Mosquitos don’t dig fruit smells, apparently.
Some scienticians in the UK have been conducting research into why mosquitos will attack some people and not others. It would seem that everybody produces a cocktail of odorous chemicals when they perspire (in other words “you sweat you stink”). Some of this cocktail smells pretty good to mozzies (eg lactic acid). However, some people produce these other chemicals which mask the smell of the first chemicals which in a concentrated form “have a fruity smell”.
It is likely that these chemicals are in everybody’s sweat, just some produce more than others. Who says we are all created equal? (it was probably Oscar Wilde).
The researchers constructed a Y-shaped chamber and wafted the scent of the subjects (probably grad students) towards the swarm and then studied which people the mosquitos avoided. They then collected the sweat of the unattractively odoured ones by, and here’s the fun bit, “sealing their bodies in a foil sack, tied under the chin, and collecting and distilling the seat that poured off them”. How’d you like that job?
This startling new research follows hot on the heels of some stuff in the 1990s that revealed that mosquitos are just bang up for the waft of a bacteria that grows on human feet and limburger cheese. I couldn’t find any full text of the article, but a Google Scholar search will show this study has been cited out the wazoo, and this United States Department of Agriculture article can give you the low down as well.
The moral of the story? If you don’t want to be bitten, you need to wear a little less of this and a little more of this.
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4 comments:
'Skeeters' always seek me out. I suppose I'm not fruity enough for them. I've always heard taking a tablespoon of vinegar in the morning will keep them away. I've never tried it, mainly because it requires drinking vinegar.
As for the foil body suit... sounds like a bad date I had once.
Sounds to me like a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease.
The only vinegar I'll willingly ingest comes courtesy of wine that's sat in the bottle a little too long that I'm too cheap to just throw out.
Standards. I used to remember what they were.
LOL @ the perfume recipe...
Mossies don't like me atm. I wonder if lactation assists in producing a fruity scent? PMSL...
Maybe lactation does make a difference. It would amuse me greatly if lactation (in a milk sense) repelled mozzies while lactation (in a lactic acid sense) attracted them.
Tricky little buggers. We hates them. We hates them all.
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