Readers react to a revamped insecticide and a chronic pain biomarker

Pondering resistance

Microwaving deltamethrin can renew the insecticide’s ability to kill mosquitoes that have become resistant to it. Scientists are working to add the improved insecticide to bed nets, Tina Hesman Saey reported in “Restoring an insecticide’s mosquito-killing power” (SN: 6/17/23, p. 4).

Although the finding “sounds like a welcome discovery,” reader Linda Ferrazzara wrote, “might the newer, more effective version of the insecticide also have more serious adverse effects on the human beings it’s supposed to protect?”