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By John Roach, NBC News
As the bitter cold in the northeastern United States keeps even hardy New Hampshire skiers off the slopes, there’s at least one potential upside to the cold snap: fewer mosquitoes come summer, according to an entomologist riding out the cold in upstate New York.
"Most arthropods have the ability to super-cool themselves in order to survive extreme cold winters in the ranges they’ve become adapted to. However, if unusually cold temperatures strike, it could be below their threshold of tolerance," Cornell University's Laura Harrington explained via email to NBC News.
And it is cold. Unusually so. New Hampshire’s Wildcat Mountain ski resort was closed Wednesday and Thursday, with the wind-chill factor reaching 48 degrees below zero Fahrenheit on Thursday, The Associated Press reported.
Harrington said most insects produce "antifreeze proteins and other compounds to protect their cells from freezing and dying." If it gets too cold, though, this natural antifreeze could cease to function properly.
"The concentration of the antifreeze proteins or the extent of the expression could be inadequate," she explained. "We have examples of moderate overwintering capacity that suggests that the evolved level of expression of these proteins is important."
As the bitter cold in the northeastern United States keeps even hardy New Hampshire skiers off the slopes, there’s at least one potential upside to the cold snap: fewer mosquitoes come summer, according to an entomologist riding out the cold in upstate New York.
"Most arthropods have the ability to super-cool themselves in order to survive extreme cold winters in the ranges they’ve become adapted to. However, if unusually cold temperatures strike, it could be below their threshold of tolerance," Cornell University's Laura Harrington explained via email to NBC News.
And it is cold. Unusually so. New Hampshire’s Wildcat Mountain ski resort was closed Wednesday and Thursday, with the wind-chill factor reaching 48 degrees below zero Fahrenheit on Thursday, The Associated Press reported.
Harrington said most insects produce "antifreeze proteins and other compounds to protect their cells from freezing and dying." If it gets too cold, though, this natural antifreeze could cease to function properly.
"The concentration of the antifreeze proteins or the extent of the expression could be inadequate," she explained. "We have examples of moderate overwintering capacity that suggests that the evolved level of expression of these proteins is important."