Most Active Stories Thu December 29, 2011 Body Odor May Explain
Why Mosquitoes Prefer Certain People It's a question that has
surely crossed the minds of many of you: Why is that mosquitoes
tend to prefer certain people? Scientists think they have an
answer — at least to what attracts the the African mosquito
Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto, which is partly responsible for
the transmission of malaria. The researchers, led by Niels
Verhulst of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, found that
the blood suckers are attracted to certain people because of the
kinds of bacteria on their skin. According to the study,
published in the Dec. 28 edition of the journal PLoS ONE,
mosquitoes were more attracted to men with a "higher abundance
but lower diversity of bacteria on their skin..." The mosquitoes
were less attracted to "individuals with more diverse skin
microbiota..." That's the conclusion. The scientists got there
by exposing the mosquitoes to the body odor of 48 men. Body odor
is affected by the kind of ba