendly castor bean? Oleander? It’d be good for you to note that the plants we were evolving with were trying to evolve into things that didn’t get eaten by roving mammals. Natural doesn’t automatically mean good– nature’s generally out to kill things that eat it.

#38 – Are you in the US? Have you been in an outdoor store recently? Ben’s 100 and Repel 100 are both incredibly popular, and they are both over 98% DEET. They also have 30% and 40% varieties that are very popular.

I use Ben’s 100 regularly, and it is the most effective treatment I know of, however, there are some places where the blackflies and mosquitoes seem to enjoy it….at which point the no-see-um head-net comes out.

Humans also evolved alongside Malaria.

I just hope you don’t advocate that people visiting India, where you allegedly received 53 bites with no effect, have a similarly cavalier attitude, given the thousands who die from mosquito-borne diseases there every year.

The point is not to panic, nor to engage in the hyperbole this alarmist post engages in based on a single study. Science doesn’t work that way. At best, this study calls for further study.

The point is to rely on data, rather than personal anecdote, when it comes to public health policy, and not to draw conclusions about what it or is not safe based on happenstance.

Risk is a matter of percentages, not absolutes, and intelligent behavior, as well as intelligent policy, should be based on understanding and assessing the odds, not based on the logic “I haven’t been hit by a car yet, so I don’t need to take reasonable precautions” – any more than “I read that people get hit by cars, I better stop walking”.

http://fuckgrapefruit.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/smarter-than-you-think/

Inside the city where I live, at least, the most common plants are probably grasses, but not the sort any humans would eat. There are large fields of those in the surrounding countryside, but there are also large areas mainly covered by wind-spread trees, which I think just about balance one another.

All in all, I would guess the most common genera are spruce, aspen, and maybe wheat. A single species of the last may be more common than any other single species of the others, but I’m not really sure.

In any case, even if the most common species are the ones we can eat, it’s pretty clear the majority of plants out there still aren’t trying to get us to munch on them.

In other news, fire can burn you.

Decisions, decisions!