40 years old | Tuomas Aivelo is fascinated by scabies mites and bed bugs – “The old parasites are coming back”

Tuomas Aivello there is a problem: snails. They have taken over his backyard.

At the beginning of this year, Aivelo started as an assistant professor of science communication at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The past summer there has been rainy and cool.

“Snails eat absolutely everything. I’ve tried to grow lipstick, but to no avail,” says Aivelo.

He has been talking to the locals. One advised that we should attract a blackbird to the yard.

“I don’t think it will work because there are at least four cats moving around here. I blame them.”

Although you can get a delicious substitute for meat broth from lippi, Aivelo’s problem may sound trivial. However, it sums up well what interests him as a researcher as well.

IN APRIL Aivelo moved to Leiden together with his spouse. Getting to know new people and stakeholders has kept me busy. In addition to his new job, he has a four-year research project related to diseases spread by rats at the University of Helsinki.

Leiden has not offered culture shock. According to Aivelo, the small town is prosperous, civilized and isolated from the big world. Birdhouse – with a small xenophobic twist.

“It’s not a challenge for someone coming from the Nordic countries either,” Aivelo laughs.

“The atmosphere and discussions with the new government are similar to Finland. For example, universities want more teaching in Dutch and cuts are coming.”

So there are tensions, but Aivelo is not tense. He will see what happens after the one-year probationary period.

AIVELO was born in Pori at the same time as the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles began. The parents watched the opening ceremony on TV, and after that it was time to go to the maternity hospital.

Aivelo was already reading at the age of four, and UPPO the bear was his favorite. He still quotes that to his spouse today. In the first grade, he won the Western Finland newspaper’s independence jubilee writing contest – with a poem.

“As a child, I asked a lot. My parents always couldn’t answer, but advised me to look in the encyclopedia. I understood that someone has figured things out by researching. Maybe I can too.”

During the summer holidays at grandma’s house in Merikarvia, Aivelo sat on the rock in the backyard and watched curiously as the ants moved on their little paths between the nests. At the same time, both organized and chaotic crowd power fascinated the young mind – so much and for a long time that Aivelo made them his degree.

“Ants are selfish, but guided by selfishness, the common good also succeeds.”

Vocational school would have suited the parents, but Aivelo found the idea absurd. He wanted to be a biologist.

STUDIES from the beginning, Aivelo has wanted to keep the doors of opportunities open. And he has passed through many doors again, even though in a moment the choices have seemed like coincidences. “I was a communication intern at the Nature Conservation Association, and now I’m an assistant professor of science communication.”

During a study exchange in Switzerland, Aivelo got excited about parasites and pathogens. He did the fieldwork for his dissertation in Madagascar, studying the intestinal parasites of mice.

Editor-in-chief of Tiede magazine Jukka Ruukki asked Aivelo to write for the magazine’s website.

“I knew about parasites and disease ecology, I could write and I had an opinion I wanted to say. A surprising number of people wanted to read it.”

Written on the basis of blog texts Endless parasites was a Finlandia candidate for non-fiction in 2018.

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“Societies and cultures change and old parasites and pathogens come back.”

ALL behind is a parasite -blog grew into a popular science blog, and the quick-witted Aivelo became a sought-after commentator on the corona situation starting in 2020. The authorities give operational instructions, but the researcher’s role was different. Substance was not a problem for Aivelo, but he thought carefully about his rhetorical choices.

“The fact that I am gay born in 1984 helped me. I used the logic I’ve figured out since I was young, which was related to talking about catching the hi-virus,” says Aivelo.

“Based on research data, I can tell you about the spread of the disease and the various risks. General instructions cannot be given. A person decides for himself what kind of risk he is ready to take.”

NEXT Aivelo would be worried about bird flu. But how worried, that is a more difficult question. It may be that the pandemic has already started, or it may not.

“Individual people have few opportunities to influence. The most concrete way is to become a vegan,” says Aivelo.

“By keeping dairy and beef cattle as well as fur farms, humans give bird flu many opportunities to test whether it can turn into a pandemic.”

At the beginning of the year a big deal in Finland was the scabies mite. In Aivelo’s opinion, there are fascinating and multidisciplinary questions related to the scabies mite, as well as bed bugs.

At the beginning of the modern era, the design of beds became lighter so that bed bugs would not nest in them. It helped, and heteka was a downright great solution. Now bed bugs, like influenza, spread and pandemics arise because of travel.

“Similarly, genital and oral herpes, which have separated into different viruses, have become mixed up due to the prevalence of oral sex.”

The new rise of the scabies mite is influenced by the fact that people have more sexual partners.

“Societies and cultures change, and old parasites and pathogens come back,” says Aivelo.

“Have we forgotten the means that help us cope with them, and what everyday skills need to be relearned?”

What would you tell your 20-year-old self?

“Just let go. Except that civil service would perhaps be a more useful choice than military service.”

Helsingin Sanomat and Tiede-lehti belong to the Sanoma Group.