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Mosquito splinters (lemmy.cafe)

submitted 8 months ago by 0WN3D@lemmy.cafe to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Just a random shower thought.

Mosquito's proboscis is sharp enough to penetrate your skin. So when you smack it while it is in the process of drawing your blood, isn't there a chance of its proboscis being forcefully jammed into your skin, leading to some sort of "splinter"? Or does it somehow loses its stiffness the moment it feels the impact?

I've never encountered nor heard of such occurrence in my lifetime of killing those buggers, but wondering if such a thing is even possible. If such could happen, I could only imagine the risk associated with having a piece of foreign organic matter being embed in the body

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[–] victorz@lemmy.world 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Had to look up homeostasis... Seems like a big umbrella term for many different things. 🤷‍♂️ I am none the wiser after 30 seconds of skimming.

[–] Unanimous_anonymous@lemmy.ml 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Homeostasis is a giant catch-all term for normalizing things in or about the body. In this context, something foreign is introduced to the body (thorn or the tattoo ink) which is affecting the "normal"(equalibrium) state of the body. The body will then do its best to return to this equilibrium, and in these cases, that involves expelling (thorn) or slowly removing (dye) the objects from the body.

I'm going off of memory, but homeostasis also covers our body temperature and chemicals. It's why medical personnel can take blood and learn about issues; there is an expected range for everything to be in. Homeostasis is just that over-all term for "things should be this way". There are dozens of equalizing processes under the term "homeostasis".

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

Very interesting. Thank you for going into more detail for me! :-)

[–] jopepa@lemmy.world 0 points 8 months ago

To put it another way, the mosquito beak won’t stay in your skin for long. A 2 cm thorn that got much deeper and healed over still got pushed out.