Humans Scent Is Even Sweeter For Malaria Mosquitoes
People smell yummy to mosquitoes.
So yummy, in fact, that our scent is a big way the pesky insects track us down.
But just how much mosquitoes like&nbsp;Eau de Human&nbsp;may not be entirely up to the bugs.
Mosquitoes are more attracted to human odors when they&amp;#8217;re infected with the malaria parasite, scientists&nbsp;reported&nbsp;Wednesday in the journal&nbsp;PLOS ONE.
Entomologists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine gave malaria-transmitting mosquitoes two places to land: a clean, nylon stocking and one worn for 20 hours on the foot of young Dutch volunteer.
All the mosquitoes gravitated more toward the dirty sock than the fresh one. But the bugs infected with malaria landed on the smelly nylon more frequently. And while they were there, the parasite-possessed bugs were more likely to try and bite the stocking than the malaria-free insects.
It&amp;#8217;s almost like mind control. The parasite changes the behavior of the insects for its own benefit. The more biting the bugs do, the more they spread the protists.
Malaria isn&amp;#8217;t the only parasite known for such manipulation.
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Photo of a beheaded Anopheles gambaie mosquito, showing its odor-detecting antennae, by the Zwiebel lab/Vanderbilt University.&nbsp;