Lagos Scientists Say the Next Pandemic Will Likely Come From Mosquitoes, But Elon Musk is Stopping Mosquito Bites For Good With His New Invention...
The new intruder is the Aedes Vittatus mosquito, and has shown up in even though it's native to India, and it can carry the most dangerous mosquito-borne diseases. They are expected to breed rampantly this summer.
“Being in close contact with these mosquitoes is not good news. They’re breeding in your bird bath and they’re feeding off your kids," said a researcher from Walter Reed in Washington D.C. when interviewed.
For Elon Musk, his invention was more than just a way to get rid of pesky mosquitoes, it was the fulfillment of yet another one of his lifelong dreams. Traumatized by swarms of mosquitoes while growing up in South Africa, it was his childhood dream to one day come up with a solution.
Elon had slowly forgotten about those dreams over the years as he tackled other massive projects, but when one of his employees at Tesla came down with a mosquito-borne virus that quickly spread to other staff at headquarters, it was the catalyst he needed to take action and prevent another outbreak.
"I began reading all of these studies coming out showing new species of mosquitoes showing up in the U.S. and it was concerning, but when our team members started getting sick, I knew I had to do something."
Across the U.S., us humans unknowingly provide the perfect habitats for mosquitoes right in our neighborhoods. Many things in your yard might create standing water like bird baths, rain gutters, poorly draining patios, and nearby retention ponds.
The Perfect Storm for the Next Pandemic...
On top of providing breeding habitat for these pesky insects, we are also their best source of food. Wild animals have had their populations lowered and spread out as people have expanded and modernized North America, so our human blood is now a mosquito's primary food source. When mosquitoes hop from human to human, it can spread disease extremely quickly, something that Elon saw the devastating effects of first hand growing up in Africa.
"God forbid a virus similar to COVID were to spread via mosquitoes in the U.S. this summer. We've already seen this all over the world, and now these same mosquitoes are being found by scientists in the United States."
"Social distancing wouldn't save us, so from the start we saw this as quite an important project."
"Not to mention, it's just frickin nice to sit outside and have a glass of wine without getting bit at all."
Seeing the threat of mosquito-borne viruses, and witnessing his employees get sick, Elon Musk set out to find his old drawing plans for a mosquito eliminator he had made as a young genius in South Africa.
After a few hours of digging through old papers, he found it! Elon immediately called a former SpaceX engineer and trusted friend, who he knew also had a background in biology. Combining their expertise in both fields, they set out to bring Elon's mosquito free dream to life.
After a few weeks of work in a back room of the Tesla factory, they had a finished project.
Combining their experience they came up with a ground-breaking device to kill mosquitoes without using harmful chemicals or annoying smells like Citronella.
They created what's being called the safest and most effective mosquito killing device yet!
They dubbed it, Buzz Blast Pro!
Putting Buzz Blast Pro to the Test...
That night, Elon Musk and his partner on the project, Jerry, sat in Musk's backyard having a couple beers to celebrate having a finished model that they hoped would be successful.
Since Buzz Blast Pro uses no chemicals, they put it right in between them as they sipped their beers and chatted. Since Elon is always busy working, this was the first time since moving in to his new home that he had actually gotten to enjoy his nice backyard, because the mosquitoes are normally so bad.
The two finished their beers while watching mosquito after mosquito fly towards the Buzz Blast Pro lights instead of their arms. As they picked up to go inside, like typical scientists, they decided to count the dead mosquitoes in the Buzz Blast Pro's tray.
"257!"
"That's how many mosquitoes we had in the Buzz Blast Pro that would have otherwise been targeting us. Once word leaked out about how effective Buzz Blast Pro was we were incredibly humbled, but we were focused on the next step of making them available to everyone that what's one.”
With Elon Musk's dream realized and his invention working perfectly, it was time to do some real good. They finalized plans to set up manufacturing through a new Tesla backed start-up he created for Buzz Blast Pro. In 2 weeks they had the first 100 models, and set up a plan to scale up production and get a Buzz Blast Pro to everyone in the U.S. that wants or needs one by summer 2024.
With those first hundred models, Elon Musk handed them out to students at a Flint, Michigan high school for them to take home for free, and gave some to the school too.
Mosquitoes are amazingly annoying in general, and with the threat of mosquito-borne illness becoming more and more relevant, the families and the whole community in general received the gift of immense peace-of-mind as well as being able to enjoy the outdoors and their homes bite free.
So many people we're now able to use their patios and backyards again bite free, while feeling much more safe from those nasty blood suckers!
But with the high-scale production plans in place, he assured us, "The Buzz Blast Pros for this school are just the very very beginning..."
What Does Elon Musk's Invention Mean for All of Us?
Threats of mosquitoe-borne viruses come to the U.S. often, you may remember West Nile, and more recently Zika and Chikungunya, all diseases brought from overseas by mosquitoes. The researchers from Walther Reed Hosptial we mentioned earlier are predicting that these threats are going to become more and more common with increased global travel and the 2024 summer predicted to be the warmest in decades.
As of this spring, Elon has delivered on his promise to make Buzz Blast Pro available to absolutely anyone who wants one and protect us from annoying mosquitoes and the dangers that come along with them. With his promise comes surprising affordability too, due to everything he learned streamlining manufacturing for Tesla.
He has now launched a website where you can get Buzz Blast Pro across the U.S., and to kick off Summer they are running a special 50% sale just to cover his cost of production, so that everyone that wants relief from nasty mosquito bites can easily get a Buzz Blast Pro for $30 or less with the discounts, before they sell out with the summer rush.
We got a hold of some of the first Buzz Blast Pros and for how well they work, this is an amazing bargain everyone should snap up before they're sold out.
Putting it to the Test...
Fuse Bug has been dubbed the number one camping accessory of the year for obvious reasons, but from Elon Musk's story we can see how it's much more useful everyday.
To test Buzz Blast Pro out for ourselves to see if it lived up to the hype, we got one for the office, and gave a few to our interns to test at home.
At the office we have a patio where everyone loves to eat lunch in the winter, but now that it's getting warmer, the mosquitoes and no-see-ums make it unusable. We hung our Buzz Blast Pro right in the middle and asked everyone to come out for lunch.
Honestly, it just worked instantly. Buzz Blast Pro has a light and emits small vibrations that humans can't even detect, but that very effectively attract mosquitoes. They went straight towards the Buzz Blast Pro and left us alone.
Source: FOX NEWS
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