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 ...
“No-See-Em” time down here in FL. The only thing that really works is the old Avon Skin so Soft.
Makes sense that Mosquitoes would be drawn to places full of people who don’t wash much....
I read a story about a big construction project in Africa that was having a problem with lions attacking and eating the workers. It turned out that the lions would shun the smokers because it permeated their flesh and didn’t taste good to them. After some time passed cigarettes were in short supply.
Thanks, I needed a chuckle!
However, I've been bitten by fire ants and bees....and, on many an occasion, I was bit by late-afternoon gnats on my Florida patio.
So there must be at least something on me for some critter or another to love, LOL.
Leni
Deep Woods Off can also be used to clean headlight lens that are discolored!
Skin So Soft. . .may need to think again.
https://naturalkids.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/safe-bug-repellent/
I meant to post to you. . . Skin So Soft
https://naturalkids.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/safe-bug-repellent/
Vitamin B-O.
I’ll put acetone on my legs if it means zero no-see-ems.
Not really, I'm fully aware of the contents of Skin so Soft. My issue is that it smells so pungeant that hookers don't even use it anymore...............
I have used a lot of garlic in my lifetime. It doesn’t seem to help me fend off mosquitoes. They LOVE me! If I am outside, anyone in the vicinity is SAFE! They’ll come to me exclusively. My mother-in-law always says when we arrive at her house in VA in the early spring that we have gotten there ahead of the mosquitoes, but it seems that all I have to do is open the car door and they greet me in droves. I just returned from there with dozens of mosquito bites and this time...poison ivy! Aren’t I lucky!
As far as I know I’ve never been bitten by mosquitoes so in my opinion, mosquitoes can’t bite through steel. :-)
Hold it right there, no real man could do that....
Also avoid milk ...
I have a mosquito net over my bed. Wife hates it, but I tell her, quit leaving the doors open. They always bite me and never my wife. 2am and here comes the buzzing and biting!
Just put your beer goggles on and they are all beautiful!
hahaha! okay... that caused me to guffaw! :)
If they know which microbes are not attractive to mosquitoes, they can culture the microbes (like making yogurt), and sell it as a topical application.
If anyone finds this product available, please let us Freppers know about it.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028991
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