Posted on 05/24/2014 11:28:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's Memorial Day weekend, which means the time for barbecues and nights outside has begun. But, unfortunately, it's also the time that mosquitoes see as open season to dine on humans.
If you can't spend a summer night outside without slapping your ankles — and you still end up with dozens of mosquito bites — then it might be true that the flying pests really do love you.
And those lucky people who say they don't get bitten? They exist too.
But it's not because one person's blood tastes better to the small hovering bloodsuckers — or at least, not just that. In a TED 2014 talk earlier this year in Vancouver, microbial ecologist Rob Knight explained that the bacteria, or microbes, on skin produce different chemicals, some of which smell more attractive to mosquitoes.
The trillion or so microbes that live on skin are a small percentage of the 100 trillion bacteria that live on and inside the body, but they play a huge role in body odor. Without those bacteria, human sweat wouldn't smell like anything.
However, those different bacteria vary greatly from person to person. Knight explained that while we share 99.9% of DNA with other humans, most people only share about 10% of their microbes.
To demonstrate that mosquitoes are overwhelmingly attracted to certain types of skin microbes, researchers asked 48 adult male volunteers to refrain from alcohol, garlic, spicy food, and showers for two days. The men wore nylon socks for 24 hours to build up a collection of their unique skin microbes.
Researchers then used glass beads that they had rubbed against the underside of the men's feet to pick up their scent as mosquito bait.
Nine men out of the 48 proved to be especially attractive to mosquitoes,
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Eating lots of garlic and a little vitamin B should help.
I often find myself praying that the blood of Jesus would kill ‘em and make me unattractive to them. Seems to work pretty well.
I told my ex it’s because I’m sweeter.That’s why she’s my ex.
Memorial Day festivities started early here.
Would some one condense this for me..?
I never had to wear bug repellent around my ex. The skeeters would fly past me and get her. Heck, they would come out of hibernation in winter to bite her.
I find that rubbing your body (lightly) with olive oil and using an olive-oil based shampoo works best. Olive oil is actually very good for the body, both internally and externally. So if you happen to swallow some olive oil while you are rubbing it on your body, all the better.
My nephew thinks it’s because his body runs warmer and they smell the blood more easily. I think that’s likely. He’s always wanting to turn the ac to colder because he cannot take the heat.
I’m the same way. It hits 80 and I’m really getting uncomfortable. Every year I’m covered in mosquito bites. My husband has none. He feels great at warmer temps.
ping...
RE: Memorial Day festivities started early here.
Would some one condense this for me..?
______________________
Not sure if there’s anything you can do about it.
Essentially it says that our skin is teeming with bacteria. There are billions of them, living on the dry parched landscapes of your forearms, and the wet, humid forests of your nose. On your feet alone, every square centimetre has around half a million bacteria. These microbes are more than just passengers, hitching a ride on your bodies. They also affect how you smell.
The bacteria on our skin can affect our odds of being bitten by a malarial mosquito.
The mosquito that carries malaria – Anopheles gambiae – tracks its victims with an acute sense of smell. It can track the plumes of carbon dioxide that we exhale, and it’s also attracted to the mix of smelly chemicals given off by our skin.
We know that some people smell much more attractive to mosquitoes than others. Our diet matters – for example, drinking beer can give our body odor an irresistible allure.
It’s not hard to see how these studies could eventually help us to develop new chemicals that attract mosquitoes into traps, or repulse them from humans. But there’s a lot of work to do first. The most obvious next move is to work out which chemicals the different skin bacteria are giving off.
Well, it’s like this ... some get bit and some don’t ... :-) ...
Mosquitos say they find me very attractive.
Mosquito (maringouin in Cajun) was almost the state bird of Louisiana until they found out that if it’s the state bird you can’t kill it.
Thus, the brown pelican.
You’re such a “mosquito whisperer” ... :-) ...
I almost never got bitten by them when I was a kid, and still don’t get bitten that often. Now, my husband ... wow! He gets murdered by them.
Garlic does prevent illness....nobody will get close enough to you to give you anything.
They would bite my ex, but leave me alone.
So one year, I bought her an electronic mosquito repellant sound device that you wear around your neck.
They swarmed her!!!
Thanks for the critiques.......back to the patio and cooler...
FYI I keep an oscillating fan on the patio,set to med aimed just a bit higher than the ground and sweep the entire area and it seems to keep them away or unable to handle the vortex???
Thanks all Happy Memorial Day.
Use Amway’s Skin so Soft. A little known bug repellant shared amongst infantry grunts worldwide.
We use coconut oil and like olive oil, it seems to work very well.
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