10 Tips to Avoid Chigger Bites

10 Tips to Avoid Chigger Bites Chiggers are mites: tiny insects about 1/50th of an inch long. Theyre nearly invisible except, as occasionally happens, they cluster together on your skin. They are red in color; juveniles have six legs, and adults have eight. Seen under a magnifying glass, they look something like tiny red spiders. Chiggers love moist grassy areas, including lawns and fields. They are transferred to human beings through contact with grass, brush,  and vegetation. Chiggers dont carry disease, but they can cause severe itching. About Chiggers and Chigger Bites Chigger mites go through four life stages: eggs, larvae, nymphs, and adults. Only the larvae are parasitic, which is why they are so tiny and hard to see. Chiggers lay their eggs on the soil, and when the eggs hatch in warm weather, the larvae move around on the ground and low-lying vegetation until they find a host - that is, an animal on which to feed. Most interaction with humans starts with feet, legs, or arms that brush against vegetation. Unlike mosquitoes, which bite where they land, chiggers may move around the skin to find a good place to eat. Belts and tight clothing prevent them from moving further, so chigger bites are often found around the waist or near elastic waistbands. Other favorite locations are spots where the skin is thin: near the groin, behind the knees, or in the armpits. One prevalent myth is that chiggers burrow into the skin; this is not true. Instead, they  inject enzymes into the skin that destroy the surrounding tissue. The chiggers then ingest the dead tissue. Because this activity is likely to cause intense itching for the host, chiggers are usually unable to feed for long; if left undisturbed, though, they can feast for days. Unlike ticks and mosquitoes, chiggers do not carry disease, which means that contact with them isnt dangerous per se. Unfortunately, however, chigger bites are incredibly itchy. Even worse, chiggers usually move in large groups, so its unlikely youll experience just a single chigger bite. Assuming you walk outdoors during the warmer months of the year - late spring, summer, and early fall - its difficult to completely avoid the risk of chigger bites. You can, however, minimize risk by following these tips. Use an Insect Repellent Containing DEET on Both Skin and Clothing Apply DEET liberally to your shoes, socks, and pant legs. Treat your waist area and shirt if youll be in tall vegetation. Carefully apply the repellent by hand to your face, neck, and ears; you dont want DEET in your eyes or mouth.  Adults should apply DEET products to young children. You may need to reapply DEET after several hours. Note:  DEET is not the same formulation as DDT, and it is safe to apply directly on the skin when used as directed. It is important, however, to wash hands and avoid the use of DEET on the face. Apply Permethrin to Clothing, Hiking Boots, and Your Backpack Permethrin products should never be used directly on the skin, but they remain  effective on clothing through several washings. Permethrin is sold under the names Permanone and Duranon. Alternatively, outfit yourself in bug repellent  apparel.  ExOfficio  sells a line of clothing that is pretreated with permethrin. The treatment lasts through up to 70 washings. Permethrin is generally safe to use, but some people are allergic. If youre not sure, test a small area of skin before using permethrin-treated clothing. Wear Long Pants With Sneakers or Hiking Boots Tuck your pant legs into your socks, and keep your shirt tucked into your waistband. In areas where chiggers are abundant, you might even want to wrap some duct tape around your ankles, over the top of your socks. You may look a little silly, but it works. Choose Tightly Woven Fabrics for Working or Walking in Chigger-Prone Areas Because chiggers are so tiny, they can actually work their way through your clothing to get to your skin. If you know youll be exposed to chiggers while outdoors, wear the tightest woven fabrics you can find. The smaller the space between threads, the harder it will be for chiggers to penetrate your clothes and bite you. Stay on the Trail Chiggers hang out in vegetation, waiting for a passing host. When your leg brushes the vegetation, the chigger transfers to your body. Walk on designated trails and avoid blazing your own through meadows or other high vegetation areas. Youll avoid chiggers and leave a minimal impact on the wild places we love. Avoid Chigger-Infested Places In some places, chiggers may be too abundant to avoid, even with the best repellents and long pants. If an area looks like prime chigger habitat, avoid it. If you think you may have chiggers in your yard, do a sampling test to find out. If You See Chiggers on Your Body, Wash Them off Immediately If you wander into a chigger patch by mistake and can actually see the chiggers on your skin, the best thing you can do to avoid bites is to wash the chiggers off your body immediately. Take a hot, soapy bath or shower right away. Chiggers usually take a little time to settle on a place to feed, so just washing them off quickly can make a big difference. Wash Any Chigger-Infested Clothing in Hot, Soapy Water If youve picked up chiggers while hiking or working in the yard (or even suspect youve attracted chiggers), strip down quickly and put all of your clothing in the wash. Launder the clothing in hot, soapy water. Dont wear that clothing again until it has been washed and dried. Eliminate Chigger Habitat in Your Yard Chiggers live in moist, shady areas with thick vegetation. You can effectively eliminate almost all chiggers in your yard by simply minimizing such habitat from your landscape. If thats not possible, of course, its best to stay out of thickly vegetated areas.

How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Writing

How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Writing How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Writing How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Writing By Ali Hale Will robots eventually have writers out of a job? Are we going to see computers writing the next Great American Novel? Probably not at least, not any time soon. Over the last decade or so, though, AI (Artificial Intelligence) has become increasingly sophisticated †¦ and it’s influencing the world of writing in a number of interesting ways. What is AI, Anyway? AI is all about machines learning and adapting. Instead of simply being programmed in minute detail with everything they need to know to accomplish a particular task, they’re programmed with instructions that allow them to learn from their experience (just as people do). There’s no one standard definition of AI, but ZDnet suggests some common features: AI systems will typically demonstrate at least some of the following behaviors associated with human intelligence: planning, learning, reasoning, problem solving, knowledge representation, perception, motion, and manipulation and, to a lesser extent, social intelligence and creativity. Here are six key ways in which AI is changing the face of writing †¦ and reading. #1: Translation from One Language to Another In the past, if you wanted to translate a passage of text from one language to another – say from English to Spanish – you needed to find someone who spoke both languages. Ten years ago, you could use a service like Google Translate, which essentially ran all the words through an English-Spanish (etc.) dictionary with questionable and sometimes hilarious results. In 2016 Google Translate had a major upgrade. Instead of translating word by word, it now translates more accurately by phrase or sentence – through an AI system. It even invented its own language to help. Writers could potentially use Google Translate to translate their whole book into another language for free. (Note: I’m not recommending you do this, unless you have a native translator lined up to do some extensive editing!) As the technology develops further over the years to come, this could be great news for publishers and self-publishing authors †¦ but worrying for professional translators. #2: Automatic Editing and Proofreading You’re probably very familiar with the red squiggly line in Microsoft Word (and other word processing programs) that marks spelling mistakes. There are lots of tools out there, though, that can go far beyond helping you spot typos. Software like Grammarly, for instance, uses AI to spot overly wordy phrases, vague language, instances of the passive voice, stylistic issues, and much more. This is great news for writers, particularly non-native speakers, who may need an extra helping hand with what they’re working on – whether it’s an essay, a blog post, or simply an important email. It’s potentially less great news for professional editors – but so far, no tool is able to provide the big-picture substantive editing that a good editor can offer. #3: Checking for Plagiarism One problem that universities and publishers deal with is the possibility of plagiarism. While a quick Google search for a couple of lines from a document can be enough to spot egregious forms of plagiarism, if a student or writer has changed, say, one in every five words, it’s a lot tougher to spot. When it comes to students’ essays, they might be plagiarising from another student’s (unpublished) work, rather than a published source. This could be easy to spot within one institution – but not if the student has borrowed, or even bought, an essay from a friend at another university. There are solutions out there, like Turnitin, that check submitted work against their vast database, flagging up cases where there’s a match between the submitted work and existing sources. But AI is also increasingly being used in this area, with an AI bot called Emma Identity (reported on here by LifeHacker) being used to figure out the authorship of a piece of text. While this is essentially just a fun tool for now, it could eventually be used to combat plagiarism. More worryingly, though, this type of technology could potentially be used to unmask authors writing under a pen name, if they’ve also written under their own name – or to uncover the authorship of anonymous posts on internet forums. #4: Searching Through Audio Files Although more and more content has been produced in video and audio format over the past decade, YouTube channels and podcasts haven’t diminished the amount of text online. One huge advantage to text has always been that it’s searchable – and video and audio aren’t. If you want to find out a specific fact or dig into on a particular point of interest, text is definitely the easiest medium to work with. However, audio search is becoming a reality – through the power of AI. Computers can increasingly decode sound – think of Siri, for instance, or Alexa – and audio search takes this further. Apps are already available: Castbox.fm, for instance, bills itself as â€Å"the search engine for spoken audio†. What does this mean for writers? It’s not necessarily bad news. Newer types of text, like scripts for videos or outlines for podcasts, might become increasingly important. But as well as helping with audio search, AI could lead to even better dictation apps – potentially making it much faster to create written content, too. #5: Crafting Breaking News Stories You might be wondering by this point if AI can be used to actually write. Yes †¦ but it’s not going to be producing works of literary wonder just yet. Over the past couple of years, some breaking news stories have been written by AI, and there’s a great account of that in Wired here, explaining that a particular story was created by AI: The dispatch came with the clarity and verve for which Post reporters are known, with one key difference: It was generated by Heliograf, a bot that made its debut on the Post’s website last year and marked the most sophisticated use of artificial intelligence in journalism to date. The advantages for newspapers and websites are obvious: if AI can report on breaking stories, it makes it possible to get an article published almost instantly. No human needs to type a single word. There’s a darker side to this use of AI, though: it could not only put journalists out of work, but it could also lead to a lot of low quality, derivative content – similar to content produced by low-paid â€Å"content spinners†. #6: Influencing Readers’ Book Buying Major online book retailers, like Amazon, rely on complicated algorithms to predict what books someone might be interested in, based on what they’ve already bought. If you’ve ever bought a book on Amazon, I’m sure you’ll have seen this in action! This is generally seen as a positive use of AI: it helps readers to discover books that they’ll hopefully enjoy, and it helps authors to be discovered by readers who might not otherwise have come across their work. Even so, it could be a drawback for, say, independent book stores and librarians: why consult an expert about what to read if an algorithm can recommend books to you automatically? Whatever you write, there’s a good chance that AI will become more and more a part of your writing experience as time goes by – even if you barely notice it. Perhaps you’re already using a tool like Grammarly, for instance, or maybe you rely on dictation software to produce content quickly. How do you think AI is changing writing? Do you think it’s a net positive or negative for working writers, editors, publishers and journalists? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Idioms About Legs, Feet, and Toes36 Poetry Terms48 Writing Prompts for Middle School Kids